Is Carroll Mocking Victorian Racism?
Amber Gifford - '96 (English 61, 1993)
"And can all flowers talk?"
"As well as you can," said the Tiger-lily."And a great deal louder."
"It isn't manners for us to begin, you know," said the Rose,"and I really
was wondering when you'd speak! Said I to myself, Her face has got some sense in it,
though it's not a clever one! Still, you're the right color, and that goes a long
way." (Through the Looking Glass p.121)
lice's seemingly nonsensical conversation with the flowers might be Carroll satirizing
Victorian society's superficial attitudes toward race and class, which considered blacks
and members of the lower class to be" unreasonable, irrational," and
"easily excited childlike creatures having no religion but only superstition."
