'Alice--Mutton: Mutton--Alice': Social Parody in the Alice Books

he Victorian Era was a time in which proper etiquette meant everything. One was often judged on how one behaved, and an elaborate system of rules governed one's life. Carroll certainly was well aware of this and based much of his humor for most of his life on social protocol. One of his earliest attempts is a hilarious parody of the sort of copy-book maxim that every Victorian child would be familiar with. This poem appeared in his family magazine in 1845 when Carroll was 13 years old:

Rules and Regulations

...
Learn well your Grammar
And never stammer
Write well and neatly
And sing most sweetly
Be enterprising,
Love early rising
Go walk of six miles
Have ready quick smiles
With lightsome laughter
Soft flowing after
Drink tea, not coffee
Never eat toffy
Eat Bread and Butter
Once more, don't stutter.
Don't waste your money
Abstain from honey
Shut doors behind you
(Don't slam them mind you)
Drink beer, not porter.
Don't enter the water
'Till to swim you are able.
Sit close to the table.
Take care of a candle
Shut a door by the handle
Don't push with your shoulder
Until you are older.
Lose not a button
Refuse cold mutton.
Starve your canaries.
Believe in Fairies.
In you are able,
Don't have a stable
With any mangers,
Be rude to strangers.
Moral: Behave

Carroll's use of social parody continued with his Alice books. He particularly makes fun of the didactic Victorian attitude towards morals, but also parodies several social customs which he found particularly humorous.

One of the numerous rules which governed a proper Victorian lady's behavior was the admonition against "cutting." According to one etiquette guide, "A Lady should never 'cut' someone, that is to say, fail to acknowledge their presence after encountering them socially, unless it is absolutely necessary" (Pool 55). Alice encounters this rule at the feast given for her when she becomes a queen towards the end of Looking Glass.

"You look a little shy. Let me introduce you to that leg of mutton," said the Red Queen. "Alice--Mutton: Mutton--Alice."
The mutton got up in the dish and made a little bow to Alice; and Alice returned the bow, not knowing whether to be frightened or amused.
"May I give you a slice?" she said, taking up the knife and fork and looking from one Queen to the other.
"Certainly not," the Red Queen said very decidedly: "it isn't etiquette to cut anyone you've been introduced to."

Clearly, Carroll is poking fun at etiquette here both through the punning of the term "to cut" as well as the ridiculous bowing of the leg of mutton.

Alice has another run-in with skewed social etiquette when she encounters the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. They first ask her if she has ever danced the Lobster Quadrille, and when Alice indicates that she has not, the Gryphon gives the following description of it:

... "you first form into a line along the seashore--"
"Two lines!" cried the Mock Turtle...
"--you advance twice--"
"each with a lobster as a partner!" cried the Gryphon.
"Of course," the Mock Turtle "advance twice, set to partners--"
"--change lobsters, and retire in same order," continued the Gryphon.
"Then, you know," the Mock Turtle went on, "you throw the--"
"The Lobsters!" shouted the Gryphon, with a bound into the air.
"--as far out to sea as you can--"
"Swim after them!" screamed the Gryphon.
"Turn a somersault in the sea!" cried the mock Turtle, capering wildly about.
"Change lobsters again!" yelled the Gryphon at the top of its voice.
"Back to land again, and--that's all the first figure," said the Mock Turtle...
"It must be a very pretty dance," said Alice timidly

The Lobster Quadrille that Alice encounters is a parody of the quadrille, a dance that was used to open nearly every fashionable ball at the time that Alice's Adventures was written and published. According to Daniel Pool, author of What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew, the quadrille "was a dance performed by four couples, each of which occupied one point of a diamond.... It could be varied in theory... but in practice it usually consisted of five figures, which collectively incorporated such square-dance figures as the do-si-do" (61). It has been suggested that the Lobster Quadrille was based on the particularly popular "Lancer's Quadrille" (Martin Gardner More Annotated Alice 118). It is also worth noting that according to Victorian guides on ballroom etiquette, all dances were to be conducted "with becoming politeness; avoiding at all cost the appearance of 'indecorous' behavior" (Rachel Beck, " Lunacy in the Ballroom"1). The Mock Turtle and Gryphon's mad romp can hardly be described as having "becoming politeness." Thus, again Carroll points out the stupidiy of social protocol.

Victorian children were expected to behave at all times. As Marjorie and C. H. B. Quennell point out their book A History of Everyday Things in England, "In practice this meant that instant obedience to every order, respectful manners and punctuality were expected as a matter of course from every member of the family. Argument and 'answering back' were never permitted, and indeed, they were seldom attempted" (103). Many of the rules put before Victorian children must have seemed somewhat arbitrary. When Alice is at the trial of the Knave of Hearts, Carroll parodies this sort of rule and the expected behavior by having Alice "talk back" to the King.

At this moment the King, who had been for some time busily writing in his note-book, called out "Silence!" and read out from his book, "Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court."
Everybody looked at Alice.
"I'm not a mile high," said Alice.
"You are," said the King.
"Nearly two miles high," added the Queen.
"Well, I shan't go, at any rate," said Alice; "besides, that's not a regular rule: you invented it just now."
"It's the oldest rule in the book," said the King.
"Then it ought to be Number One," said Alice. Merely by allowing Alice to question the authority of the King and point out the stupidity of his rules he is pointing out the stupidity of contemporary behavioral standards.

The Alice books themselves are parodies of traditional children's literature. Not only does Carroll parody traditional children's poetry through his "How Doth the Little Crocodile," "Father William," "'Tis the Voice of the Lobster," and others, but both books in their entirety parody the accepted method of writing children's literature. As Richard Kelly puts it in his book Lewis Carroll, "The Victorian reader expected a children's book to be realistic, to instruct the child in religion and morals, and consequently, to prepare him for a righteous adulthood" (72). Alice herself probably describes this type of book best while she is trying to decide whether or not to drink from the bottle marked "Drink me:"

It was all very well to say "Drink me," but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. "No, I'll look first," she said, "and see whether it's marked 'poison' or not": for she had read several nice little stories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts, all because the would not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that, if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked "poison," it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.

Alice is a different type of book entirely. There is no underlying moral, and Alice's adventures are not meant to create "righteous adults" but rather to entertain the reader. In fact, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland created a demand for more literature like it which entertained the child without necessarily teaching him or her anything at all.

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