Drug use in Alice's Adventures

A detailed Summary of Drug use in Alice's Adventures

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Paper

In Victorian England the drug Opium was commonly used. This drug did not have the connotation that drugs have today; studies show that five out of every six families used Opium regularly (Connell). Lewis Carroll uses actions of characters and situations to portray the positive effects of Opium and other drugs on a person. Characters like the caterpillar and especially Alice seem to be under the influence of some type of drugs. Carroll never showed characters acting scared of their surroundings while being high, concluding that the characters curiously enjoyed the effects of the drugs.

Throughout the novel Alice seems to be in a dream like state (Connell). On page one Alice is said to feel stupid and tired. Opium is labeled as a narcotic, which slows a person down and gives them a feeling of euphoria and can have hallucinogenic effects also. Page one quotes, "So she was considering, in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daises, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her." This quote suggest that Alice mu

Alice meets the famous Caterpillar, which is sitting upon a mushroom smoking out a hookah. This confrontation takes place at the end of chapter four and in chapter five. The two engage in a conversation that appears to go nowhere since the caterpillar is asking questions that make no sense and just confuse Alice. An example of a question is on page twenty-eight; "Who are you?" He repeatedly takes puffs from the hookah and is said to look very tired and speaks lazily which again are effects of Opium or any narcotic for that matter. Alice then tell him she is not used to the height she is at and he tells her a method to fix her problem which is nothing other than eat some of the mushroom, which is a psychedelic drug used as an hallucinogen. This is quoted on page 33; "One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter." "One side of what? The other side of what?" though Alice to herself. "Of the mushroom," said the Caterpillar, just as if she asked it aloud..."" Alice then eats the mushroom and gets scared of the different effects it has on her but quickly looses the feeling; "She was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change, but she felt that there was no time to be lost..."

"There was nothing so very remarkable in that, nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear a Rabbit say to itself "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!" (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural)..."

Lewis Carroll again shows that the use of drugs isn't negative at all. Alice might have gotten scared but she didn't fear the mushroom because she ate more of it to get taller.

The Dormouse in chapter seven is very tired and just sleeps; "...a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using hit as a cushion..." The Dormouse is on character in the Mad-Tea P

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Approximate Word count = 1303
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels