“I’ve a right to think” : A Reading of Alice in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as a Reflection of Early Feminism in the Victorian Era

Sammanfattning: In this essay I claim that Alice in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a character who reflects the early feminist movement in the 19th century. By reading Alice in terms of a resemblance to the early feminist activists and the first modern feminist text A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft, I explore the idea of Alice’s characteristics being comparable to those values and thoughts which the feminist movement expressed. The text portrays Alice taking on challenges which oblige her to stand up for her rights as a young woman in regard to education, equality, and emancipation. Therefore, in this essay, the different scenarios and actions where Alice is characterized as having prominent feminist values are sorted into those three topics. Even if my reading suggests Alice as reflecting early feminism, Alice has also been seen as an anti-feminist character. My reading acknowledges this analysis but contends that she can in fact be read as a reflection of the progressing feminist movement which started in the late 18th century and continued throughout the Victorian age.