Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the first son, and third of eleven children, was born in Daresbury (Cheshire), England on January 27th, 1832. Influenced greatly by his father - a noble captain, Archdeacon, Canon, and dually mastered in Mathematics and the Classics, Charles spent his childhood years under the instruction and education of senior Charles. It was in 1844 that Dodgson began attending Richmond Grammar School, and then two years following, Charles was admitted into Rugby, one of the most primitive public schools in Cheshire. Jean Gattegno states in his biography on Charles, "his memories of this (attending Rugby) are to be most unhappy". It was also during his time at Rugby in which Charles began writing parodies, as well as organizing marionette shows to entertain his brothers and sisters. Upon matriculation at Rugby, Charles, following in his father's footsteps, continued in his education at Church Christ College, Oxford where he obtained First Class Honors in Mathematics and a second in Classical Moderations. Christ College is also where Charles was a mathematical lecturer, ordained Deacon, and remained until his death on January 14th, 1898. The particular era and time during which Charles was at Oxford, as well as
'Dodgson knew that the process of ones transformation does not change ones essence and identity, and that sameness is not always lost due to change (Ben-Zvi, 2002). He yearned for an escape from this supposedly rational fashion of thinking, departing into his own world of fantasy, ". Alice is uncertain: 'I can't understand my self, to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing. Charles was clearly influenced by the Victorian era, his struggles for 'fitting in' throughout his childhood, and his own intelligence. This is evidenced by Alice's encounter with the Caterpillar: 'Who are you', asks the Caterpillar and Alice answers:'I - I hardly know, Sir, just at present I know - at least I know who I was when I got up in this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then'. Charles' writings are quite devoid of meaning, but his unique ability to manipulate language, such as his incessant use of portmanteau's and the sound-relation of these manufactured words, have left his readers to think that they are indeed proper English, or true words in themselves. The continuous dismissal of independent and imaginative thinking must have greatly perturbed Dodgson, since he used nonsense as an attempt to make sense of this "Victorian realism" throughout his stories and poems. 3) Adding to these obstacles, Charles also lived with the burden of the hereditary trait of stuttering, which also placed him in quite a social disposition. his encounters with a particular girl-child named Alice Liddell, have a strong underlying pertaining to his styles of writing, as well as his stories' notable obscure and nonsensical nature. Many have found Dodgson's literary and poetic works to be nothing more than entertaining and hysterical in meaning, thus those who have looked more deeply into Dodgson's life have concluded that his works must contain a certain symbolic meaning in his use of allegory and satiric references. Dodgson presents his favor for independent thinking in one of his two "difficulties" published in The Rectory Umbrella - a local magazine written and published by Dodgson between the years of 1850 and 1853. It was in Oxford that such controversies between reason and dogma arose, and most importantly, the beginnings of separation between Catholicism and Romanism. Dodgson clearly considered himself unique - an individual 'Fish' amongst a school of 'Fishes'.
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Acceptance Essays
