The March Hare Revealed: The March Hare is something of a country squire. He has a strong ego, and his house has been to built in his own image (complete with ears!). He distrusts the nobility of Wonderland, and is quick to look down on outsiders (especially the urbane and well-to-do Alice, quite out of her element).
A Portrayal of the Hatter: The Hatter is frequently misunderstood. In many theatrical releases, he is portrayed as a flitting, neurotic character. Carroll, however, seems to have intended the Hatter as a casual rustic man. For example, in a letter regarding the stage portrayal of Alice, he wrote, “… My second small request is that the Hatter may drawl, not hesitate, with long pauses between the words, as if half-asleep.” The character then is not wild and frenetic, but rather slow and dreamy. Our impressions of the Hatter are probably informed more by Tenniel’s illustrations than by Carroll’s own wishes!
The Truth About Dormice: Real-life dormice are often sleepy, because they are nocturnal and hibernate in winter. When we consider the nature of the Mad Tea-Party, in which Father Time has caused an endless loop of daylight that might be in either March or May (or both at once!), we can easily see why the Dormouse is having difficulties with waking.
“Like a Tea Tray in the Sky”: This line of the Hatter’s improvisation refers to an amusing incident which happened in Carroll’s rooms. Helmut Gernsheim, in his excellent book Lewis Carroll: Photographer, tells the story this way: “At Christ Church the usually staid don relaxed in the company of little visitors to his large suite of rooms—a veritable children's paradise. There was a wonderful array of dolls and toys, a distorting mirror, a clockwork bear, and a flying bat made by him. This latter was the cause of much embarrassment when, on a hot summer afternoon, after circling the room several times, it suddenly flew out of the window and landed on a tea-tray which a college servant was just carrying across Tom Quad. Startled by this strange apparition, he dropped the tray with a great clatter.”
The Dormouse’s Story: As part of her dream, the Dormouse may well be drawing information for stories out of Alice’s mind. The three sisters, of course, are Lorina (Lorina Charlotte, or L.C., or Elsie), Alice (an anagram for Lacie), and Edith (Tillie, short for Matilda, which was Edith’s nickname).
The Treacle Well: The medicinal, or treacle well, exists at Saint Margaret’s Church, Binsey. This locale (quite close to Christ Church and the “Wonderland” region of Godstow) was frequented in medieval times by those who hoped to heal themselves with pure mineral waters. Alice certainly knew of the place, and was probably taken there by Carroll.
The Garden of Cool Fountains: This reference may be to the Christ Church Cathedral Garden, adjoining the Dean’s Garden. The Liddell girls were not allowed to enter the Cathedral Garden, but they could see it from their nursery window and always wondered about it. Without doubt, they were intrigued by the “forbidden” beauty of the place and may have wondered what occurred on the grounds!
Chapter VIII
The Red and White Roses: These seemingly innocuous flowers represent the War of the Roses (white for the House of York, and red for the House of Lancaster) in English history. As the red rose is the flower of the Queen of Hearts, we can assume that the white rose is the symbol of some rival lineage of royalty in Wonderland. No wonder the gardeners are nervous about being seen by the Queen before they can change the roses’ color!
Tulips of Madness: The passing reference to tulips as flowers of Wonderland is interesting, since tulips are sometimes regarded as symbols of passionate madness. In the early 1600s, the tulipomania took place: A wild surge in tulip buying and speculating that caused bulbs to fetch outrageous prices. When the bubble finally burst in 1637, the result was one of the first and most ridiculous market crashes (which certainly afflicted royalty). Such an insanity-inducing flower is quite appropriate for the garden of the Queen of Hearts!
Five and Seven Said Nothing, but Looked at Two: This is one of Carroll’s hints that an unspoken hierarchy exists among the numbered cards, with ten being the tenth in precedence (and least important), and the Ace being the most senior. In this case, Five and Seven are deferring to their superior to answer Alice. This subtle hierarchy is further supported when we see that the executioner—the most important of all the solders—is the Ace of Clubs.
The Queen, the King and the Knave: These characters are caricatures of iconic royalty. The Queen is imperious and tyrannical, the King is doddering and self-important, and the Knave is a drunken rogue.
The Hierarchy of the Cards: As in the classic card game of Hearts, the Hearts are the ruling suit of Wonderland. Beneath them are the courtiers (the aristocracy, dressed in Diamonds), soldiers (the warrior class, wielding maces, or Clubs) and gardeners (the working class, toiling with Spades). The other Hearts are the royal children of the King and Queen. The nature of the Knave of Hearts is not stated, but we can assume that he is a roguish brother, cousin or nephew of the Queen.
The Courtiers: As mentioned, the courtiers following the Queen of Hearts represent the suit of Diamonds in the card deck. They are scarcely mentioned, but if they are in good graces with the Queen of Hearts and willing to let their own rule be overrun by hers, they are probably fawning sycophants who are quite comfortable in their “high, yet not quite mighty” position of favor. This might be the royal lineage that has the white rose as its symbol.
“I See!”: The Queen here believes that the gardeners are traitors. In changing the color of the roses from white to red, she believes they are trying to hide their allegiance to whichever other royal power in Wonderland has the white rose as his or her symbol. (Possible suspects, as we have seen, include the Kings and Queens of Clubs, Spades and especially the Diamonds.)
“Off With Their Heads!”: The Queen of Hearts may be a parody of Queen “Bloody” Mary. It is also possible that she is from the line of William the Conqueror, who the Mouse was quite fascinated with. It is said that William introduced the grim practice of beheading to England. Of course, the Queen’s fascination with beheadings might also be a reference to English postage stamps, which of course feature Queen Victoria’s disembodied head in profile!
The White Rabbit Peeped Anxiously into Alice’s Face: The White Rabbit is nearly blind, and does not recognize Alice at all. (We will also remember that he mistook her for Mary Ann, and almost walked into her despite her huge size in the Hall of Doors.) Here, the Rabbit is erring on the side of caution. He sees that Alice has been accepted by the Kings and Queens, and so he might suspect that she is a Princess from another land. Perhaps he might be thinking of the Red and White Queens of Looking-Glass Land, just over the hedge.
“Did You Say, ‘What a Pity?’”: Following Carroll’s later descriptions of his characters, we know that the White Rabbit is not only elderly and nearly blind, but also hard of hearing as well!
The Absurdity of Croquet: The Liddell sisters loved the game of croquet, and often played in the Deanery garden. It’s quite possible that the rules confused them and—like most children—they simply devised new and more entertaining rules as they went along. Carroll himself, recognizing the deceptive complexity of the game, invented his own extremely convoluted variant called “Castle Croquet.” While the Queen of Hearts would have found it delightful, we can only hope that Carroll did not subject the Liddell children too much to his creation!
The Poor Flamingoes and Hedgehogs: Although it is never said outright, there is (as mentioned prior) a strict hierarchy of power in Wonderland. The Queen of Hearts rules over all, while the cards of the other suits (Diamonds, Clubs and Spades) do her bidding. Sentient animals, such as the White Rabbit, are her servants. (Others, such as the Cheshire-Cat, are regarded as rebels or outsiders.) There are few animals in Wonderland who cannot speak, but the flamingoes and hedgehogs certainly fall in this category. As we can see, they are treated as little more than objects of cruel amusement. All of this is consistently implied, but Carroll probably felt it was far too deep and depressing for a story of children’s fantasy!
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“A Cat May Look at a King”: Alice is quoting an old saying which dates back several centuries. In other words, animals need not show respect for royalty, because royalty is a strictly human condition. The implications of this toward the improper rulership of Wonderland, in which human-like cards control a kingdom populated mostly by sentient beasts, are probably quite ominous to the King of Hearts!
Chapter IX
“How Glad I Am to See You”: The Duchess at this point has just been freed from prison, and perhaps a sentence of execution as well. Observing that Alice has gained some degree of favor with the Queen of Hearts, the mercenary duchess (despite her previous cruelties) instantly allies with Alice to further her own survival.
“And the Moral of That Is…”: The Duchess’s incessant and inappropriate moralizing reminds us of Carroll’s own mockery of other Victorian children’s stories. Many of these stories made a point of “teaching” the child reader, as opposed to simply telling a delightful story. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, on the other hand, is mischievous and subversive (which may well be the secret of its appeal!). Carroll’s early poem entitled “My Fairy” (with its moral: “You mustn’t”) explored this theme as well.
Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral?: This is one of the first questions routinely asked in the parlor game which is known to us now as “Twenty Questions.”
A Brief History of Mock Turtle Soup: In Victorian times, turtle soup was an expensive delicacy. The middle class—following the “noble” recipe in all other particulars—substituted veal for the meat of the green sea turtle. The resulting dish was called mock turtle soup. Seeing an absurdity he could not resist making fun of, Carroll decided that such meat came from Mock Turtles, complete with calves’ heads! (Of course, this makes the Mock Turtle a symbol of the upward middle class and its students, just as his friend the Gryphon represents the upper class students of Oxford.)
The Gryphon and the Mock Turtle: These two characters are affectionate parodies of students who never made anything of themselves after leaving college. The Gryphon sleeps all day and has poor grammar. The Mock Turtle, in a far worse state, feels exceedingly sorry for himself and laments not only the things he did, but also the things he never got around to doing. They are an interesting pair because they are both hybrid creatures, made up of mixtures of animal parts that are purely fantastical in nature. Perhaps they have no future because they can only exist in the impossibility of Wonderland.
The Gryphon of the Underwater School: The coat of arms for Trinity College, Oxford, features a gryphon prominently. As such, the Gryphon of Wonderland could be seen as the heraldic symbol of the Underwater School. It may be that Carroll was poking fun at students who pride themselves on representing the school and its history, yet care little for their own studies.
The Origin of the Mock Turtle?: There is an entry in Carroll’s diary for May 9, 1861 which may have served as a partial inspiration for the overly earnest Mock Turtle: “… The former gave an amusing account of having seen Oliver Wendell Holmes in a fishmonger’s, lecturing extempore on the head of a freshly killed turtle, whose eyes and jaws still showed muscular action: the lecture of course being all ‘cram,’ but accepted as sober earnest by the mob outside.”
Reeling, Writhing…: The courses taught in the Underwater School are idle puns on the lessons taught in every school (“Reeling” instead of “reading,” “Writhing” instead of “writing” and so forth). To children such as Alice, of course, such lessons could easily be regarding as nonsense!
The Nature of the Conger Eel: From the description of the artistic courses provided (“Drawling” instead of “drawing,” “Stretching” instead of “sketching,” and “Fainting in Coils” instead of “painting in oils”), we know that the Conger Eel is probably a caricature of the Liddells’ tutor of the arts, John Ruskin. Ruskin was quite the famous (and eccentric!) artist of the age. When Carroll first met Ruskin, however, he was not impressed. He wrote on October 27, 1857, “At Common Room breakfast met, for the first time, John Ruskin. I had a little conversation with him, but not enough to bring out anything characteristic or striking in him. His appearance was rather disappointing—a general feebleness of expression, with no commanding air, or any external signs of deep thought, as one would have expected to see in such a man.” It is interesting to think that this bland impression may have immortalized Ruskin as an eel with a fixed expression!
The Old Crab: As hinted earlier, the particular crabby classics master in question is none other than Henry Liddell, Dean of Christ Church and Alice’s father. He is probably related by marriage to the old female Crab which Alice met at the Pool of Tears!
Chapter X
The Challenge of the Quadrille: The quadrille is an exacting formal dance, in which pairs move in such a way that figures are formed by the relative positions of other couples. (The closest American equivalent would be square dancing.) A variant called the Lancer’s Quadrille was all the rage in Carroll’s time, and so the Lobster Quadrille is a mockery of that intricate dance’s grave importance to high society.
The Lobsters at the Dance: English soldiers in the 1700s and 1800s were known as redcoats, due to their scarlet uniforms. In Victorian times, English officers (of the Lancers particularly) were known as excellent dancers. Most likely, this is due to the stately and measured forms of court dance, and the similarity of such dances to parade maneuvers. The Lobsters of Wonderland would be an obvious representation (to Victorian readers) of British ballroom officers parading about in preening self-obsession.
The Ridiculousness of Dancing: This episode may be a parody of Alice’s dancing skill, and Carroll’s lack of same. Carroll once wrote in a letter, “I never dance, unless I am allowed to do it in my own peculiar way. There is no use trying to describe it: it has to be seen to be believed. The last house I tried it in, the floor fell through ... Did you ever see a rhinoceros and hippopotamus ... trying to dance a minuet together?”
“The Further Off from England …”: These lines of the song refer to the English Channel. Since Wonderland exists underground in the subterranean reaches of Oxfordshire, we can speculate that the seas of Wonderland are quite similar to those of England. (As we shall see in the later “Alice” stories, however, it is likely that the Isle of the Jabberwock lies to the west of Looking-Glass Land and Wonderland, not to the east!)
Blacking and Whiting: Carroll here is making a mild pair of jokes. A whiting is a common food fish in England, often served in fish and chips. Blacking is the sooty substance that is used to cover scuffs on black boots. Under the sea, where everything is done differently, whiting “does the boots and shoes” instead of blacking. Since whiting is also a fish, it “logically” follows that the whiting (fish) are servants who work as boot shiners for the Underwater School. Confusing? But of course!
Chapter XI
A Caricature of Justice: After Carroll had completed the writing of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, he added more intricate scenes for publication, including the now-famous trial for the tarts. On March 5, 1863 (after Under Ground had been completed), Carroll published a parody entitled “The Majesty of Justice.” This poem includes the lines: “They say that justice is a Queen / A Queen of awful Majesty.” It is likely that this line of thought led to the elaboration of the trial scene as it appears in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
The Nervous Hatter: The Hatter is nervous because he does not want the Queen of Hearts to recognize him. In March, he had sung poorly at the Queen’s royal concert, and thus received a sentence of execution. He is relying on the Queen’s lack of reason and memory to ensure his own survival, but with every passing minute the danger of her recognition grows more dire!
Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Sixteenth: A casual reading seems to indicate that the March Hare and Dormouse are simply wrong, and are trying to cast doubt on the Hatter to save their own skins. Actually, however, it is quite possible that they are all correct from their own points of view, since they were trapped in the M
ad Tea-Party by Father Time and Hatter’s watch had broken. Any of these dates would then be correct, because their actions were continuously repeating.
Alice Growing on Her Own: Quite literally, Alice is growing up on her own as she sits in the court. As her conviction that the cards’ entreaties are nonsense grows stronger, she gains confidence, courage and control over her dreams. She no longer needs food or drink (elements of the illusion) to change her size; in defying the adult characters of the stories, she is growing up regardless!
The Art of Suppression: Carroll here is having a bit of fun with the Latin roots of the English language. “Suppress” comes from the Latin “suppressus,” which means literally “to press down upon.”
Chapter XII
Alice’s Evidence: Carroll’s nonsense poem, “She’s All My Fancy Painted Him,” is a breezy parody of idle gossip about others’ affairs. Its appearance here as evidence highlights the absurd nature of hearsay, opinion and irrelevant discourse in a court of law. All of which, of course, serve to enhance the madness and unquestionable power of the King and Queen of Hearts!
Being Made Entirely of Cardboard: Carroll here is telling us that the Knave of Hearts is, indeed, an overgrown playing card. Of course this is completely at odds with Tenniel’s illustrations, where the “face” cards are shown as purely anthropomorphic figures wearing the regalia of card symbols. This confusion stems from Carroll’s own original illustrations of the royal card figures, which are found in Alice’s Adventures Under Ground.
Aftermath in Wonderland: There is one very curious question which is never resolved by Carroll’s narrative: What happens to Wonderland after Alice’s departure, as she vanishes into thin air, leaving chaos in her wake? We can never know for certain, but it is unlikely that the Queen of Hearts would have retained her power after being so blatantly thwarted by a mere child. There are the four royal lineages in Wonderland (Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs and Spades), and Alice’s disruption “shuffles the deck,” so that any of the other families might reign supreme thereafter.
The Complete Alice in Wonderland (Wonderland Imprints Master Editions) Page 12