When I was little, "Alice in Wonderland" was a little too scary for me. Not scary in the traditional, monster-under-the-bed sort of way, but rather in a way that most people would describe as "psychedelic." Even a six year-old can pick up on the fact that Disney's customarily watered-down version of a classic tale is not just a funny dream that Alice has. For this year's Winter Carnival, the theme of "Dartmouth Down the Rabbit Hole" invited students to plunge into a wonderland of fun winter traditions. However, this invitation has other connotations, best expressed by Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat to Alice: "You're mad ... you must be, or you wouldn't have come here." Is Winter Carnival Dartmouth's annual descent into madness?
In "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There," Carroll comments on what he sees as the madness of society in Victorian England. In the Victorian age, etiquette was extremely strict, and the lines separating individuals of different classes, ages, sexes and races were impassable barriers. Carroll uses his characters to mock the conventions of his day; for example, the Queen of Hearts is a parody of the monarch or upper-class citizen arbitrarily exercising power over repressed groups in Victorian society.
At Dartmouth, Student Assembly is embroiled in a debate over the effectiveness and legitimacy of its current president, and many students attend Assembly meetings just to hear the increasingly petty conflict unfold. The president faces accusations that seem to hurt the Assembly further rather than help it, and yet his own subsequent accusations and denunciations have been arbitrary and ridiculous as well. Perhaps Carroll, were he a current Dartmouth student, would have been inspired to write a nonsensical story about one playing card on trial for stealing tarts and a second playing card yelling for anyone's and everyone's head.
Another hot-and-cold debate at Dartmouth concerns the school's lack of an official mascot. A moose and a keg are the two most popular proposals, each with its own Facebook group. If Carroll got involved in the debate, he might propose a Cheshire Cat mascot that is invisible except for its smile. (My logic may be a stretch, but Dartmouth obviously has a lot of school spirit, even if we are unable to agree on a visual symbol for that spirit).
One of Carroll's comments about the flaws of social hierarchy in "Through the Looking Glass" involves a Garden of Live Flowers where the tiger lilies and roses are superior to the more common flowers like daisies. However, the flowers' fear that Alice will pick them reduces them all to the same level of flower-hood. At Dartmouth, Carroll might imagine such a situation after having witnessed the events of discrimination against Native Americans at Dartmouth. Perhaps the theme of "Dartmouth Down the Rabbit Hole" is the College's realization that its future strength lies in unity, not division over events we all know were wrong.
Winter Carnival can help us achieve that unity that Carroll believed his Victorian society needed. If there is any event that can bring all students and community members to the same level, it is the Human Dog Sled Race, the Polar Bear swim where everyone's skin is the same color (blue), or the communal "Mad Hatter's Tea Party" in Collis. We all laughed at funny costumes, shivered from the subzero wind-chill and had fun acting like kids. The psychedelic part happened at night, but that is a different story.
Since Winter Carnival turned out to be more fun than psychedelic, maybe we can conclude that the madness of our society does not equal that of Victorian England. Certainly, we live in a community where women and men are far more equal, where social class does not determine whom you sit next to in econ, and where thinking outside of the box is encouraged. However, the meaning of this year's Carnival is that we took the time to "plunge down the rabbit hole" of self-examination, checking our progress as a society and recognizing our weaknesses against the backdrop of familiar old traditions. Carroll wrote "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" to open people's eyes to the truths of their society. I hope we all come out of the Winter Carnival daydream enlightened about the state of Dartmouth today and united for the coming year.
