Ok But I Hate Alice In Wonderland In General Especially When You Realize We Would Have Rightly Called

ok but I hate Alice in wonderland in general especially when you realize we would have rightly called Lewis Carroll a pedophile if he was alive today, he wanted to marry the Alice he named his character after when she was 10 years old and her parents whisked her the fuck away and from what I remember he made a business out of photographing naked children. From what I remember the book primarily sold cause people liked the illustrations in it

Okay so I’ve done some research into this and I have found that this whole topic is massively controversial in the literary world.

I found a very interesting article written by the Smithsonian that I recommend you read all the way through because it has arguments and evidence for and against these claims:https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/lewis-carrolls-shifting-reputation-9432378/

Because while Caroll was an avid photographer and there has been some photographs of naked children found his collection there is also an important point to be made about the change in sensibilities between Victorian culture and our current one:

“Of the approximately 3,000 photo­graphs Dodgson made in his life, just over half are of children—30 of whom are depicted nude or semi-nude. Some of his portraits—even those in which the model is clothed—might shock 2010 sensibilities, but by Victorian standards they were…well, rather conventional. Photographs of nude children sometimes appeared on postcards or birthday cards, and nude portraits—skillfully done—were praised as art studies, as they were in the work of Dodgson’s contemporary Julia Margaret Cameron. Victorians saw childhood as a state of grace; even nude photographs of children were considered pictures of innocence itself.In discussing the possibility of photographing one 8-year-old girl unclothed, Dodgson wrote to her mother: “It is a chance not to be lost, to get a few good attitudes of Annie’s lovely form and face, as by next year she may (though I much hope won’t) fancy herself too old to be a ‘daughter of Eve.’ Likewise, Dodgson secured the Liddells’ permission before taking his now-famous portrait of Alice at age 6, posing as a beggar child in a tattered off-the-shoulder dress; the family kept a hand-colored copy of it in a morocco leather-and-velvet case.”

And this goes for every other piece of evidence against Caroll (Dodgson). The only solid possibility was that he was interested in the oldest daughter Lorina (‘Ina’) but there is also evidence to say that he was actually trying to court their nanny. While people say the fact that he was a bachelor all his life was suspicious, there are numerous letters and diary entries that point out that he was involved with quite a few women but sought to hide it because it would have been seen as immoral out of wedlock or courtship.

By the way, the only person to claim he was ‘in love’ with Alice was a family descendent who’s claims are basically but opinion and aren’t backed up by hard fact. It is very easy to jump to conclusions out of the context of the society they lived in compared to ours.

Also by the way: The entire story of Alice In Wonderland was told to some of the children on a boat ride and it was Alice herself who asked him to write it down. It was literally just a story he told them to entertain them with the main character called Alice because that’s kind of what adults do when they’re making up a story for a child?Also they didn’t whisk Alice ‘the fuck away’ he was the one to actually leave (for unknown reasons possibly related to the mother not approving of his courting the eldest legal daughter or his courtship of the nanny. Either way, he was the one to leave not them forcing him away. And regardless he came back to give Alice a copy of the novel.)

Basically all the ‘evidence’ is massively contentious and even if it were the case that he was, the story of Alice In Wonderland isn’t actually linked very much into the personal life of the author so it is very easy to read the book without even having to think about him or his intentions (Especially considering it was written in 1865 and it has long passed into public domain.)

I implore you to read to article in full and come to your own conclusion (and please don’t read any articles from The Daily Mail as it’s not worth the paper it’s written on) because making a snap statement of ‘Lewis Caroll was totally a paedophile’ isn’t something you should do before looking at all the facts.