Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.

Start at the beginning...

Down the rabbit hole. Through the looking glass. Into lolita wonderland. The classic Victorian books by Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson), Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass, have been bold and inspiring literature works in the lolita culture for years. From the beginning of the culture, Alice has emerged - and has remained just as popular to this day, which is more than can be said for other motifs or styles. Teapots, white rabbits, pocket watches, and card suits chase through print after print after print. New versions keep popping up, too - Alice in Ribbonland, Alice and the Pirates, Alice's Garden. Even the Alice bow and the frilled aprons are homage to her influence. What is it that is so alluring about Alice and her adventures? Nonsense as sensible as a dictionary, perhaps?

For one, she is a little Victorian girl (seven and a half exactly) who is oddly more precocious and glib than her age would suggest. And in a very surreal world, she continues to look for something comforting and sensible - though she very rarely finds it. This seems to mimic a lot of the lolita experience - girls who look young but are wiser beyond their years, and are trying to build something comforting to them by, ironically, diving in Wonderland.

But it isn't really where Alice comes from so much as where she goes, is it? It's not just Alice we like, but the garden of talking flowers, the bread and butterflies, the mad tea party, and the croquet game. The world she goes through is one we much prefer than the usual side of the looking glass, and isn't that also like the world of lolita? The supposedly crazy notions are actually full of hidden jokes and trinkets, just like we are ourselves. We may look very unusual to the typical outsider, but if you talk to a lolita, you will discover she and her fashion choice are much deeper than the frills on the outside. She might mention her love of beauty, feeling like a princess, or being a feminist. What the outsider might have thought of as ridiculous has a very emotional and philosophical purpose.

The text could also be seen as various metaphors. I won't cover all of this here, but this particular idea I found intruiging. As quoted by the Alice in Wonderland Sparknotes edition:

The Loneliness of Growing Up

Throughout her adventures, Alice feels an inescapable sense of loneliness from which she can find no relief. Before she enters Looking-Glass World, her only companions are her cats, to whom she attributes human qualities to keep her company. Once she enters Looking-Glass World, she seeks compassion and understanding from the individuals that she meets, but she is frequently disappointed. The flowers and Humpty Dumpty treat her rudely, the Red Queen is brusque, and the Fawn flees from her once it realizes that she is a human. She receives little compassion from others and often becomes sad. The one character who shows her compassion is the White Knight, who must leave her when she reaches the eighth square and must take on her role of Queen. Alice's dreams deal with the anxieties of growing up and becoming a young woman. Since Alice believes that loneliness is an inherent part of growing up, even in her dreams she must face the transition into womanhood alone.

The idea of being alone is often brought up in lolita. Many lolitas have never met another, and lolita does seperate oneself from the typical world around them. Novala Takemoto mentions this in his essay, 'I don't need things like friends' (Soleil Nuit) with this line: "Alice went through the perils of Wonderland by herself[...]" But I have never seen Alice's lack of true companions as loneliness. I see it as her independence. She doesn't need a boyfriend, a small dog with the trappings of Toto (not even Dinah the cat goes with her), or anyone else to get her out of trouble. She uses her own bravery and wits. A lolita can use her own bravery to dress by herself, or have fun being out with friends.

So these perhaps are why the lolita identifies with Alice in Wonderland. But from an aesthetic point of view, why is she so beloved? She does come from a time period which lolita draws inspiration from - the Victorian period. But I also think that the easily recognized symbols of her adventure - the Drink Me bottle, the painted roses, the pocket watch, or the Eat Me Cookies - carry with them all of the unspoken weight of their meaning. Isn't there something about Alice in Wonderland images that lends a creepy and exciting air? If you run into a cat on the street that looks like it might grin, don't you feel as if you have a small secret? Or the mystery and allure of a smoke ring, perhaps blown from a Turkish hookah. The beauty of these images is in their meaning. Like a pioneer quilt, they each have tiny stories to tell. Is that also something the lolita relates to? She hides little meanings in her dresses with every ribbon and detail or her socks.

Maybe that is the real secret connection between the lolita and Alice. The lolita can be caught talking to flowers, making stories about the chess and card characters. She might proclaim today her unbirthday, or gladly let her clock run two days slow. She can easily shriek OFF WITH THEIR HEADS! or listen to the Mock Turtle. She has grown up and down a thousand times in a day and stills manages to find her own secret garden.

Perhaps the lolita is at home in wonderland because that is where she has come from, too.

And when you come to the end, stop!

Labels: discussion, inspirational, literature

posted by Victoria Suzanne @ 4:29 PM