The first "talkie" of Alice was released in 1931, a film with Ruth Gilbert as Alice that was eclipsed in popularity by Paramount's all-star production of 1933, directed by Norman McLeod. The Paramount Alice in Wonderland features Charlotte Henry as Alice, Gary Cooper as the White Knight, W.C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty, and Cary Grant as the Mock Turtle. In the first film to blend elements of Alice with Through the Looking-Glass, director McLeod remained consistently loyal to Tenniel's visual style. Walt Disney's well-known animated feature Alice in Wonderland was released in 1951, with Kathryn Beaumont as the voice of Alice. Disney used seven songwriters to score this musical adaptation of the Alice books. William Sterling's musical Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972) took the story back to live action. Featuring music by John Barry and lyrics by Don Black, this stunningly colorful production stars such British notables as Dudley Moore and Peter Sellers.
Alice's adventures have also been the subject of numerous films made for television, most notably the BBC's 1966 production directed by Jonathan Miller and, in 1999, a three-hour epic, directed by Nick Willing, with an all-star cast: Robbie Coltrane, Whoopi Goldberg, Ben Kingsley, Miranda Richardson, Martin Short, and Gene Wilder, among others. In 1977 Monty Python's Terry Gilliam made his directorial debut with Jabberwocky , a loose interpretation of Carroll's nonsense poem that showcases an amazingly nasty monster. Dreamchild (1985) details the real-life events of Alice Liddell's trip to America in 1932, the centennial of Lewis Carroll's birth. The film intercuts scenes from the journey with fantastical flashbacks of Alice's childhood spent with Carroll, who is played by Ian Holm.
"WHAT THE TORTOISE SAID TO ACHILLES"
Lewis Carroll published the following short piece, with the title given above, in the April 1895 issue of the journal Mind.
Achilles had overtaken the Tortoise, and had seated himself comfortably on its back.
"So you've got to the end of our race-course?" said the Tortoise. "Even though it does consist of an infinite series of distances? I thought some wiseacre or other had proved that the thing couldn't be done?"
"It can be done," said Achilles. "It has been done! Solvitur ambulando. You see the distances were constantly diminishing; and so--"
"But if they had been constantly increasing?" the Tortoise interrupted. "How then?"
"Then I shouldn't be here," Achilles modestly replied; "and you would have got several times round the world, by this time!"
"You flatter me--flatten, I mean," said the Tortoise; "for you are a heavy weight, and no mistake! Well now, would you like to hear of a race-course, that most people fancy they can get to the end of in two or three steps, while it really consists of an infinite number of distances, each one longer than the previous one?"
"Very much indeed!" said the Grecian warrior, as he drew from his helmet (few Grecian warriors possessed pockets in those days) an enormous note-book and a pencil. "Proceed! And speak slowly, please! Shorthand isn't invented yet!"
"That beautiful First Proposition of Euclid!" the Tortoise murmured dreamily.
"You admire Euclid?"
"Passionately! So far, at least, as one can admire a treatise that won't be published for some centuries to come!"
"Well, now, let's take a little bit of the argument in that First Proposition--just two steps, and the conclusion drawn from them. Kindly enter them in your note-book. And in order to refer to them conveniently, let's call them A, B, and Z:-- (A) Things that are equal to the same are equal to each other.
(B) The two sides of this Triangle are things that are equal to the same.
(Z) The two sides of this Triangle are equal to each other.
Readers of Euclid will grant, I suppose, that Z follows logically from A and B, so that any one who accepts A and B as true, must accept Z as true?"
"Undoubtedly! The youngest child in a High School--as soon as High Schools are invented, which will not be till some two thousand years later--will grant that."
"And if some reader had not yet accepted A and B as true, he might still accept the sequence as a valid one, I suppose?"
"No doubt such a reader might exist. He might say 'I accept as true the Hypothetical Proposition that, if A and B be true, Z must be true; but, I don't accept A and B as true.' Such a reader would do wisely in abandoning Euclid, and taking to football."
"And might there not also be some reader who would say 'I accept A and B as true, but I don't accept the Hypothetical'?"
"Certainly there might. He, also, had better take to football."
"And neither of these readers," the Tortoise continued, "is as yet under any logical necessity to accept Z as true?"
"Quite so," Achilles assented.
"Well, now, I want you to consider me as a reader of the second kind, and to force me, logically, to accept Z as true."
"A tortoise playing football would be--" Achilles was beginning.
"--an anomaly, of course," the Tortoise hastily interrupted. "Don't wander from the point. Let's have Z first, and football afterwards!"
"I'm to force you to accept Z, am I?" Achilles said musingly. "And your present position is that you accept A and B, but you don't accept the Hypothetical--"
"Let's call it C," said the Tortoise.
"--but you don't accept
(C ) If A and B are true, Z must be true."
"That is my present position," said the Tortoise.
"Then I must ask you to accept C."
"I'll do so," said the Tortoise, "as soon as you've entered it in that note-book of yours. What else have you got in it?"
"Only a few memoranda," said Achilles, nervously fluttering the leaves: "a few memoranda of--of the battles in which I have distinguished myself!"
"Plenty of blank leaves, I see!" the Tortoise cheerily remarked. "We shall need them all !" (Achilles shuddered.) "Now write as I dictate:-- (A) Things that are equal to the same are equal to each other.
(B ) The two sides of this Triangle are things that are equal to the same.
(C ) If A and B are true, Z must be true.
(Z ) The two sides of this Triangle are equal to each other."
"You should call it D, not Z," said Achilles. "It comes next to the other three. If you accept A and B and C, you must accept Z."
"And why must I?"
"Because it follows logically from them. If A and B and C are true, Z must be true. You don't dispute that, I imagine?"
"If A and B and C are true, Z must be true," the Tortoise thoughtfully repeated. "That's another Hypothetical, isn't it? And, if I failed to see its truth, I might accept A and B and C, and still not accept Z, mightn't I?"
"You might," the candid hero admitted; "though such obtuseness would certainly be phenomenal. Still, the event is possible. So I must ask you to grant one more Hypothetical."
"Very good. I'm quite willing to grant it, as soon as you've written it down. We will call it
(D) If A and B and C are true, Z must be true.
"Have you entered that in your note-book?"
"I have!" Achilles joyfully exclaimed, as he ran the pencil into its sheath. "And at last we've got to the end of this ideal race-course! Now that you accept A and B and C and D, of course you accept Z ."
"Do I?" said the Tortoise innocently. "Let's make that quite clear. I accept A and B and C and D. Suppose I still refused to accept Z ?"
"Then Logic would force you to do it!" Achilles triumphantly replied. "Logic would tell you, 'You can't help yourself. Now that you've accepted A and B and C and D, you must accept Z !' So you've no choice, you see."
"Whatever Logic is good enough to tell me is worth writing down," said the Tortoise. "So enter it in your book, please. We will call it
(E ) If A and B and C and D are true, Z must be true.
Until I've granted that, of course I needn't grant Z . So it's quite a necessary step, you see?"
"I see," said Achilles; and there was a touch of sadness in his tone.
Here the narrator, having pressing business at the Bank, w
as obliged to leave the happy pair, and did not again pass the spot until some months afterwards. When he did so, Achilles was still seated on the back of the much-enduring Tortoise, and was writing in his note-book, which appeared to be nearly full. The Tortoise was saying, "Have you got that last step written down? Unless I've lost count, that makes a thousand and one. There are several millions more to come. And would you mind, as a personal favour, considering what a lot of instruction this colloquy of ours will provide for the Logicians of the Nineteenth Century--would you mind adopting a pun that my cousin the Mock-Turtle will then make, and allowing yourself to be re-named Taught-Us ?"
"As you please!" replied the weary warrior, in the hollow tones of despair, as he buried his face in his hands. "Provided that you, for your part, will adopt a pun the Mock Turtle never made, and allow yourself to be re-named A Kill-Ease! "
This dialogue, restoring the beloved Tortoise and the Mock Turtle, has inspired mathematicians for generations, among them Douglas R. Hofstadter. In his book Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (1979), he intersperses among his chapters further colloquies between the Tortoise and Achilles. In this way, Hofstadter introduces complex geometrical puzzles through the allegorical Carrollian heroes. Godel, Escher, Bach received a Pulitzer Prize in 1980.
Comments & Questions
In this section, we aim to provide the reader with an array of perspectives on the text, as well as questions that challenge those perspectives. The commentary has been culled from sources as diverse as reviews contemporaneous with the works, letters written by the author, literary criticism of later generations, and appreciations written throughout the works' history. Following the commentary, a series of questions seeks to filter Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass through a variety of points of view and bring about a richer understanding of these enduring works.
LEWIS CARROLL
A Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry
'Twas bryllyg, and ye slythy toves
Did gyre and gymble in ye wabe:
All mimsy were ye borogoves;
And ye mome raths outgrabe.
The meanings of the words are as follows:
Bryllyg (derived from the verb to bryl or broil). "The time of broiling dinner, i.e. the close of the afternoon."
Slythy (compounded of slimy and lithe). "Smooth and active."
Tove A species of Badger. They had smooth white hair, long hind legs, and short horns like a stag. Lived chiefly on cheese.
Gyre Verb (derived from gyaour or giaour, "a dog"). "To scratch like a dog."
Gymble (whence gimblet ). "To screw out holes in anything."
Wabe (derived from the verb to swab or soak). "The side of hill" (from its being soaked by the rain).
Mimsy (whence mimserable and miserable). "Unhappy."
Borogove An extinct kind of Parrot. They had no wings, beaks turned up, and made their nests under sun-dials; lived on veal.
Mome (hence solemome, solemone, and solemn). "Grave."
Rath A species of land turtle. Head erect: mouth like a shark: the front forelegs curved out so that the ani mal walked on its knees: smooth green body: lived on swallows and oysters.
Outgrabe Past tense of the verb to outgribe (it is connected with the old verb to grike or shrike, from which are derived "shriek" and "creak"). "Squeaked."
Hence the literal English of the passage is:
"It was evening, and the smooth active badgers were scratching and boring holes in the hill-side; all unhappy were the parrots, and the grave turtles squeaked out."
There were probably sun-dials on the top of the hill, and the "borogoves" were afraid that their nests would be undermined. The hill was probably full of the nests of "raths," which ran out, squeaking with fear, on hearing the "toves" scratching outside. This is an obscure, but yet deeply affecting, relic of ancient Poetry.
--from Mischmasch, one of Carroll's
private periodicals (1855)
THE NEW YORK TIMES
The time may come when Lewis Carroll's name will be forgotten, but the tale of "Alice in Wonderland" is immortal. Few persons have ever heard of Perrault, and yet everybody knows "Little Red Riding Hood." The qualities which were necessary to write the adventures of these little heroines are, in a measure, analogous to those which the composition of an epic poem exacts. The authors had to be artists, and their minds were complex, but they reinstated themselves into the naivete, the charming simplicity of childhood. Perrault had a foundation in folk lore, but Carroll had to add a new fable to those that nations have told for ages. He was a man of genius when he created Alice.
--October 9, 1893
ISA BOWMAN
To have even known such a man as he was is an inestimable boon. To have been with him for so long as a child, to have known so intimately the man who above all others has understood childhood, is indeed a memory on which to look back with thanksgiving and with tears.
Now that I am no longer "his little girl," now that he is dead and my life is so different from the quiet life he led, I can yet feel the old charm, I can still be glad that he has kissed me and that we were friends. Little girl and grave professor! it is a strange combination. Grave professor and little girl! how curious it sounds! yet strange and curious as it may seem, it was so.
--from The Story of Lewis Carroll (1899)
THE NEW YORK TIMES
It is not to speak hyperbolically, in the circumstances, to say that "Through the Looking-Glass" is a book of all time. It is as fresh and charming to-day as it was thirty odd years ago.
--November 8, 1902
ALICE LIDDELL HARGREAVES
Nearly all of Alice's Adventures Underground was told on that blazing summer afternoon with the heat haze shimmering over the meadows where the party landed to shelter for awhile in the shadow cast by the haycocks near Godstow. I think the stories [Carroll] told us that afternoon must have been better than usual, because I have such a distinct recollection of the expedition, and also, on the next day I started to pester him to write down the story for me, which I had never done before.
--Cornhill Magazine ( July 1932)
W. H. AUDEN
I have always thought one might learn much about the cultural history of a country by going through the speeches made by its public men over a certain period, in legislatures, in law courts, and at official banquets, and making a list of the books quoted from without attribution. So far as Great Britain is concerned, I strongly suspect that, for the past fifty years, the two Alice books and The Hunting of the Snark have headed it.
--The New York Times Magazine (July 1, 1962)
QUESTIONS
1. What do the denizens of Wonderland have in common?
2. Is Wonderland a place of adventure, romance, or escapism? A daydream? Or an oblique collision with reality?
3. Is there satire in the Alice books? If so, what is its target?
4. In the Alice books there is no direct treatment of such serious matters as how to make a living, the vicissitudes of love, marriage, raising children, and the like. Instead there are impossible situations, absurd characters, animals who talk. But is there, amid the fun, some comment on a serious aspect of human life? If so, what is it?
5. Does Alice herself have any character, any signs of an inner life, or is she just a device to stand in contrast to the others, to be a foil for them?
For Further Reading
BOOKS BY LEWIS CARROLL
Carroll, Lewis. Alice in Wonderland. Edited by Donald J. Gray. Second edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 1992. Includes Through the Looking-Glass and The Hunting of the Snark, as well as critical essays.
Carroll, Lewis. Diversions and Digressions of Lewis Carroll. Edited by Stuart Dodgson Collingwood. New York: Dover, 1961. A selection from Lewis Carroll's unpublished writings and drawings.
Carroll, Lewis. Symbolic Logic and the Game of Logic. New York: Dover, 1958.
BIOGRAPHICAL
Gordon, Colin. Beyond t
he Looking-Glass: Reflections of Alice and her Family. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982.
Cohen, Morton N. Lewis Carroll: A Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.
----. Reflections in a Looking-Glass: A Centennial Celebration of Lewis Carroll, Photographer. New York: Aperture, 1998.
Hudson, Derek. Lewis Carroll: An Illustrated Biography. London: Constable, 1976.
Wood, James Playsted. The Snark Was a Boojum: A Life of Lewis Carroll. New York: Pantheon Books, 1966.
CRITICISM
Bloom, Harold, ed. Lewis Carroll. Modern Critical Views series. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.
Gardner, Martin. The Annotated Alice. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1960.
Gardner, Martin. More Annotated Alice. New York: Random House, 1990.
Phillips, Robert. Aspects of Alice. New York: Vanguard Press, 1971.
OTHER WORKS OF INTEREST
Deleuze, Gilles. The Logic of Sense. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.
Sewell, Elizabeth. The Field of Nonsense. London: Chatto and Windus, 1952.
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