Nonsense and Sense: Lewis Carroll’s Alice Books Lee, Su-Jin(Chonnam National University) The purpose of this thesis is to study the matters of growth and identity based on nonsense and sense in language in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. Alice, the heroine of these books, overcomes the fear of unavoidable growth and realizes the power of language through adventures in the nonsensical worlds. Thought and language used in the nonsensical worlds are different from those in the actual world. The characters whom Alice meets in these worlds deny her a name and identity of her own. She wanders in the subversive situation where her existence is not accepted. Both by the changes in the size of her body in Wonderland and by the name-finding in Looking-Glass land, however, she realizes how to resist nonsense. When she gets bigger, her change poses a threat to the characters in Wonderland. Sometimes she uses language in order to intimidate them. She wants to be master of her own life, not a part of the Red King's dream. Alice overcomes the discomfort of growth by understanding the relations between the self and the other. Through her conversations with Humpty Dumpty who thinks that he is master of his words, Alice becomes the master of her language. She obtains a good knowledge of its use. She realizes that the distinction between nonsense and sense in regard to language depends on social conventions.