Alices Adventures in Wonderland

Lewis Carroll
Context
Lewis Carroll was the pseudonym of Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a lecturer in mathematics at Christ
Church, Oxford, who lived from 1832 to 1898. Carrolls physical deformities, partial deafness, and irrepressible
stammer made him an unlikely candidate for producing one of the most popular and enduring childrens
fantasies in the English language. Carrolls unusual appearance caused him to behave awkwardly around other
adults, and his students at Oxford saw him as a stuffy and boring teacher. He held strict religious beliefs, serving
as a deacon in the Anglican Church for many years and briefly considering becoming a minister. Underneath
Carrolls awkward exterior, however, lay a brilliant and imaginative artist. A gifted amateur photographer, he
took numerous portraits of children throughout his adulthood. Carrolls keen grasp of mathematics and logic
inspired the linguistic humor and witty wordplay in his stories. Additionally, his unique understanding of
childrens minds allowed him to compose imaginative fiction that appealed to young people.
Carroll felt shy and reserved around adults but became animated and lively around children. His crippling
stammer melted away in the company of children as he told them his elaborately nonsensical stories. Carroll
discovered his gift for storytelling in his own youth when he served as the unofficial family entertainer for his
five younger sisters and three younger brothers. He staged performances and wrote the bulk of the fiction in the
family magazine. As an adult, Carroll continued to prefer the companionship of children to adults and tended to
favor little girls. Over the course of his lifetime he made numerous child friends whom he wrote to frequently
and often mentioned in his diaries.
In 1856, Carroll became close with the Liddell children and met the girl who would become the inspiration for
Alice, the protagonist of his two most famous books. It was in that year that classics scholar Henry George
Liddell accepted an appointment as Dean of Christ Church, one of the colleges that comprise Oxford University,
and brought his three daughters to live with him at Oxford. Lorina, Alice, and Edith Liddell quickly became
Carrolls favorite companions and photographic subjects. During their frequent afternoon boat trips on the river,
Carroll told the Liddells fanciful tales. Alice quickly became Carrolls favorite of the three girls, and he made
her the subject of the stories that would later became Alices Adventures in Wonderland and Through the
Looking-Glass. Almost ten years after first meeting the Liddells, Carroll compiled the stories and submitted the
completed manuscript for publication.
Alices Adventures in Wonderland received mostly negative reviews when first published in 1865. Critics and
readers alike found the book to be sheer nonsense, and one critic sneered that the book was too extravagantly
absurd to produce more diversion than disappointment and irritation. Only John Tenniels detailed illustrations
garnered praise, and his images continue to appear in most reprints of the Alice books. Despite the books
negative reception, Carroll proposed a sequel to his publisher in 1866 and set to work writing Through the
Looking-Glass. By the time the second book reached publication in 1871, Alices Adventures in Wonderland had
found an appreciative readership. Over time, Carrolls combination of sophisticated logic, social satire, and pure
fantasy would make the book a classic for children and adults alike. Critics eventually recognized the literary
merits of both texts, and celebrated authors and philosophers ranging from James Joyce to Ludwig Wittgenstein
praised Carrolls stories.
In 1881, Carroll resigned from his position as mathematics lecturer at Oxford to pursue writing full time. He
composed numerous poems, several new works for children, and books of logic puzzles and games, but none of
his later writings attained the success of the Alice books. Carroll continued to have close friendships with
children. Several of his child friends served as inspiration for the Sylvie and Bruno books. Like the Alice
stories, Sylvie and Bruno (1889) and Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1898) relied heavily on childrens silly
sayings and absurd fantasies. Carroll died in 1898 at the age of sixty-six, soon after the publication of the Sylvie
and Bruno books. He passed away in his familys home in Guildford, England.
Carrolls sudden break with the Liddell family in the early 1860s has led to a great deal of speculation over the
nature of his relationship with Alice Liddell. Some books indicate that the split resulted from a disagreement
between Carroll and Dean Liddell over Christ Church matters. Other evidence indicates that more insidious
elements existed in Carrolls relationships with young children and with Alice Liddell in particular. This
possibility seems to be supported by the fact that Mrs. Liddell burned all of Carrolls early letters to Alice and
that Carroll himself tore pages out of his diary related to the break. However, no concrete evidence exists that
Carroll behaved inappropriately in his numerous friendships with children. Records written by Carrolls
associates and Alice Liddell herself do not indicate any untoward behavior on his part.
Carrolls feelings of intense nostalgia for the simple pleasures of childhood caused him to feel deep discomfort
in the presence of adults. In the company of children, Carroll felt understood and could temporarily forget the
loss of innocence that he associated with his own adulthood. Ironically, Carroll mourned this loss again and
again as he watched each of his child friends grow away from him as they became older. As he wrote in a letter
to the mother of one of his young muses, It is very sweet to me, to be loved by her as children love: though the
experience of many years have now taught me that there are few things in the world so evanescent [fleeting] as a
childs love. Nine-tenths of the children, whose love once seemed as warm as hers, are now merely on the terms
of everyday acquaintance. The sentiment of fleeting happiness pervades Carrolls seemingly lighthearted
fantasies and infuses the Alice books with melancholy and loss.
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Plot Overview
Alice sits on a riverbank on a warm summer day, drowsily reading over her sisters shoulder, when she catches
sight of a White Rabbit in a waistcoat running by her. The White Rabbit pulls out a pocket watch, exclaims that
he is late, and pops down a rabbit hole. Alice follows the White Rabbit down the hole and comes upon a great
hallway lined with doors. She finds a small door that she opens using a key she discovers on a nearby table.
Through the door, she sees a beautiful garden, and Alice begins to cry when she realizes she cannot fit through
the door. She finds a bottle marked DRINK ME and downs the contents. She shrinks down to the right size to
enter the door but cannot enter since she has left the key on the tabletop above her head. Alice discovers a cake
marked EAT ME which causes her to grow to an inordinately large height. Still unable to enter the garden,
Alice begins to cry again, and her giant tears form a pool at her feet. As she cries, Alice shrinks and falls into the
pool of tears. The pool of tears becomes a sea, and as she treads water she meets a Mouse. The Mouse
accompanies Alice to shore, where a number of animals stand gathered on a bank. After a Caucus Race, Alice
scares the animals away with tales of her cat, Dinah, and finds herself alone again.
Alice meets the White Rabbit again, who mistakes her for a servant and sends her off to fetch his things. While
in the White Rabbits house, Alice drinks an unmarked bottle of liquid and grows to the size of the room. The
White Rabbit returns to his house, fuming at the now-giant Alice, but she swats him and his servants away with
her giant hand. The animals outside try to get her out of the house by throwing rocks at her, which inexplicably
transform into cakes when they land in the house. Alice eats one of the cakes, which causes her to shrink to a
small size. She wanders off into the forest, where she meets a Caterpillar sitting on a mushroom and smoking a
hookah (i.e., a water pipe). The Caterpillar and Alice get into an argument, but before the Caterpillar crawls
away in disgust, he tells Alice that different parts of the mushroom will make her grow or shrink. Alice tastes a
part of the mushroom, and her neck stretches above the trees. A pigeon sees her and attacks, deeming her a
serpent hungry for pigeon eggs.
Alice eats another part of the mushroom and shrinks down to a normal height. She wanders until she comes
across the house of the Duchess. She enters and finds the Duchess, who is nursing a squealing baby, as well as a
grinning Cheshire Cat, and a Cook who tosses massive amounts of pepper into a cauldron of soup. The Duchess
behaves rudely to Alice and then departs to prepare for a croquet game with the Queen. As she leaves, the
Duchess hands Alice the baby, which Alice discovers is a pig. Alice lets the pig go and reenters the forest, where
she meets the Cheshire Cat again. The Cheshire Cat explains to Alice that everyone in Wonderland is mad,
including Alice herself. The Cheshire Cat gives directions to the March Hares house and fades away to nothing
but a floating grin.
Alice travels to the March Hares house to find the March Hare, the Mad Hatter, and the Dormouse having tea
together. Treated rudely by all three, Alice stands by the tea party, uninvited. She learns that they have wronged
Time and are trapped in perpetual tea-time. After a final discourtesy, Alice leaves and journeys through the
forest. She finds a tree with a door in its side, and travels through it to find herself back in the great hall. She
takes the key and uses the mushroom to shrink down and enter the garden.
After saving several gardeners from the temper of the Queen of Hearts, Alice joins the Queen in a strange game
of croquet. The croquet ground is hilly, the mallets and balls are live flamingos and hedgehogs, and the Queen
tears about, frantically calling for the other players executions. Amidst this madness, Alice bumps into the
Cheshire Cat again, who asks her how she is doing. The King of Hearts interrupts their conversation and
attempts to bully the Cheshire Cat, who impudently dismisses the King. The King takes offense and arranges for
the Cheshire Cats execution, but since the Cheshire Cat is now only a head floating in midair, no one can agree
on how to behead it.
The Duchess approaches Alice and attempts to befriend her, but the Duchess makes Alice feel uneasy. The
Queen of Hearts chases the Duchess off and tells Alice that she must visit the Mock Turtle to hear his story. The
Queen of Hearts sends Alice with the Gryphon as her escort to meet the Mock Turtle. Alice shares her strange
experiences with the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon, who listen sympathetically and comment on the strangeness
of her adventures. After listening to the Mock Turtles story, they hear an announcement that a trial is about to
begin, and the Gryphon brings Alice back to the croquet ground.
The Knave of Hearts stands trial for stealing the Queens tarts. The King of Hearts leads the proceedings, and
various witnesses approach the stand to give evidence. The Mad Hatter and the Cook both give their testimony,
but none of it makes any sense. The White Rabbit, acting as a herald, calls Alice to the witness stand. The King
goes nowhere with his line of questioning, but takes encouragement when the White Rabbit provides new
evidence in the form of a letter written by the Knave. The letter turns out to be a poem, which the King
interprets as an admission of guilt on the part of the Knave. Alice believes the note to be nonsense and protests
the Kings interpretation. The Queen becomes furious with Alice and orders her beheading, but Alice grows to a
huge size and knocks over the Queens army of playing cards.
All of a sudden, Alice finds herself awake on her sisters lap, back at the riverbank. She tells her sister about her
dream and goes inside for tea as her sister ponders Alices adventures.
Character List
The White Rabbit - The frantic, harried Wonderland creature that originally leads Alice to Wonderland. The
White Rabbit is figure of some importance, but he is manic, timid, and occasionally aggressive.
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The King of Hearts - The coruler of Wonderland. The King is ineffectual and generally unlikeable, but lacks
the Queens ruthlessness and undoes her orders of execution.
The Duchess - The Queens uncommonly ugly cousin. The Duchess behaves rudely to Alice at first, but later
treats her so affectionately that her advances feel threatening.
The Caterpillar - A Wonderland creature. The Caterpillar sits on a mushroom, smokes a hookah, and treats
Alice with contempt. He directs Alice to the magic mushroom that allows her to shrink and grow.
The Mad Hatter - A small, impolite hatter who lives in perpetual tea-time. The Mad Hatter enjoys frustrating
Alice.
The March Hare - The Mad Hatters tea-time companion. The March Hare takes great pleasure in frustrating
Alice.
The Dormouse - The Mad Hatter and March Hares companion. The Dormouse sits at the tea table and drifts in
and out of sleep.
The Gryphon - A servant to the Queen who befriends Alice. The Gryphon escorts Alice to see the Mock Turtle.
The Mock Turtle - A turtle with the head of a calf. The Mock Turtle is friendly to Alice but is exceedingly
sentimental and self-absorbed.
Alices sister - The only character whom Alice interacts with outside of Wonderland. Alices sister daydreams
about Alices adventures as the story closes.
The Knave of Hearts - An attendant to the King and Queen. The Knave has been accused of stealing the
Queens tarts.
The Mouse - The first Wonderland creature that Alice encounters. The Mouse is initially frightened of Alice
and her talk about her pet cat, and eventually tells the story of Fury and the Mouse that foreshadows the Knave
of Hearts trial.
The Dodo - A Wonderland creature. The Dodo tends to use big words, and others accuse him of not knowing
their meanings. He proposes that the animals participate in a Caucus race.
The Duck, the Lory, and the Eaglet - Wonderland creatures who participate in the Caucus race.
The Cook - The Duchesss cook, who causes everyone to sneeze with the amount of pepper she uses in her
cooking. The Cook is ill-tempered, throwing objects at the Duchess and refusing to give evidence at the trial.
The Pigeon - A Wonderland creature who believes Alice is a serpent. The pigeon is sulky and angry and thinks
Alice is after her eggs.
Two, Five, and Seven - The playing-card gardeners. Two, Five, and Seven are fearful and fumbling, especially
in the presence of the Queen.
Bill - A lizard who first appears as a servant of the White Rabbit and later as a juror at the trial. Bill is stupid
and ineffectual.
The Frog-Footman - The Duchesss footman. The Frog-footman is stupid and accustomed to the fact that
nothing makes sense in Wonderland.
Analysis of Major Characters
Alice
Alice is a sensible prepubescent girl from a wealthy English family who finds herself in a strange world ruled by
imagination and fantasy. Alice feels comfortable with her identity and has a strong sense that her environment is
comprised of clear, logical, and consistent rules and features. Alices familiarity with the world has led one critic
to describe her as a disembodied intellect. Alice displays great curiosity and attempts to fit her diverse
experiences into a clear understanding of the world.
Alice approaches Wonderland as an anthropologist, but maintains a strong sense of noblesse oblige that comes
with her class status. She has confidence in her social position, education, and the Victorian virtue of good
manners. Alice has a feeling of entitlement, particularly when comparing herself to Mabel, whom she declares
has a poky little house, and no toys. Additionally, she flaunts her limited information base with anyone who
will listen and becomes increasingly obsessed with the importance of good manners as she deals with the rude
creatures of Wonderland. Alice maintains a superior attitude and behaves with solicitous indulgence toward
those she believes are less privileged.
The tension of Alices Adventures in Wonderland emerges when Alices fixed perspective of the world comes
into contact with the mad, illogical world of Wonderland. Alices fixed sense of order clashes with the madness
she finds in Wonderland. The White Rabbit challenges her perceptions of class when he mistakes her for a
servant, while the Mad Hatter, March Hare, and Pigeon challenge Alices notions of urbane intelligence with an
unfamiliar logic that only makes sense within the context of Wonderland. Most significantly, Wonderland
challenges her perceptions of good manners by constantly assaulting her with dismissive rudeness. Alices
fundamental beliefs face challenges at every turn, and as a result Alice suffers an identity crisis. She persists in
her way of life as she perceives her sense of order collapsing all around her. Alice must choose between
retaining her notions of order and assimilating into Wonderlands nonsensical rules.
The Cheshire Cat
The Cheshire Cat is unique among Wonderland creatures. Threatened by no one, it maintains a cool, grinning
outsider status. The Cheshire Cat has insight into the workings of Wonderland as a whole. Its calm explanation
to Alice that to be in Wonderland is to be mad reveals a number of points that do not occur to Alice on her
own. First, the Cheshire Cat points out that Wonderland as a place has a stronger cumulative effect than any of
its citizens. Wonderland is ruled by nonsense, and as a result, Alices normal behavior becomes inconsistent with
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its operating principles, so Alice herself becomes mad in the context of Wonderland. Certainly, Alices burning
curiosity to absorb everything she sees in Wonderland sets her apart from the other Wonderland creatures,
making her seem mad in comparison.
The Queen of Hearts
As the ruler of Wonderland, the Queen of Hearts is the character that Alice must inevitably face to figure out the
puzzle of Wonderland. In a sense, the Queen of Hearts is literally the heart of Alices conflict. Unlike many of
the other characters in Wonderland, the Queen of Hearts is not as concerned with nonsense and perversions of
logic as she is with absolute rule and execution. In Wonderland, she is a singular force of fear who even
dominates the King of Hearts. In the Queens presence, Alice finally gets a taste of true fear, even though she
understands that the Queen of Hearts is merely a playing card. The Gryphon later informs Alice that the Queen
never actually executes anyone she sentences to death, which reinforces the fact that the Queen of Heartss
power lies in her rhetoric. The Queen becomes representative of the idea that Wonderland is devoid of
substance.

Themes, Motifs & Symbols

Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
The Tragic and Inevitable Loss of Childhood Innocence
Throughout the course of Alices Adventures in Wonderland, Alice goes through a variety of absurd physical
changes. The discomfort she feels at never being the right size acts as a symbol for the changes that occur during
puberty. Alice finds these changes to be traumatic, and feels discomfort, frustration, and sadness when she goes
through them. She struggles to maintain a comfortable physical size. In Chapter 1, she becomes upset when she
keeps finding herself too big or too small to enter the garden. In Chapter 5, she loses control over specific body
parts when her neck grows to an absurd length. These constant fluctuations represent the way a child may feel as
her body grows and changes during puberty.
Life as a Meaningless Puzzle
In Alices Adventures in Wonderland, Alice encounters a series of puzzles that seem to have no clear solutions,
which imitates the ways that life frustrates expectations. Alice expects that the situations she encounters will
make a certain kind of sense, but they repeatedly frustrate her ability to figure out Wonderland. Alice tries to
understand the Caucus race, solve the Mad Hatters riddle, and understand the Queens ridiculous croquet game,
but to no avail. In every instance, the riddles and challenges presented to Alice have no purpose or answer. Even
though Lewis Carroll was a logician, in Alices Adventures in Wonderland he makes a farce out of jokes, riddles,
and games of logic. Alice learns that she cannot expect to find logic or meaning in the situations that she
encounters, even when they appear to be problems, riddles, or games that would normally have solutions that
Alice would be able to figure out. Carroll makes a broader point about the ways that life frustrates expectations
and resists interpretation, even when problems seem familiar or solvable.
Death as a Constant and Underlying Menace
Alice continually finds herself in situations in which she risks death, and while these threats never materialize,
they suggest that death lurks just behind the ridiculous events of Alices Adventures in Wonderland as a present
and possible outcome. Death appears in Chapter 1, when the narrator mentions that Alice would say nothing of
falling off of her own house, since it would likely kill her. Alice takes risks that could possibly kill her, but she
never considers death as a possible outcome. Over time, she starts to realize that her experiences in Wonderland
are far more threatening than they appear to be. As the Queen screams Off with its head! she understands that
Wonderland may not merely be a ridiculous realm where expectations are repeatedly frustrated. Death may be a
real threat, and Alice starts to understand that the risks she faces may not be ridiculous and absurd after all.
Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the texts
major themes.
Dream
Alices Adventures in Wonderland takes place in Alices dream, so that the characters and phenomena of the real
world mix with elements of Alices unconscious state. The dream motif explains the abundance of nonsensical
and disparate events in the story. As in a dream, the narrative follows the dreamer as she encounters various
episodes in which she attempts to interpret her experiences in relationship to herself and her world. Though
Alices experiences lend themselves to meaningful observations, they resist a singular and coherent
interpretation.
Subversion
Alice quickly discovers during her travels that the only reliable aspect of Wonderland that she can count on is
that it will frustrate her expectations and challenge her understanding of the natural order of the world. In
Wonderland, Alice finds that her lessons no longer mean what she thought, as she botches her multiplication
tables and incorrectly recites poems she had memorized while in Wonderland. Even Alices physical dimensions
become warped as she grows and shrinks erratically throughout the story. Wonderland frustrates Alices desires
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to fit her experiences in a logical framework where she can make sense of the relationship between cause and
effect.
Language
Carroll plays with linguistic conventions in Alices Adventures in Wonderland, making use of puns and playing
on multiple meanings of words throughout the text. Carroll invents words and expressions and develops new
meanings for words. Alices exclamation Curious and curiouser! suggests that both her surroundings and the
language she uses to describe them expand beyond expectation and convention. Anything is possible in
Wonderland, and Carrolls manipulation of language reflects this sense of unlimited possibility.
Curious, Nonsense, and Confusing
Alice uses these words throughout her journey to describe phenomena she has trouble explaining. Though the
words are generally interchangeable, she usually assigns curious and confusing to experiences or encounters that
she tolerates. She endures is the experiences that are curious or confusing, hoping to gain a clearer picture of
how that individual or experience functions in the world. When Alice declares something to be nonsense, as she
does with the trial in Chapter 12, she rejects or criticizes the experience or encounter.
Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
The Garden
Nearly every object in Alices Adventures in Wonderland functions as a symbol, but nothing clearly represents
one particular thing. The symbolic resonances of Wonderland objects are generally contained to the individual
episode in which they appear. Often the symbols work together to convey a particular meaning. The garden may
symbolize the Garden of Eden, an idyllic space of beauty and innocence that Alice is not permitted to access. On
a more abstract level, the garden may simply represent the experience of desire, in that Alice focuses her energy
and emotion on trying to attain it. The two symbolic meanings work together to underscore Alices desire to
hold onto her feelings of childlike innocence that she must relinquish as she matures.
The Caterpillars Mushroom
Like the garden, the Caterpillars mushroom also has multiple symbolic meanings. Some readers and critics
view the Caterpillar as a sexual threat, its phallic shape a symbol of sexual virility. The Caterpillars mushroom
connects to this symbolic meaning. Alice must master the properties of the mushroom to gain control over her
fluctuating size, which represents the bodily frustrations that accompany puberty. Others view the mushroom as
a psychedelic hallucinogen that compounds Alices surreal and distorted perception of Wonderland.
Key Facts
FULL TITLE Alices Adventures in Wonderland
AUTHOR Lewis Carroll
TYPE OF WORK Novella
GENRE Fairy tale; childrens fiction; satire; allegory
LANGUAGE English
TIME AND PLACE WRITTEN 18621863, Oxford
DATE OF FIRST PUBLICATION 1865
PUBLISHER Macmillan & Co.
NARRATOR The narrator is anonymous and does not
POINT OF VIEW The narrator speaks in third person,

use many words to describe events in the story.

though occasionally in first and second person. The
narrative follows Alice around on her travels, voicing her thoughts and feelings.
TONE Straightforward; avuncular
TENSE Past
SETTING (TIME) Victorian era, circa publication date
SETTING (PLACE) England, Wonderland
PROTAGONIST Alice
MAJOR CONFLICT Alice attempts to come to terms with the puzzle of Wonderland as she undergoes great
individual changes while entrenched in Wonderland.
RISING ACTION Alice follows the White Rabbit down a well and pursues him through Wonderland.
CLIMAX Alice gains control over her size and enters the garden, where she participates in the trial of the Knave
of Hearts.
FALLING ACTION Alice realizes that Wonderland is a sham and knocks over the playing card court, causing her
to wake up and dispel the dream of Wonderland.
THEMES The tragic and inevitable loss of childhood innocence; Life as a meaningless puzzle; Death as a
constant and underlying menace
MOTIFS Dream; subversion; language; curious, nonsense, and confusing
SYMBOLS The garden; the mushroom
FORESHADOWING The Mouses history about Fury and the Mouse foreshadows the trial at the end of the story.
Style
Parody
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was originally told to entertain a little girl. One of the devices Lewis Carroll
uses to communicate with Alice Liddell is parody, which adopts the style of the serious literary work and applies
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it to an inappropriate subject for humorous effect. Most of the songs and poems that appear in the book are
parodies of well-known Victorian poems, such as Robert Southey's "The Old Man's Comforts and How He
Gained Them" ("You Are Old, Father William"), Isaac Watts's "How Doth the Little Busy Bee" ("How Doth the
Little Crocodile"), and Mary Howett's "The Spider and the Fly" ("Will You Walk a Little Faster"). Several of the
songs were ones that Carroll had heard the Liddell sisters sing, so he knew that Alice, for whom the story was
written, would appreciate them. There are also a number of "inside jokes" that might make sense only to the
Liddells or Carroll's closest associates. The Mad Hatter's song, for instance, ("Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat") is a
parody of Jane Taylor's poem "The Star," but it also contains a reference to the Oxford community.
"Bartholomew Price," writes Martin Gardner in his The Annotated Alice, "a distinguished professor of
mathematics at Oxford and a good friend of Carroll's, was known among his student by the nickname 'The Bat.'
His lectures no doubt had a way of soaring high above the heads of his listeners."
What makes Carroll's parodies so special that they have outlived the originals they mock is the fact that they are
excellent humorous verses in their own right. They also serve a purpose within the book: they emphasize the
underlying senselessness of Wonderland and highlight Alice's own sense of displacement. Many of them Alice
recites herself under pressure from another character. "'Tis the Voice of the Lobster" is a parody of the didactic
poem "The Sluggard" by Isaac Watts. It is notable that most often Alice is cut off by the same characters that
require her to recite in the first place.
Narrator
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland opens with Alice's complaint, "For what is the use of a book without pictures
or conversations?" So most of the story is told through pictures and dialogue. However, there is another voice
besides those of Alice and the characters she encounters. The third-person ("he/she/it") narrator of the story
maintains a point of view that is very different from that of the heroine. The narrator steps in to explain Alice's
thoughts to the reader. The narrator explains who Dinah is, for instance, and also highlights Alice's own state of
mind. He frequently refers to Alice as "poor Alice" or "the poor little thing" whenever she is in a difficult
situation.
Point of View
Although the narrator has an impartial voice, the point of view is very strongly connected with Alice. Events are
related as they happen to her and are explained as they affect her. As a result, some critics believe that the
narrator is not in fact a separate voice, but is a part of Alice's own thought process. They base this interpretation
on the statement in Chapter 1 that Alice "was very fond of pretending to be two people." Alice, they suggest,
con-sists of the thoughtless child who carelessly jumps down the rabbit-hole after the White Rabbit, and the
well-brought-up, responsible young girl who remembers her manners even when confronted by rude people and
animals.
Language
Part of the way Carroll shows Wonderland to be a strange place is the way the inhabitants twist the meaning of
words. Carroll plays with language by including many puns and other forms of word play. In Chapter 3, for
instance, the Mouse says he can dry everyone who was caught in the pool of tears. He proceeds to recite a bit of
history "the driest thing I know." Here, of course, the Mouse means "dry" as in dull; the Mouse's words have
no ability to ease the dampness of the creatures. When Alice meets the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, they
play with syntax the order of words to confuse Alice. When she says "I say what I mean" is the same thing
as "I mean what I say," the others immediately contradict her by bringing up totally unrelated examples: "'Not
the same thing a bit!' said the Hatter. 'You might just as well say that "I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat
what I see"!'" The power of language is also evident in the way Alice continually offends the inhabitants of
Wonderland, often quite unintentionally. For instance, she drives away the creatures at the pool of tears just by
mentioning the word "cat." Eventually Alice learns to be careful of what she says, as in Chapter 8 when she
changes how she is about to describe the Queen after noticing the woman behind her shoulder.
LEWIS CARROLL
Character List
Alice: The heroine of the story. Her adventures begin with her fateful jump down the rabbit hole, and the tale is
an extended metaphor for the challenges she will face as she grows into an adult. She possesses unusual
composure for a child, and she seems bright but makes many charming mistakes. She grows more confident as
the book progresses.
White Rabbit: Alice's adventures begin when she follows the White Rabbit down the rabbit-hole. He is a
messenger and a herald at the Court of the King and Queen of Hearts. He wears a waist-coat and carries a
pocket watch.
Mouse: Alice meets the mouse while swimming in the pool of tears. He hates cats and dogs, and he begins to
tell Alice a disturbing story about being put on trial. He is very sensitive.
Bill: A lizard in the service of the White Rabbit. When Alice is a giant and stuck in the White Rabbit's house,
she kicks Bill out of the chimney. Bill is also one of the jurors at the trial at the end of the book.
Caterpillar: Wise, enigmatic, and unshakably mellow, the Caterpillar gives Alice some valuable advice about
how to get by in Wonderland. He smokes a hookah and sits on a mushroom. He gives Alice the valuable gift of
the mushroom (one side making her bigger, and the other making her small), which gives her control of her size
in Wonderland.
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The Pigeon: The Pigeon is afraid for her eggs, and mistakes Alice for a serpent. Alice tries to reason with her,
but the Pigeon forces her away.
Duchess: When Alice first meets the Duchess, she is a disagreeable woman nursing a baby and arguing with her
cook. Later, she is put under sentence of execution. The Duchess seems different when Alice meets her a second
time, later in the book, and Alice notices that the Duchess speaks only in pat morals.
Cook: Argumentative, and convinced that pepper is the key ingredient in all food. She first appears at the house
of the Duchess, where she is throwing everything in sight at the Duchess and the baby. Later, she is a witness at
the trial of the Knave of Hearts.
Baby: The baby the Duchess nurses. Alice is concerned about leaving the child in such a violent environment,
so she takes him with her. He turns into a pig.
Cheshire Cat: Possessing remarkably sharp claws and alarming sharp teeth, the Cheshire cat is courteous and
helpful, despite his frightening appearance. His face is fixed in an eerie grin. He can make any and all parts of
his body disappear and reappear.
Hatter: A madman who sits always at tea, every since Time stopped working for him. He takes his tea with the
March Hare and the Dormouse. Alice is temporarily their guest, although she finds the event to be the stupidest
tea party she has ever attended. Later, the nervous hatter is forced to be a witness at the trial.
March Hare: Playing with the expression, "Mad as a March Hare," Carroll puts him in the company of the mad
Hatter and the narcoleptic Dormouse. Their strange tea party is at the March Hare's house.
The Dormouse: Another guest at the mad tea party. He can't seem to stay awake. He is also one of the observers
at the trial.
Two, Five, and Seven: These three unfortunate gardeners are struggling to repaint the Queen's roses, as they
planted white roses by mistake and now fear for their lives. Like the other people working for the queen, they
are shaped like playing cards. When the Queen orders their beheading, Alice hides them.
Queen of Hearts: Nasty, brutal, and loud, the Queen delights in ordering executions, although everyone seems
to get pardoned in the end. The people of Wonderland are terrified of her. Although Alice initially thinks she is
silly, she grows frightened of her. In the end, however, a giant-size Alice is able to stand up to the Queen's
temper and her threats.
King of Hearts: Somewhat overshadowed by his loudmouthed wife, the King of Hearts is a remarkably dense
figure. He makes terrible jokes, and cannot seem to say anything clever. Alice outreasons him quite nicely at the
trial.
Gryphon: The Gryphon, mythical animal that is half eagle and half lion, takes Alice to sea the Mock Turtle. He
attended undersea school with the Mock Turtle.
The Mock Turtle: The Mock Turtle is always crying, and he and the Gryphon tells stories loaded with puns.
His name is another play on words (mock turtle soup is a soup that actually uses lamb as its meat ingredient).
The Knave of Hearts: The unfortunate Knave is the man on trial, accused of stealing the tarts of the Queen of
Hearts. The evidence produced against him is unjust.
Alice's sister: She helps to anchor the story, appearing at the beginning, before Alice begins her adventures, and
at the end, after Alice wakes up from her strange dream. Her presence lets us know that Alice is once again in
the real world, in the comfort of home and family.
Major Themes
Growth into Adulthood: This theme is central to both books. Alice's adventures parallel the journey from
childhood to adulthood. She comes into numerous new situations in which adaptability is absolutely necessary
for success. She shows marked progress throughout the course of the book; in the beginning, she can barely
maintain enough composure to keep herself from crying. By the end of the novel, she is self-possessed and able
to hold her own against the most baffling Wonderland logic.
Size change: Closely connected to the above theme, size change is another recurring concept. The dramatic
changes in size hint at the radical changes the body undergoes during adolescence. The key, once again, is
adaptability. Alice's size changes also bring about a change in perspective, and she sees the world from a very
different view. In the last trial scene, her growth into a giant reflects her interior growth. She becomes a much
stronger, self-possessed person, able to speak out against the nonsensical proceedings of the trial.
Death: This theme is even more present in the second Alice book, Through the Looking Glass. Alice frequently
makes references to her own death without knowing it. Childhood is a state of peril in Carroll's view: children
are quite vulnerable, and the world presents many dangers. Another aspect of death is its inevitability. Since the
Alice books are at root about change (the transition from childhood to adulthood, the passage of time), mortality
is inescapable as a theme. Death is the final step of this process of growth. While death is only hinted at in the
first book, the second book is saturated with references to mortality and macabre humor.
Games/ Learning the Rules: Every new encounter is something of a game for Alice; there are rules to learn,
and consequences for learning or not learning those rules. Games are a constant part of life in Wonderland, from
the Caucus race to the strange croquet match to the fact that the royal court is a living deck of cards. And every
new social encounter is like a game, in that there are bizarre, apparently arbitrary rules that Alice has to master.
Learning the rules is a metaphor for the adaptations to new social situations that every child makes as she grows
older. Mastering each challenge, Alice grows wiser and more adaptable as time goes on.
Language and Logic/Illogic:
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Carroll delights in puns. The Alice books are chockfull of games with language, to the reader's delight and
Alice's confusion. The games often point out some inconsistency or slipperiness of language in general and
English in particular. The books point out the pains and advantages of language. Language is a source of joy and
adaptability; it can also be a source of great confusion.
Just as baffling is the bizarre logic at work in Wonderland. Every creature can justify the most absurd behavior,
and their arguments for themselves are often fairly complex. Their strange reasoning is another source of delight
for the reader and challenge for Alice. She has to learn to discern between unusual logic and utter nonsense.
Summary and Analysis of Chapters 1-3
The book begins with a poem about a golden afternoon spent rowing on a river; the speaker of the poem is
pressed by three girls (Prima, Secunda, and Tertia) to tell them a fantastic story. Each time he tries to take a
break and leave the rest for "next time," the girls insist that it is already "next time"; in this way, the speaker tells
us, the story of Alice's adventures in Wonderland took shape.
Young Alice is sitting by the river bank with her older sister, feeling bored; her sister's book has no pictures or
conversation, and thus holds no interest for Alice. Suddenly, a white rabbit scampers back, proclaims that it is
very late, and pulls a pocket watch out of its waistcoat. Though she initially does not notice the strangeness of a
talking rabbit, when she sees the rabbit's clothes and watch, she becomes very interested. She follows the rabbit,
hopping right down a deep rabbit hole after him, giving no thought of how she plans to get out again.
She seems to fall quite slowly, having time to observe the things around her. There are shelves and maps and
pictures hung on pegs; at one point, she picks up a jar of orange marmalade and puts it back into place on
another shelf. She seems to fall for an interminable amount of time, and begins to worry that she might fall
straight through to the other side of the earth. Although she has no one to talk to, she practices some of the facts
she learned in school: she knows the distance from one end of the earth to the other, and she says some of the
grand words she has heard in her lessons. She worries about missing her cat, Dinah, at dinner. Finally, she
reaches the bottom of the hole. She is in a long hallway, and she is just in time to see the white rabbit hurrying
away.
The hallway is lined with doors, but all of them are locked. On a three-legged table made of glass, Alice finds a
key, but it is far too small for any of the locks. Then, Alice finds a tiny door hidden behind a curtain. The key
works, but the door is far too small. Through the door there is a miniature passageway, leading to a lovely
garden; the sight of the garden makes Alice more determined than ever to find a way to get through. Alice goes
back to the table, where a little bottle has appeared. The label says "DRINK ME," and after checking to see if it
marked "poison," Alice drinks it all. She shrinks to a size small enough for the door, but she soon realizes that
she has left the key on top of the glass table. She is now to short to reach it; seeing her dilemma and fooling
foolish for her mistake, she begins to cry. But she then finds a piece of cake, on which is a little slip of paper that
says "EAT ME." Alice eats, and waits for the results.
Analysis
The poem at the beginning of the book is a reasonably accurate account of how the book came to be. The three
girls in the boat are the Lidell sisters, of whom Alice is the second oldest. Carroll often entertained the girls with
fantastic stories he made up on the spot. On Alice Lidell's insistence, he took one of his longer tales and wrote it
down.
The central theme of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is Alice's struggle to adapt to the rules of this new
world; metaphorically, it is Alice's struggle to adapt to the strange rules and behaviors of adults. The rabbit, with
his watch and his concern for schedules and appointments, is a representative of this adult world. Alice's story
starts when she follows him down the hole.
She is characterized as a bright child who often says or does foolish things; in other words, Alice has much in
common with any child who is trying to behave like someone older than she is. Her blunders come about
because of unfamiliarity rather than stupidity. She is also an unusually conscientious child; note the moment
when she is falling down the hall, and she puts the marmalade carefully back on the shelf for fear that the jar
might kill someone if she were to drop it.
As Carroll sees it, the world of children is a dangerous one. Not knowing the rules, however foolish or arbitrary
those rules may be, is a source of great peril. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is shadowed by hints of death,
and death is a recurring theme of both of Carroll's books. Through the Looking Glass, the second book about
Alice's adventures, is an even darker story; in Through the Looking Glass, reminders of death are inescapable.
But even here, at the start of Alice's adventure, we are reminded of the frailty of humans and of children in
particular. The first hint of mortality comes with Alice's concern about the marmalade jar; her worry shows that
Wonderland is not an escape from all of the limitations of the real world. Death is still a possibility. A moment
later, Carroll treats us to a very macabre joke. When Alice is falling, she takes pride in her composure: "Well!'
thought Alice to herself, after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave
they'll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn't say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!'" (13).
The narrator adds, grimly, "Which was very likely true." The narrator agrees with Alice, but not for the reason
she might think: after falling off a house, the reason why she would not say anything is because she would be
dead. Alice makes another unknowing allusion to her own death when she peers into the tiny door. She realizes
that she cannot even fit her head through the opening, and even if she could, her head "would be of very little
use without my shoulders" (16). She is referring, unknowingly, to her own decapitation. The moment is both an
8

allusion to death and a bit of foreshadowing. At the end of the book, the Queen of Hearts will try her best to
separate Alice's head from her shoulders.
In Alice's treatment of the little drink, we are reminded of the specific perils that face children. Carroll writes:
". . . [F]or she had read several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up be wild beasts
and other unpleasant things, all because they would not remember the simple rules their friends had taught
them" (17-8). The challenge of mastering the "simple rules" is going to be Alice's main struggle in Wonderland,
and this passage hints at some of worst consequences of not knowing the rules. Innocence is closely connected
to ignorance: in this book, it is not an idealized or safe state. While we are charmed by Alice's blunders and
know that she will make it home in the end, Carroll is constantly reminding us of the consequences of not
knowing the rules. Childhood is partially a state of peril, and Carroll names a few of those perils directly: poison
bottles that the child cannot read, falls, burns, wounds from blades that the child is too young to handle (18). Not
least of these dangers is an adult world that baffles and confuses. Alice is trained enough to read the bottle
before she drinks it. She knows the simple rule in this case, and knows well enough to avoid the label "poison."
Her challenge will be to learn more complex rules, reading not only labels but also situations and people as she
makes her way through Wonderland.
Chapter 2: The Pool of Tears
Summary:
As the cake takes effect, Alice finds herself growing larger. This time, she keeps growing until she is the size of
a giant. Now, getting through the door to the garden will be more difficult than ever, and Alice begins to cry
again. The white rabbit comes scurrying down the hall; at the sight of him, Alice dries her tears and tries to talk
to him, but one look at Alice and the rabbit runs away in terror. He leaves behind his fan and his white kid
gloves. Alice begins to wonder how so many strange things could happen to her. Yesterday was a day like any
other, and Alice begins to consider the possibility that she might have changed during the night. If she has
changed, there's no telling who she might be. She wonders if she's been changed into Mabel, a girl who is less
affluent and less bright than Alice: when she tries to recite her lessons and fails, she fears that she must be
Mabel.
Suddenly, Alice realizes that she has put on the rabbit's gloves: if they fit, she must be shrinking again. She soon
learns that the cause is the fan that she is holding, which she drops hastily before she shrinks away completely.
She is now the right size for the door to the garden, but she has left the key, once again, on the glass table. She
soon slips and falls into a vast body of salt water. It is the pool of tears that she cried when she was a giant. She
sees a mouse swimming through the little sea, and tries to talk to him, but she unintentionally offends and
frightens the creature by talking about her cat. The mouse can talk. Alice offends him again by bringing up a dog
that kills rats, and the mouse seems to be swimming away, but when Alice calls out to him and apologizes, the
mouse swims back and tells her to swim to shore with him. He promises to tell her his story, after which she will
understand why he hates and fears cats. They swim towards the shore, and Alice finds herself swimming at the
head of a curious party of animals who have fallen in the water: a Duck, a Dodo, a Lory, an Eaglet, and a few
other animals.
Analysis:
Alice's shifts in size and inquiries into her own identity reflect the difficulties of growing up. Just as children on
the verge of adulthood sometimes find themselves too small for adult privileges while being forced to talk on
the no-fun world of adult responsibilities, Alice finds her body thrown back and forth between two extremes of
size. The abrupt, almost violent physical changes might also suggest the sudden physical changes that come
with the onset of adolescence.
Her inquiries into her own identity parallel a child's search for herself as she grows older. Alice worries that her
identity has been displaced; her fears parallel any child's uncertainty about her place in the world. Note that
Alice loathes the idea of being Mabel not only because Mabel is less bright, but because Mabel is less affluent.
Alice is aware of differences in wealth, but she is still a young child; she sees class only in terms of how many
material objects a little girl is allowed to have.
Chapter 3: A Caucus Race and a Long Tale
Summary:
The animals and Alice make it to the shore, wet and grouchy. The mouse tries to dry them off by telling a dry
story: he recites English history in flat, uninspired prose. At some point, he uses the word "it" without an
antecedent, which causes confusion as the animals argue about what "it" is. The Dodo suggests another method
of getting dry, as everyone seems to be as wet as over. The animals are initially reluctant to follow the Dodo's
advice, as his speech is full of grand words that the other animals don't understand: the Eaglet convinces the
Dodo of not understanding them either.
The Dodo suggests a Caucus Race. Alice and the animals line up and race around in circles, starting and
stopping whenever they please. After a half-hour or so, they are all quite dry. The Dodo declares that they are all
winners. Alice is charged with the responsibility of giving prizes to all of them: all she has is a container of little
candies. She gives them one candy each. For her prize, the Dodo awards her the thimble that was in Alice's
pocket. She thinks it's all totally absurd, but she dares not laugh for fear of offending them.
She asks the mouse to tell his tale, and he begins. But Alice is transfixed by the mouse's tale, and she looks at it
as he speaks. Her impression of the tale is merged with her impression of his tale, and on the page the mouse's
story, in verse, is written in the shape of a mouse's tail. The mouse accuses her of being inattentive, and wanders
9

off in a huff. Alice is quite upset, and admits that she wishes that Dinah were with her. Dinah could fetch the
mouse back so that he might finish his story. The birds ask who Dinah is, and Alice, eager as always to talk
about her cat, talks about Dinah's many talents and virtues as a pet. She mentions that Dinah is quite good at
catching birds, and at this bit of news the birds all begin to leave. Alice feels quite lonely, and begins to cry
again. Soon, she hears the sound of little footsteps coming towards her.
Analysis:
Puns abound. The two meanings of "dry" are played on at the start of the chapter, as the mouse recites from
Havilland Chapmell's Short Course of History. Carroll's taste for puns and the playful side of language is a
constant source of amusement throughout the book. The mouse quotes a passage where the antecedent for the
word "it" is missing (though the meaning is still quite clear), and the result is general confusion among the
animals; this is one of many moments where the creatures of Wonderland create confusion by taking language at
absolute face-value. They allow themselves to be confused by pronouns without antecedents; they also take
figurative language literally, or confuse homonyms. Much of one's ability to understand language comes from
the ability to ignore its inconsistencies and incoherencies: for example, the listener can understand the meaning
of "it" without hearing its antecedent. The creatures of Wonderland are not merely silly: they always have their
own logic, a certain sense and reasoning behind their absurd behavior. Their strange reactions to language point
out the potential pitfalls of English, and their bizarre rules and sensitivities parallel the arbitrary nature of any
culture's customs and habits. Alice's adventures are wonderful training for adapting to the absurd behavior of
adults.
The Caucus Race parodies political process: the participants run around in confused circles, never
accomplishing anything. If we can take Alice as a symbol for the average citizen, we see that the Race does very
little to benefit her. At the end, Alice is forced to give everyone a prize. Although Alice also receives a prize, she
is given something that she already had. More humor comes from the contrast between the animals' sober faces
and Alice's secret conviction that the whole process is absurd.
Carroll puns with the homonyms "tale" and "tale," as the shape of the mouse's tail becomes the shape of the
mouse's printed story. The pun is playful, and Alice's fascination with the animal's tale makes for a charming
moment: the charm of her wandering attention, the shape of the printed words, and the rhyme scheme mask
some of the darkness of the mouse's story. He is talking about being cornered by a dog and forced to go on trial.
The dog (whose name is Fury) wanted to be prosecutor, judge, and jury; he also wanted to condemn the mouse
to death. We never hear the end of the story, as the Mouse, realizing that Alice is paying less than total attention
to the meaning of his words, runs off in a huff.
Alice makes more unknowing allusions to death, this time to the death of others. She wishes her cat Dinah was
there, so that the cat might fetch the mouse back to finish his story. She seems unaware of the fact that this
would mean the mouse's death. And she unthinkingly talks about Dinah's amazing talent for catching birds, not
realizing that this kind of talk will offend all of her new avian friends.
Summary and Analysis of Chapters 4-6
The White Rabbit comes, fretting about his missing things and the wrath of the Dutchess. Alice looks around for
the White Rabbit's gloves and fan, but everything has changed: she sees that hall with its many doors have
disappeared completely. The White Rabbit sees Alice and mistakes him for his maid. When he orders her back
to his home to fetch his gloves and fan, she hurries off without correcting him. In the White Rabbit's house, she
finds a fan and gloves and a tiny bottle, similar to the one she drank from before. There is no sign instructing her
to drink, but she begins to drink anyway. Suddenly, she has grown so large that she can barely fit in the house.
There is no apparent way out. She hears the rabbit outside the house, calling for Mary Ann. The door is blocked,
so the rabbit resolves to go in through the window. Alice, nervous about being caught in her present state
reaches out the window with her hand and makes a grab at the air. She hears a shattering of glass; the rabbit
must have fallen through a cucumber-frame. The rabbit calls for one of his servants, Pat, and demands that the
arm be removed. Alice makes another grab at the air, and this time she hears both animals crash down into a
cucumber-frame.
The animals decide to send Bill, another servant, down the chimney. Alice manages to wedge her foot into the
chimney, and when she hears Bill scuttling down, she gives a good solid kick. Bill goes flying. The animals and
Alice are at a standoff. When she hears them planning to set the house on fire, she calls out that they'd better not.
Before long, the launch a barrowful of little pebbles in through the window, some of which hit Alice in the face.
But after they land, the pebbles turn into little cakes. Alice eats one of them, and it shrinks her down to the size
of the little animals; she runs as fast as she can out of the house and beyond. As she runs away, she sees Bill
(who is a lizard) being supported by two guinea pigs.
She finds herself in a dense forest, and she decides to search for something to restore her to her normal size,
after which she will go and find that lovely garden she saw through the little door (Chapters 1-2). Suddenly,
Alice finds herself face-to-face with a puppy. She starts to play fetch with it, but she soon realizes that at her
present size, the puppy poses a considerable threat. Alice barely manages to escape being trampled.
Wandering through fields of giant flowers and blades of grass, Alice searches for something to eat or drink that
will restore her to her full size. She comes upon a mushroom, on which is sitting a blue caterpillar smoking a
hookah.

10

Analysis
More growing. The story plays again with the definition of "growing up." Alice talks to herself when she is
stuck in the house, and resolves to write a book about her strange adventures when she is grown up, but then
realizes mournfully that she is "grown up" already, in terms of size. In Chapter 2, she made a similar statement
when she berated herself, "a great girl," for crying so much. But Alice's size is juxtaposed to her nave
comments and worries; these moments emphasize that growing up is more than a matter of size.
In fact, many of Alice's victories come when she is small, and being large is often a great hindrance. Against the
puppy, Alice has nothing but her wits to help her against the animal. She manages to escape. And note that in the
house she is impeded by her giant size, and is only able to escape when she shrinks down again. Size doesn't
matter as much as adaptability, and Alice's true "growing up" comes with her adaptation to each new challenge.
A recurring theme is Alice's desire to see the garden. Wonderland is in this way similar to dreams with an
unfulfilled desire. But the garden itself merely structures Alice's journey: after each new adventure, she presses
on toward the garden, but it is the incidents along the way that are making her into a wiser person.
Chapter 5: Advice From a Caterpillar
Summary:
The Caterpillar asks Alice who she is, and she can give no satisfactory reply; she has changed so many times in
one day that she feels she can no longer answer the question with certainty. The Caterpillar tells her it is not so
confusing to change. They have a conversation in which the very mellow Caterpillar gives important advice to
the irritable Alice: she must keep her temper. He asks her to recite "You are old, Father William," which Alice
does, although afterward they agree that she recited incorrectly. He also tells her that she will grow accustomed
to the sensitivity of the animals. Alice expresses a wish to be larger. The Caterpillar contradicts Alice repeatedly,
with absolute composure. After a while he crawls off through the grass, telling her that one side of the
mushroom will make her grow taller, and the other side will make her grow shorter.
Alice is not sure which side is which, so she bites into one morsel. She is suddenly squashed down, her chin
against her feet; she hastily eats the other morsel, and her body elongates tremendously. Her neck becomes so
long that she cannot see her shoulders, and she finds she can use her neck as if she were a serpent. Her head
makes its way through the lives of a tree, and she happens on a Pigeon, who mistakes Alice for a serpent. The
Pigeon fears for her eggs. Alice tries to assure the Pigeon that she is not a serpent, but Alice must answer
truthfully when the Pigeon asks if she has eaten eggs. The Pigeon argues that even if Alice is a little girl, if little
girls eat eggs then they must be a kind of serpent. Alice is silenced by the novel idea. After some more arguing,
the Pigeon shoos Alice off.
Alice eats from each of the mushroom bits, using them to balance each other, until she brings herself to her
normal size. She feels strange to be her correct size again, but she is pleased that one part of her plan is now
complete. She resolves to go find the garden, but she comes across a charming miniature house. Alice wants to
go inside, and she considerately opts not to frighten them with her normal size; she eats mushroom until she is
nine inches high.
Analysis:
The conversation between Alice and the Caterpillar is worth a close look, and makes for an excellent paper
topic. The discussion brings into focus the themes of change and growing up; for the Caterpillar, for whom
dramatic transformation is a natural part of life, change is neither upsetting nor surprising. He is unshakably
calm, with the exception of when Alice complains of being only three inches tall (the Caterpillar is exactly three
inches tall). He also seems to be less belligerent than many of the creatures of Wonderland, even though he
contradicts almost everything Alice says. He is a sage-figure, whose mysterious silences and terse responses
provide a sharp contrast to Alice's exasperation and confused replies. The game in Wonderland is change and
transformation, and the Caterpillar understands the game that Alice is trying to learn how to play.
The poem Alice recites, "You Are Old, Father William," is a parody of "The Old Man's Comforts and How He
Gained Them," by Robert Southey. The poem is in line with the theme of change and growth: a young man asks
his father how he has maintained so many astounding abilities despite his old age.
The Pigeon's classification of little girls as a type of serpent is one of many humorous logical exercises by the
creatures of Wonderland. Remember that Carroll was a mathematician with a love of logic puzzles. The
creatures of Wonderland always have a reason and a method to their nonsense. They are constantly reasoning
their way to absurd conclusions, to the reader's delight and to Alice's confusion.
Chapter 6: Pig and Pepper
Summary:
As Alice looks at the house and tries to decide what to do next, a fish dressed as a footman arrives and knocks
on the door. A frog dressed as a footman answers, and the Fish-Footman delivers an invitation from the Queen
to the Duchess to play croquet. When the two footmen bow, their curls become entangled, and Alice laughs so
hard she has to leave; when she returns the Fish is gone and the Frog-Footman is sitting on the ground. When
Alice goes to knock on the door the Frog-Footman tells her that it's no use. Alice tries to talk with him, but she
finds him quite contrary, and so she goes into the house herself. She's now in the kitchen, where the Duchess is
sitting in the middle of the room, nursing a baby, and the cook is busying herself over a large cauldron of soup.
There is also a cat, sitting on the hearth, grinning widely. The air is full of pepper, and the baby is crying.
Alice asks why the cat is grinning, and the Duchess responds that he grins because he is a Cheshire cat. Alice
tries to talk to the Duchess, but the Duchess is quite rude. The cook begins to throw everything within reach at
11

the Duchess and the baby, and the Duchess takes no notice, even when the objects hit her. Alice is terrified for
the child, but the Duchess tells her to mind her business. Alice answers her smartly. The Duchess begins to
throw the baby into the air, singing a song about beating children, before she finally tosses the baby to Alice and
tells her to nurse the child herself if she likes. The Duchess heads off to get ready for her croquet match. Alice,
concerned for the child's welfare, takes it with her when she leaves the house, but before long the baby has
turned into a pig. She puts it down and it trots away into the woods.
Alice soon runs into the Cheshire cat, whom she asks for directions. He points the way to the Hatter's home, and
to the March Hare's place, but he warns her that they're both mad. He also says that everyone around these parts
is quite mad, including himself and Alice; if she weren't mad, she wouldn't have come. They talk, the Cheshire
cat disappearing and reappearing the whole while. He finally disappears a final time, tail first and grin last. Alice
decides to go the March Hare's place, but she feels a sense of foreboding when she reaches his home. It is
covered with fear and has two great ears. She uses the mushroom to rise her height to two feet, but she still feels
quite anxious as she enters.
Analysis:
Alice shows a considerable amount of composure in this chapter. She never breaks down crying, and she
somehow manages to keep her temper despite the argumentative creatures she meets. The theme of growing up
works its way through this chapter. We meet the Duchess, who almost at first glance tells Alice that she knows
very little (71); Alice is quite displeased by the insult, but she holds her own. A moment later, she shows she is
adapting to Wonderland's logic when she answers the Duchess smartly. The Duchess says pointedly that the
world would go around faster if everyone minded his own business; Alice responds, in Wonderland fashion, that
the world going around faster would not be a good thing. The days would become too short. She literalizes the
figure of speech and wins another little victory.
Some more of the risks of growing up are apparent in the transformation of the little baby. One of the greatest
dangers of making the transition from childhood to adulthood is growing into a disagreeable adult. The child's
transformation into a pig (the pig being a symbol for an unpleasant person) is played on for it's full value as a
metaphor. The Cheshire cat asks also what became of the child; when Alice tells him that the baby turned into a
pig, the cat responds coyly that he thought it would. When the pig trots off into the woods, she thinks of other
children she knows who might make good pigs.
Many characters take their names from old expressions. The Cheshire cat's name comes from the phrase, "to
grin like a Cheshire cat," an expression of uncertain origin. The March Hare is insane; an old phrase is "mad as a
March hare," referring to the animal's wild behavior during mating season. The Hatter's madness makes allusion
to the real-life tendency of hatters to go mad; hatters sometimes went insane because of the poisonous mercury
used to cure felt.
Summary and Analysis of Chapters 7-9
Alice finds the March Hare, the Hatter, and the Dormouse sitting all together at one end of a large table. The
Dormouse sits between the other two, fast asleep. They are disagreeable from the start, and Alice's conversation
with them is confusing even by Wonderland standards. They contradict Alice at every turn, correcting her with
confusing arguments that have their own strange logic. Much of the conversation is about time. The Hatter's
watch, which only tells the day of the month, is broken. The Hatter also tells Alice that Time (which he talks
about as if it were a person) stopped working for him about a month ago, when the Queen of Hearts accused the
Hatter of murdering the time. Since then, it's always been six o'clock, which is why they sit at tea all the time.
All the places at the table are set, because they don't have time to do the dishes. When they want a clean plate,
they just move to another spot.
The Dormouse begins to tell a strange story about three sisters who live in a well; Alice's questions and
contradictions anger the Dormouse, and the Hatter and March Hare grow increasingly rude to her. Finally, Alice
leaves, disgusted, turning around as she goes to see the Hatter and the Hare trying to stuff the Dormouse into a
pot of tea.
Alice wanders in the woods until she finds a tree with a door in it. She goes inside, and finds herself in the long
hallway again. This time, she's prepared: she takes the key from the table and unlocks the door to the garden.
She then eats just enough mushroom to step through the door, and she finds herself in the lovely garden.
Analysis
The Mad Tea party is an important scene, as the logic/illogic of the March Hare, the Hatter, and the Dormouse
reveals some of the peculiarities of language. They are some of the most argumentative of the creatures Alice
meets in Wonderland, and their strange remarks show Carroll's talent for word games and logic puzzles. (The
readers should take a moment to look at some of these important scenes up-close, as analyzing every pun and bit
of mad reasoning would be too time-consuming for this summary. Of particular note are the scenes with the
caterpillar, the Cheshire cat, and the Mad Tea Party.) The illogic of language and the relationship between sense,
nonsense, and words is an important theme of the book. At one point, Alice protests that she says what she
means, or at least, she means what she says. She insists that the two are the same thing. But the creatures
correct, using examples of similar flipped sentences where the meanings are totally different. (Example: "I like
what I get" and "I get what I like.")
Alice is participating in that most adult of activities, a tea party, and she comes up against some of the most
difficult creatures she has ever met. But she generally maintains her composure, holding her own against the
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three tea-takers and managing to anticipate some of their conclusions and rules. She also is smart enough to
leave when she's had enough.
The themes of growing up and learning the rules come up in Alice's triumphant entry into the garden. Unlike the
first time, when she cried and couldn't maintain control of herself, she remains calm and uses her head to get to
the garden.
Chapter 8: The Queen's Croquet Ground
Summary:
Alice enters the garden and finds three gardeners, shaped like playing cards, hurriedly painting the white roses
of a rose tree. Alice asks why they are painting the roses red, and one of the gardeners (the Two) admits to her
that the tree was supposed to be a red rose tree. If the Queen learned about the error, she would cut off their
heads.The procession of the queen arrives. There are a good many soldiers shaped like cards, like the gardeners;
there are also the royal children, various guests, and the white rabbit. Last come the Knave of Hearts and the
King and Queen. The procession stops opposite of Alice, and the Queen demands to know Alice's identity. Alice
politely introduces herself, but she thinks boldly that she has nothing to fear: they are only a pack of cards. Her
replies to the Queen are sassy, and she refuses to be intimidated by the Queen's bluster. The Queen demands to
know the identities of the three gardeners, who have thrown themselves, facedown, onto the ground. She has the
unfortunate gardeners turned over, so that their numbers and suits are revealed, and when she sees the roses she
orders their beheading. The soldiers come forward, and the gardeners run to Alice for protection. Alice secretly
hides them in a large flowerpot.
The soldiers report that the gardeners are gone, and the Queen seems to forget about them. She invites Alice to
play croquet. Alice follows the Queen and talks to the White Rabbit: from him, she learns that the Duchess is
under a sentence of execution. Alice soon learns that croquet in Wonderland is quite difficult. The balls are live
hedgehogs, the mallets are live flamingoes, and the hoops are the card-people, bent over so that their bodies
make arches. No one is waiting their turn, and the Queen is soon in a fury. Alice begins to worry that the
Queen's fury will be turned against her.
The head of the Cheshire cat appears, to Alice's relief. Finally, she has someone civil to talk to. She complains to
him about the quarrelsome players and the difficult game. When the cat asks how she likes the Queen, Alice
admits she doesn't like her much at all. When Alice notices that the Queen is eavesdropping, she smoothly
makes a save and the Queen walks away, satisfied. The king asks whom Alice is talking to, and from the start
the King and Cheshire cat don't get along. The king demands its execution and goes to fetch the executioner
himself. Alice tries to play croquet some more, but finds it hopeless; she returns to find the executioner, the
King, and the Queen arguing, with the Cheshire cat calmly watching. The executioner argues that since the cat is
only a head, he cannot be beheaded. The king argues that anything that has a head can be beheaded. The Queen
threatens to behead everyone if they don't find a solution. They ask Alice to mediate, and Alice recommends that
they fetch the Duchess; it's her cat, after all. By the time the Duchess is brought forth, the cat has vanished.
Analysis:
Alice initially faces the Court of Cards with great confidence; she boldly says to herself that they are only a pack
of cards, and she has nothing to fear. She is much stronger than when she first arrived in Wonderland. Her
confidence comes through when she saves the lives of the three gardeners.
But Alice soon realizes that although the people of the Court are only a pack of cards, their nature does not make
them any less dangerous. The Court of Cards, like people of power in real life, rely on rank and costume for
their status. Carroll turns rank and costume into a game, mocking it; however, he does not deny that ridiculous
people can be frightening or dangerous. Alice begins by thinking she has nothing to fear, but as she spends more
time with the Queen of Hearts she becomes increasingly anxious.
The theme of games, and learning their rules, is central in this chapter. Alice is learning to get along in a social
set of powerful people; Carroll makes this adaptation into a kind of game by turning the court into a deck of
cards. Alice also has to adapt to a very difficult game of croquet. Part of her problem is realizing that no one else
is paying any attention to the rules; sometimes, learning to play means more than learning the rules.
The argument about beheading the Cheshire cat is more fun with nonsense, as the king argues that anything that
has a head can be beheaded and the executioner argues that being beheaded actually requires having a body.
Alice is composed enough to mediate.
The Cheshire cat is one of the few animals in Wonderland who treats Alice with courtesy. He is a figure similar
to the Caterpillar, in that he seems tranquil and unbothered by the confusion of Wonderland. He is unimpressed
by the King's threats, and he easily escapes when his safety is threatened.
Chapter 9: The Mock Turtle's Story
Summary:
The Duchess is strangely civil to Alice; she walks with her and engages her in conversation. Alice finds it quite
unpleasant, as the Duchess keeps digging her sharp chin into Alice's shoulder. The Duchess also talks almost
exclusively in clich morals; she manages find a moral in everything Alice says or notices. They reach the
Queen, who tells the Duchess to run off or lose her head. The Duchess runs. Alice returns nervously to the
croquet game. The Queen keeps shouting "Off with her/his head," and within half an hour, all of the other
players have been taken into custody and put under sentence of execution. Since the Card-Soldiers were acting
as the arches for croquet, there are no arches left. The Queen announces that they shall go find the Mock Turtle
13

(the kind of turtle one uses to make Mock Turtle Soup) so that he can tell Alice his story. As they leave, Alice
hears the King quietly pardon all of the prisoners.
Alice and the Queen come upon the Gryphon, whom the Queen wakes. She orders the animal to take Alice to
the Mock Turtle. The Queen goes back to see after her executions, and the Gryphon assures Alice that they
never really execute anybody. She comes to the Mock Turtle, whose eyes are full of tears. He begins to tell his
story. Once, he was a real turtle. He and the Gryphon digress and talk about the strange school that they went to
at the bottom of the sea. The description is full of puns. Alice's questions irritate the Gryphon and the Turtle,
who are at times quite disagreeable.
Analysis:
The Duchess seems different, but her change in behavior actually reflects how Alice has changed. She is no
longer the intimidating figure who acted imperiously to Alice; she is instead a rather silly woman, full of clich
wisdom that degenerates into nonsense. Alice is now able to see her clearly. The Duchess' tendency to find a
moral in everything satirizes the simplistic moralizing children's literature of Carroll's time; but now, Alice has
grown enough to view the Duchess critically.
Mock Turtle is another game with language. Mock turtle soup is actually made of veal, which is why the
original illustrations for the book show a turtle with a calf's head. The description of the school is full of puns,
with several moment of real cleverness. The Mock Turtle says that the turtle who taught the others was called a
Tortoise; Alice asks why he was called a Tortoise if he was a Turtle. The answer is that he was called a Tortoise
because he taught the others. This joke is actually an illustration of the disconnection between sign and
signified; language, in other words, is arbitrary. Tortoise is an arbitrary sound, and it need not mean the animal.
To the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle, teaching is part of the definition of "Tortoise." The French thinker Derrida
writes about this quality of language, and his work has had a great influence on linguistics and literary theory.
Summary and Analysis of Chapters 10-12
The Mock Turtle and the Gryphon talk with non-stop puns. They talk to Alice about the dances they used to
have: among them was the Lobster Quadrille, a dance that sounds somewhat like a square dance, except
everyone has a lobster for a partner. They demonstrate for Alice, without using the lobsters, and Alice attends
politely but is quite relieved when it's all over. They explain some of the parts of the song, puns raging out of
control, and then they ask Alice to tell them about her story. When she gets to the part about not being able to
recite her lessons correctly, they ask her to recite; as before, the poems come out completely different from how
they were when she memorized them. The Mock Turtle sings a song about Turtle Soup, tears in his eyes the
whole while. He is about to repeat the chorus when they hear someone shouting that the trial is about to begin.
The Gryphon takes Alice by the hand and runs off to watch the trial. As she is dragged off by the Gryphon, she
can hear the Mock Turtle continue his song.
Analysis
The puns are two numerous to go through here; the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle are good characters to
examine if writing a paper on language and wordplay. The sea where they grew up is a place where every
possible pun is exploited.
Alice continues to show how she has grown. When she first arrived in Wonderland, she managed to offend
everyone by talking about how her cat catches and eats certain animals; although she almost mentions that she
has eaten lobster to the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle, she catches herself just in time. She also stops herself
from saying that she has had whiting for dinner. She has learned from her previous mistakes, and so she is able
to keep things civil between her and her peculiar entertainers.
The Mock Turtle is a strange figure. He is always crying, although the Gryphon says confidentially to Alice in
Chapter 9 that the Mock Turtle's sadness is mostly in his own head. But his tears coupled with his song make for
a rather eerie moment. Perhaps his sadness comes from the fact that Mock Turtle is meant to be consumed; in
real life, it only exists as part of the name of a soup, and in Wonderland Mock Turtles only exists to be made
into soup. Remember that the Mock Turtle tearfully told Alice that he was once a real turtle. Though a real turtle
need not be eaten, a Mock Turtle probably knows how he will end up. The Mock Turtle's song is about beautiful
turtle soup, and even as Alice runs off to the trial she can hear his melancholy chorus. The song is yet another
moment that touches on the theme of death.
Chapter 11: Who Stole the Tarts?
Summary:
The King of Hearts is the judge, and the jurors are various animals, some of whom Alice has already met. The
White Rabbit recites the nursery rhyme about the knave of hearts stealing tarts from the Queen of Hearts; this is
the accusation against the defendant.
The first witness is the Hatter. The king threatens the Hatter all through the cross examination, and that Hatter
becomes more and more nervous. During the cross examination, Alice feels herself starting to grow. Also, two
guinea pigs, at different points, make noise and are suppressed. The narrator explains that "suppressed" means
being stuffed into a large sack and then sat upon. Alice is quite glad to witness it, because she had read the word
many times in newspapers and never knew what it meant. The Hatter is excused, and he takes off to go back to
his tea. When he gets outside, the Queen calls for him to be executed, but the Hatter manages to escape.
The Cook is the next witness. She is most uncooperative. The Dormouse pipes up during the Cook's crossexamination, and the queen furiously calls for the Dormouse's suppression, expulsion, beheading, etc.; during
14

the scuffle involved in turning the Dormouse out of court, the cook escapes. The king asks the queen to conduct
the next cross-examination. The White Rabbit calls the next witness: it's Alice.
Analysis:
Carroll's explanation of "suppression" is another amusing moment of wordplay. He takes advantage of the
word's broad range of meanings, as played off against the very specific meaning the word has in the context of
newspaper articles reporting trials. Alice makes the mistake (as children often do) of using a very specific
example of "suppression" as the best definition of a word.
The proceedings of the trial are obviously unjust, and Carroll is lightly satirizing the justice system. It is not a
specific satire of justice as it existed in Victorian England; it can more accurately be read as a satire of some of
the dangers involved in trials. The judge and the ever-present queen are tyrannical; the jurors are simpletons
who barely know their own names. Alice is appalled by the injustice of the proceedings; it is one of the marks of
her basic compassion and her growth as a person that she will refuse to be intimidated or won over by the
workings of this court. The theme of growing up is central here. Note that without eating any mushrooms, Alice
begins to grow. She also barely notices it. Her growth here is a metaphor for gradually growing into an adult.
She entered Wonderland as a tiny version of herself, but she will leave a giant.
Chapter 12:
Summary:
Alice gets up, forgetting how large she has grown; she knocks over the jury box by accident. She puts the box
upright again, and puts all the jurors back into place. The king begins to cross-examine her, bombarding her with
bad logic; but Alice remains completely composed, and is able to point out some of the inconsistencies in what
he says. The White Rabbit presents a completely ambiguous poem, in an unmarked letter that purportedly was
written by the Knave of Hearts. The letter is unsigned, and the characters and objects in the poem are only
referred to in pronoun form. What's more, the situation does not seem to fit the Knave's situation. But the King
and the others interpret the letter as damning evidence against the Knave.
Alice speaks up through the presentation of this evidence. She denies that there is any meaning in the letter, and
she refuses to pipe down. When the Queen calls out for her beheading, Alice declares that she is not afraid; after
all, they are only a pack of cards. Suddenly all the cards rise up and fly into her face . . .
And Alice wakes up, with her head in her older sister's lap. She has been dreaming. She tells her sister about all
of her strange adventures in Wonderland, and then runs into her house to have her tea.
Her sister remains, half-dosing, dreaming herself about Alice's adventures in Wonderland. She also dreams of
Alice in years to come, a grown woman who will retain her childlike goodness and compassion. The adult Alice
will have children of her own, and perhaps she will entertain them with the story of Wonderland.
Analysis:
We see Alice at the trial as one who cannot be intimidated, or even outreasoned. She manages to fight her way
through the king's poor reasoning, and she also stands up against the unjust evidence. She has grown, in all
senses: in size, but also in her capacity for thinking independently. She also has a sense of justice, and she
refuses to tolerate the terrible proceedings of the unjust trial. The letter, with its poem full of pronouns, plays
again with the ambiguity of pronouns. It also satirizes the use of evidence, not only in trials, but in all situations;
as people often do in real life, the people in the trial extrapolate the conclusions they want from evidence that is
far from sufficient.
The dream ends darkly, as the cards rise up and fly into her face. Although Alice is then a giant and perhaps has
little to fear, this moment still hints at some of the difficulties of the world. Alice makes enemies of the Card
Court because she refuses to play their games as they want her to; in a book where Alice learns game after
game, this final game is one where Alice must learn the rules but then subvert them. In refusing to be bound by
the unjust proceedings of the court, she comes into her own as a developed person with a sense of justice and a
capacity for independent thought. The final moment of the dream suggest difficulty, but also Alice's ability to
stand up for herself. When the cards fly in her face, she screams, but Carroll tells us that the scream is half-fear
and half-anger. The attack is frightening, but Alice is prepared to fight back. The waking world continues with
this theme of growth, as Alice's sister imagines Alice in the years to come, a strong adult who retains some of
her child-like innocence and compassion.
ESSAY
Trapped in Wonderland
September 29, 2001
Lewis Carroll's Adventures in Wonderland provides a physical removal from reality by creating a fantastical
world and adventure in the mind of a young girl. In this separation, Carroll is able to bend the rules of the
temporal world. Although this is self-evident in Alice's physical transfigurations, language and conventions
provide additional means to test if a world can defy the rules which are didactically fed to children and become
second nature to adults. Perhaps it might be an inescapable outcome given that Carroll has been educated in a
world that operates within structured set of rules, but the "wonderful dream" seems to be peculiarly similar to
the "dull reality" which Carroll attempts to escape (98). Fantasies seem to be forever bounded by what reality
allows the mind to imagine.
The opening scene provides a possible metaphor for Carroll's artistic endeavor in the face of these constraints:
Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down
and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of the dark hall,
15

and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not get her head
through the doorway (10).
Alice seems quite capable of seeing that a more beautiful world exists beyond the confines of her environment.
By making a distinction that it is her head, the physical location of the mind, which prevents her from
proceeding, Carroll suggests that the mind provides the barrier to entering the Eden-like grounds of pure beauty.
Alice's subsequent struggle to physically transform herself to squeeze within these boundaries mirrors Carroll's
endeavor to gain entry into the unbounded imagination. Adult consciousness becomes comparable to the "rathole" in which Alice finds herself trapped. By grounding the narrative in the eyes and imagination of Alice, who
is just beginning to be inculcated with lessons and physically removing her from the temporal world, Carroll
adjusts the conditions of his adult world to explore if childhood presents the only opportunity or the "key" to the
access the imagination. Yet even as he changes the parameters of the world and the eyes of the beholder, his
endeavor appears doomed to failure; when Alice finally locates the garden, she finds that her conception of
perfection is tainted. As the gardeners paint the red rose-tree white, Carroll's vision of beauty becomes subject to
the same forces that dominate reality.
Alice's youth creates the possibility of viewing an alternate world through eyes not completely corrupted by the
social conventions of reality, but her efforts to retain Victorian manners when her new environment creates no
pressures to do so, suggest how deeply the rules of the world are impressed upon the mind during childhood.
Alice's language is steeped in the artificiality of her world. Her stilted words, "You sh'n't be beheaded," reflect
that the training of her schooling is not even abandoned in a moment of apparent crisis (65). In many instances,
Alice even tries to transfer her conception of proper manners to this new environment. She finds it "decidedly
uncivil" that the Footman looks up at the sky all the time he is speaking (46). She seems to be almost willing to
forgive his rudeness if only he could answer her question, "But what am I to do?" (46). Alice's rejection of the
Footman's response, "Anything you like," represents Alice's willingness to exchange one set of behaviors for
another under the condition that she is told how to behave and act, indicating that it is not the actual manners
that she values but the freedom from deciding what to do (46). It is at this moment that Alice seems to be
rejecting the opportunity for freedom of the imagination and instead opting for the safer boundaries created by
the dictates of reality.
Although Carroll succeeds in altering the content of Alice's new education, her systematic attempt to recall her
schooling further indicates that her mind has become so conditioned to being told how to act and respond to
situations, that it is unable to break out of this trap, even when the possibility presents itself. Just after Alice
recalls, "When I used to read fairy tales, I fancied that this kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in
the middle of one! There ought to be a book written about me," she realizes that "there's no room to grow up any
more here" and concludes that this means that will always "have lessons to learn" (29). The transition of Alice's
thought from fantastic stories directly to lessons and books suggests that her imagination is never able to escape
the confines of a instruction; she believes that as a child it is her duty to be concerned with schooling (29). She
even self-imposes lessons as she "cross[es] her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons and began to
repeat it." (16). Perhaps Alice will achieve grown-up status when she has been so conditioned that the mantras
of the educational systems become immediate responses. It is almost as if in projecting his conception of a
nonsensical world, that the child, simply by being a product of what Carroll despises, namely a world of socially
constructed regulations, forms an obstacle to escaping reality.
Carroll faces a difficulty in allowing his own imagination to escape reality. He creates a mocking parody of the
lessons of Alice's reality in the Mock Turtle's informative speech of the educational material of the Wonderland,
but never is able to transcend the idea that a world must be ruled by instruction. Carroll's new world might study
"Reeling and Writhing" or "Arithmetic-Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision," instead of the
traditional subjects, but inhabitants of Wonderland are still trapped by the process of rote which removes free
thought from the educational experience (76). The rules, as the lessons, are certainly different in this imaginary
place, but only to be replaced by an entire set of new ones. The croquet game epitomizes how Carroll can only
create an alternative reality by constructing a world based upon oppositions to that in which he lives. For
instance, in normal croquet there are distinct rules, whereas, in Wonderland "they don't seem to have any rules in
particular: at least, if there are, nobody attends to them" (67). The new rules consist of disobeying the old ones.
Perhaps fantasy can never escape man's tendency to use his own experience as a starting point to craft change.
In this case, an author's imagination as well as those of his characters will be forever grounded by reality. In
order to examine what a world look like without rules, one must first understand what a world looks like with
rules. Alice's preoccupation with rules materializes in her comment "that's not a regular rule: you [the King]
invented it just now" (93). Thus, even if Carroll changes the rules, Alice remains trapped in her desire to define
them, creating a further obstacle to exploring how an unlegislated land would operate.
All of the characters which Alice encounters simply seem to be replacements of the adults that Alice encounters
in reality, and it is these figure who serve as the teachers of these new lessons and rules. The characters
continually change the rules and use language as a weapon which Alice seems to be continually trying to
understand. The Duchess is contradictory, condescending, and hopelessly pedagogical. As the Mock Turtle
stands on the ledge of a rock to tell his story while Alice sits in front of him, the environment mirrors that of
Alice's classroom in which a teacher positions himself in front to deliver lessosn. Tuttle even adopts a
schoolmasterish tone of voices as he tells Alice, "Really you are very dull." (75). Leach suggests that "[t]hey
behave to her as adults behave to a child-they are peremptory and patronizing" (Leach 92). In creating these
16

characters, Carroll is unable to escape the notion that children require instruction and need adult-like figures to
enforce rules. Carroll's criticizes the tradition educational system by using Wonderland to parody its flaws,
suggesting that even in his mind he finds issues of the imagination and reality inseparable.
The sardonic tone which accompanies Alice's observation of Wonderland's inhabitants and customs, reflects that
Carroll is only too aware of the fact that his dreamland is only a distorted version of reality. Peter Coveney
suggests that the "dream takes on a quality of horror because Carroll "is painfully awake in his own dream"
(Coveney 334). Although Carroll attempts to veil his dissatisfaction with reality in Alice's innocence, he almost
seems to be testing Alice's consciousness of his suffering:
It was all very well to say, "drink me," but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. "No, I'll look
first," she said, "and see whether it's marked 'poison' or not"; for she had read several nice little stories about
children who had got burnt, and eaten by wild beasts, and other unpleasant things, all because the would not
remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold
it too long; if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if
you drink much from a bottle marked "poison," It is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later. (11).
The insinuation of both suicide and self-inflicted pain seems an incongruous reflection for a seven-year-old;
Alice becomes a vehicle through which Carroll reveals his preoccupation with such tortuous thoughts. As Alice
proceeds to drink the bottle that is mysteriously labeled "drink me," Carroll toys with a distorted version of
attempted suicide (11). He is able to guise his attempt in Alice's innocence, revealed in her childlike
recollections of poisoning, which leaves her unaware of the gravity of the consequences of drinking bottle that
might contain poison. It seems quite morbid that Carroll chooses to place Alice in a situation which would cause
her to even contemplate such violent images. Rackin suggests that Carroll's particular genius "depends heavily
on his uncanny ability to enter fully the mind of childhood, to become the child who dreams our adult dreams"
(Rackin 113). Even if Alice can not fully comprehend the suggestions that Carroll plants in her head, the author
appears fully conscious of the consequences of poisoning.
While the incident with the mysterious bottle marks Alice's initiation to Wonderland, Carroll's decision to
culminate his tale of Wonderland in a legal courtroom creates a fitting environment to for his final attempt to use
youthful imagination to escape reality. The narrative even admits "very few girls of her [Alice's] age knew the
meaning of it all," and by placing Alice in the pinnacle of worldly law, he implies that she too, even in her
imagination, is answerable to the rules of reality (86). The courtroom scene seems more of a trial of the
imagination rather than an investigation of the identity of the tart thief. The Queen's directive, "Sentence firstverdict afterwards," (96) reveals Carroll's own feelings of entrapment. He has been sentenced to growing older
and living within the rules of society only to acknowledge that the verdict has always been against the
imagination; his construction of "stuff and nonsense" appears to be precluded by a societal conditioning against
the imagination (97). It seems odd that Alice awakes to declare this as a "wonderful dream," when moments
earlier she is overcome with anger about the injustice of the Queen and King's tyrannical court, potentially
creating a serious indictment of the reality she awakes to. A second possibility is that it is Carroll voice
pronouncing the word "wonderful," wishing just like Alice that he could respond to society's dictates, "Hold
your tongue!"-" I won't" (97) just as Alice had done minutes earlier.
Alice's continued determination to persevere in this world of nonsense, and more specifically, her willingness to
point out its weaknesses might help to explain why Carroll undertakes what he consciously seems to believe to
be an impossible mission- to escape reality. From the outset, Alice is characterized as believably human- she is
rude, impatient, and repeatedly nave in her observations. Yet it is her flaws that allow us to identify with her as
a representative of our own entrapment in reality. Her youth presents an opportunity for the audience and Carroll
to revisit the nave belief that there is an escape to our everyday experience and furthermore, that with a
methodical, logical approach it is possible to understand our environment. Although Alice is frustrated by the
new reality that she encounters and its resistance to her systematic way to comprehend it, in spite of all of her
difficulties she optimistically continues her pursuit of the garden. On her second attempt, she confidently asserts
with the little golden key in hand, "Now, I'll manage better this time" (61). In her search for escape and
understanding, she becomes "the nave champion of the doomed human quest for meaning and lost Edenic
order" (Rackin 96).
Perhaps Carroll is suggesting that in the face of an earthly surface peppered with disappointment, anger, and
frustration, adults must retain the resiliency and unaffected consciousness of Alice. Her ability to awake and
immediately go to tea, "thinking while she ran, as well she might what a wonderful dream it had been" provides
a demonstration of this survival mechanism in operation (98). There seems to be no distinction between her
dreamlike world and her living world; her imagination neatly blends into reality, suggesting that we too must
follow Alice's example of how to deal with nonsense as we transition from Alice's world to our own reality.
Alice's inability to reflect upon Wonderland is what allows her to energetically proceed to her next encounter.
Her retort, "Who cares for you?""You're nothing but a pack of cards!," functions as an immediate dismissal of
unfairness and injustice and brings the issues to a close (97).
If there was indeed a moral of Alice in Wonderland, believing that Carroll is only trying to tell us that we must
all retain our naive innocence in the face of reality, would be to collapse the interpretation of his work into one
of the maxims espoused by the Duchess. Carroll appears to recognize the impossibility of such a quest and
interestingly enough it is one of the Duchess' statements that provides complications to this hypothesized moral:
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'Be what you would seem to be'-or, if you'd like it put it more simply-'Never imagine yourself otherwise that
what is might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had
been would have appeared to them to be otherwise' (72).
The use of the world "imagine" recalls the difficulty of avoiding the reality that childhood cannot be an eternal
state, and despite our attempt to escape the experiences of reality, they will always prevent us from recreating a
state of innocence. The reality is the force that requires us to be true to ourselves; we cannot pretend to be
children and Carroll's suicidal frustrations create consequence enough to avoid this disillusion.
Carroll makes a futile attempt to model Alice's optimistic behavior. Although it is Alice's sister who undertakes
the effort to enter Wonderland, Carroll's narrative voice appears to pervade her thoughts. Carroll acknowledges
that an adult realizes that the dream is based in reality. It is in this way that he creates the relationship between
childhood and the imagination. As discussed earlier, like an adult, a child is unable to imagine life much
different than his current reality, but the difference is the consciousness of these restraints. Unlike Alice, her
elder sister, Lorena, can only "half believe herself in Wonderland," and quickly identifies all of the elements and
sounds of Wonderland as ones originating in her own world (98-99). Alice's Wonderland contains these same
elements, but she is able to explore them without the awareness that each illusion has a mundane real life
parallel; she is unable to see that the Queen's shrill cries is really the voice of the shepherd-boy. It is with a
mixture of nostalgia and bitterness that Carroll guarantees that Alice will someday find herself removed from
these fantasies: "she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys,
remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days" (99). This is the only passage that Carroll truly
believes it is possible to imagine anything removed from his immediate environment, and ironically, this vision
serves as an attack on imagination because it projects the inevitable end of Alice's dreamlike fantasies. As
Lorena falters in her attempt, it appears that childhood presents the opportunity to believe that one has the
freedom to imagine before it becomes evident that the only illusion is that which the child possesses: the belief
the imagination is separate from reality.

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