Alice and Animal Ethics

"Though Alice begins her journey selfish, and unable even to consider the feelings of other before speaking, through her experiences with the diverse creatures of Wonderland, most significantly the personified animals, she is able to learn empathy, and to recognize the shallowness of those who exhibit unrestrained cruelty to those around them."(David Daniel)In this world, Alice has stumbled upon, every animal has its very own voice and opinions. In the story she tries to adjust to this new way, but finds it difficult and often appears to be rude. In her old world things were simple, she would stroke her pets and feed them, but here things become more complex when the animals can chose whether or not they can even tolerate you.



Early on in Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland, she upsets a mouse by mentioning her cat’s ability to “kill all the rats.” (P.27). After pleading for a short while with the mouse he does return to aid Alice to shore. Alice is indeed selfish in this situation the only reason she apologizes is because there is no one else who can help her. She continues to scare other animals with her remarks about her precious cat Dinah, she goes on to tell a circle of animals that, “she’s such a capital for catching mice you ca’n’t think! And, oh I wish you could see her after the birds! Why, she’ll eat a little bird as soon as look at it!” (P.35) I know Alice is new to this world and is just not use to the wonderland, but you’d think she was purposely trying not to fit in with the animal or anyone else for that matter with the amount of trouble she gets into.



After reading both Alice books, I believe that Lewis Carroll’s big question was, what would animals say, if they could speak? So, when he chose to write this novel he incorporated all those answers by giving a voice to those who never had one. This can be seen in, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, when the Lion and the Unicorn are fighting for the crown of the king. Alice is amazed to see a real life unicorn is her presence and the same can be said of the unicorn. The Unicorn tells Alice, “Well, now that we have seen each other…if you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you.” (P.229)