Alice in

Wonderland
Study Guide by Course Hero

with a limited point of view that focuses on Alice and her

What's Inside adventures.

TENSE
j Book Basics ................................................................................................. 1 Alice in Wonderland is told in the past tense.

d In Context ..................................................................................................... 1 ABOUT THE TITLE

The main character is named Alice, and the story follows her
a Author Biography ..................................................................................... 2 adventures in a fantasy world called Wonderland.

h Characters .................................................................................................. 3

k Plot Summary ............................................................................................. 7

d In Context
c Chapter Summaries ............................................................................... 11

g Quotes ......................................................................................................... 17
Who Was Alice?
l Symbols ...................................................................................................... 18
The original Alice was a real girl, Alice Liddell, whose large
m Themes ....................................................................................................... 19
family lived near Charles Dodgson (the real name of author
b Motifs and Literary Devices .............................................................. 21 Lewis Carroll) in Oxford, England. On a July day in 1862,
Dodgson took Alice Liddell and two of her sisters rowing along
e Suggested Reading .............................................................................. 22 the Isis River. When the three girls asked for a story, he made
one up on the spot, about a little girl who had amazing
adventures when she jumped down a rabbit hole.

j Book Basics Alice Liddell asked Dodgson to write down the story, and in
1864 he presented her with a handwritten, hand-illustrated
manuscript that he called Alice's Adventures Under Ground. In
AUTHOR
1865 Macmillan published the story as Alice's Adventures in
Lewis Carroll
Wonderland, with illustrations by John Tenniel. Dodgson used
YEAR PUBLISHED the pen name Lewis Carroll, which he derived from the Latin
1865 for his first and middle names: Carolus (the Latin form of the
name Charles) and Ludovicus (the Latin form of the name
GENRE Lutwidge). Though it was not a critical favorite, the book was
Fantasy an immediate popular success, as was its sequel, Through the
Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1871). These two
PERSPECTIVE AND NARRATOR
books have been translated into 174 languages.
Alice in Wonderland is told in the third person by a narrator
Alice in Wonderland Study Guide
Who Was Lewis Carroll?
Dodgson was a complex man. A mathematics lecturer at Christ
Church (one of the 38 colleges at the University of Oxford), he
was also an Anglican clergyman, a skilled amateur
photographer, an inventor, a games creator, and a talented
writer who was especially fond of wordplay. He was also a
prolific correspondent, writing and receiving almost 100,000
letters.
Trends in Victorian Children's
Books
Until the mid-18th century, British books for children tended to
be instructive. (One 18th-century picture book contains the
edifying verse "The naughty Boy that steals the Pears / Is
whipt as well as he that swears.") However, the second half of
that century saw huge growth in books meant to entertain, and
by the 19th century the children's publishing industry was
flourishing.
Part of the entertainment in Alice in Wonderland is in Carroll's
strong use of parody. Almost all the verses and songs that
Alice recites or that other characters sing are based on actual
verses and songs that all readers of the time would have
known. But Carroll very deliberately subverts the original texts'
meanings, turning the solemn morals into very funny nonsense.
Alice in Wonderland was innovative in many ways:
Alice is presented as her own person, rather than as a
generic child in need of instruction. She's on her own,
without any adults to please. She is not afraid to challenge
authority figures, such as the Queen of Hearts.
Although Alice is polite to everyone she meets, how well she
behaves is not important to the story. She is neither
punished for bad behavior nor rewarded for good.
Children's education is a topic of fun. Textbooks are
parodied, characters give nonsensical explanations for
things, and the common lessons taught in the schoolroom
are useless to Alice in Wonderland.
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Author Biography 2
Three Real-World Trends That
Shaped Wonderland
1. Nonsense literature became increasingly popular in the 19th
century. Some characteristics of this genre:
The plot is linear, but the characters and action are
bizarre, making it a challenge to discern the author's
message (if there is one).
Animals often take on human roles.
Jokes, riddles, puns, and other wordplay appear often.
Logic is inverted; ordinary actions have extraordinary
consequences.
2. There was increasing social awareness about mental illness
and a move toward better understanding of the mentally ill.
Although Alice's adventures have a hallucinatory quality,
she herself is presented as an exceedingly sane and
sensible child.
The "mad" or "disturbed" creatures in the book (the White
Rabbit, the Hatter, the March Hare, and the Cheshire
Cat) are described sympathetically. They may say funny
things, but the author is not making fun of them.
3. The 19th century saw tremendous progress in mathematics
and the natural sciences.
Dodgson, a conservative, found many new mathematical
theories silly and may have ridiculed them in the Alice
books.
The study of natural history by both professionals and
amateurs brought new attention to plants and animals.
Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, published in
1859, introduced the concept of evolution. Note the pool
of tears out of which the Dodo and other animals emerge
in Alice in Wonderland.
Some books reflect society; some influence it. Alice in
Wonderland did both.
a Author Biography
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who used the pen name Lewis
Carroll, was born on January 27, 1832, in Cheshire, England.
His father was an Anglo-Catholic clergyman with conservative
views on religion. Dodgson was taught at home until age 12,
when he was sent to Rugby School. He was deaf in one ear
and troubled with a stammer, and older Rugby boys made life
Alice in Wonderland Study Guide Characters 3

miserable for him. Nevertheless, he did very well academically returning to her own world.
and was admitted to Christ Church college at Oxford
University.

Dodgson excelled at mathematics and won the highest

White Rabbit
mathematics honors of anyone in his class. He graduated in
At the beginning of the book, the White Rabbit races past Alice
1854, was assigned a mathematical lectureship in 1855, and
on his hind legs, checking his pocket watch and muttering
wrote several books on mathematics between 1879 and 1888.
anxiously. Alice chases him down a rabbit hole and finds
Although his religious views were not nearly as fixed as those
herself in Wonderland. Readers never learn much about the
of his father, Dodgson became a deacon in the Church of
White Rabbit, but because he's the first Wonderland creature
England. Like many Victorians, he was interested in "psychical
readers meet, and because he reappears occasionally, he's an
research" (paranormal research) and mind reading. He was
important character.
also a skilled amateur photographer and loved designing
games and puzzles.

In 1856 a new Christ Church dean, Henry Liddell, came to
Oxford with his family. Dodgson, who loved children, became
friendly with the Liddell household. He was especially close to
three of the Liddell daughters—Lorina, Edith, and Alice—and
his adventures with them inspired Alice in Wonderland. But
something went wrong in his relationship to the Liddell family,
and by the time Alice in Wonderland was published, Dodgson
was no longer in contact with Alice Liddell or her siblings.
Carroll died on January 14, 1898, in Guildford.
Alice in Wonderland was an immediate popular success with
readers of all ages. Well over 7,500 different editions have
been published, and it's one of the most quoted books in the
world.
Queen of Hearts
An animated playing card, the Queen of Hearts is Alice's main
antagonist. In fact, the Queen is nasty to everyone she meets.
She's like a walking volcano, always erupting with fury, and her
favorite command is "Off with his head!" (or "her head," in
Alice's case). Sensible characters like the Gryphon realize that
the Queen never actually succeeds at getting her opponents
beheaded, though she terrifies many of her subjects. The
Queen's mood never changes; it's always pitched at the same
level of rage. But Alice realizes that the Queen has no power
over her. When Alice defies the Queen at the trial of the Knave
of Hearts, Alice's own trial in Wonderland immediately comes
to an end.

h Characters Duchess
The Duchess is a milder version of the Queen. When Alice
meets her, the Duchess is alternately cradling and shaking a
Alice howling baby. Suddenly, she casually tosses the baby to Alice
and leaves. A few minutes later, the baby turns into a pig and
An adventurous, spunky, and levelheaded seven-year-old who
walks away. Alice next meets the Duchess at the royal croquet
jumps into a dream world, Alice finds herself constantly
game, where the Duchess is more friendly. As she and Alice
confronted by characters who say things that make no sense
chat, the Duchess finds a moral in every topic and practically
and do things she knows are impossible. Alice does her best to
every sentence. None of the morals make any sense, but the
stay grounded and polite with each new encounter—a hard
Duchess is proud of them.
task, considering she changes size so often that she's not
always sure she's the same person. Although she sometimes
gives way to emotion, she becomes braver and more assertive
as her adventure continues. She learns to stand up for herself,
Hatter
and at the story's end, she stands up for a character who's
With the March Hare and the Dormouse, the Hatter presides
being treated unfairly. She even defies a queen before
over a long tea table set with dozens of empty chairs. He's

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Alice in Wonderland Study Guide Characters 4

rather uncivil to Alice, informing her that she needs a haircut

and asking her to solve a riddle that doesn't have an answer.
He bafflingly explains that the previous March, he "murdered
the time" (sang off the beat) and that time punished him by
stopping the clock at six o'clock in the evening, so that it's
always teatime.

Caterpillar
When Alice meets the Caterpillar, he's sitting on top of a
mushroom and smoking a hookah. He contradicts everything
Alice says, but he does make her think. He also tells her that
eating from one side of the mushroom will make her grow taller
and eating from the other side will shrink her. After that, Alice
is better able to control her size.

Cheshire Cat
The Cheshire Cat is one of the few characters who's
moderately pleasant with Alice. He appears and disappears
without warning, but when he's around, he listens to her
sympathetically. However, he's disconcertingly sure that he,
Alice, and everyone else in Wonderland are insane. Another
disconcerting feature of the Cheshire Cat is that he can
disappear gradually, leaving only his smile floating in the air.

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Alice in Wonderland Study Guide Characters 5

Character Map

White Rabbit
Fussy, self-important
rabbit; always
flustered

Caterpillar Gryphon
Laid-back hookah-smoker Leads Alice into Cheerful optimist;
sitting on a very useful Wonderland likes wordplay—and
mushroom play of all sorts

Offers Alice Introduces

good advice Alice to
Alice
Mock Turtle
Seven-year-old girl; jumps
down a rabbit hole into
Wonderland
Orders Alice
beheaded

Friends

Cheshire Cat Queen of Hearts

Grinning feline; Joins his Volatile monarch; happy
appears and disappears tea party to order an execution
at will

Hatter
Irascible fellow
hosting an unending
tea party

Main character

Other Major Character

Minor Character

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Alice in Wonderland Study Guide Characters 6

Full Character List The Dodo climbs out of the pool of tears
and shows Alice and the other wet
Dodo swimmers how to get warm and dry by
running around haphazardly (the Dodo
Character Description
calls this a Caucus-race).

Seven-year-old Alice is the book's

heroine. Sensible, brave, and polite, she's
Alice fascinated by Wonderland—but also
determined to abide by what she knows
is true.
The Dormouse is one of the three
characters Alice meets at the tea party;
Dormouse
it can barely keep itself awake and
sometimes drifts off mid-sentence.

The Baby may not actually be the

The White Rabbit leads Alice into
Duchess's Duchess's child; all Alice knows for sure
Wonderland when she chases him down
Baby is that it turns into a pig and wanders
White Rabbit a rabbit hole; he's a fussy, anxious
away.
character who's terrified of being late
and making the Queen of Hearts angry.
The three Gardeners work for the Queen
of Hearts, who orders them beheaded
The Queen of Hearts is the story's
Gardeners when she catches them painting white
Queen of ridiculous antagonist; she shrieks
roses red. Alice rescues them by hiding
Hearts nonstop and constantly orders that her
them in a flowerpot.
subjects be executed.

Half eagle and half lion, the Gryphon is a

The Duchess is a less violent version of
Gryphon brisk, cheerful creature who introduces
the Queen of Hearts and can find a
Duchess Alice to the Mock Turtle.
moral in anything Alice—or she
herself—says.
King of The King of Hearts is mild-mannered,
Hearts timid, and terrified of his wife.
The Hatter is an irritable little man who
Hatter presides over an endless tea party on
the lawn and behaves insultingly to Alice. Knave of A member of the royal family, the Knave
Hearts of Hearts is put on trial for stealing tarts.
The Caterpillar sits on a mushroom,
smoking a hookah; he's cranky and The March Hare is one of the three
Caterpillar March Hare
combative, though he does help Alice characters at the tea party.
control her size.

The Mock Turtle is a sad tortoise with a

The Cheshire Cat, who can appear and
disappear when he wants, first appears
Cheshire Cat
in a tree in the woods and tells Alice,
"We're all mad here."
Bill is a bedraggled lizard who first
shows up when the White Rabbit asks
Bill him to see who's plugging up his house;
later, as a juror, he writes on his slate
with his finger.
Mock Turtle
calf's head who sobs all the time.
Alice meets the Mouse when both of
them are swimming in a pool of tears; the
Mouse
Mouse is painfully insulted when Alice
mentions her cat.
The Pigeon meets Alice in the woods
Pigeon and is absolutely convinced Alice is a
serpent out to steal her eggs.

The Cook, a temperamental woman,

Cook rules the kitchen in the Duchess's
household.

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Alice in Wonderland Study Guide Plot Summary 7

to recite some poems, but—as always happens in

k Plot Summary Wonderland—she keeps getting the words wrong. She is
describing her adventures to the Gryphon and Mock Turtle
On a May afternoon, seven-year-old Alice is dozing on a sunny when a voice calls from the distance, "The trial is starting!"
riverbank. Suddenly, a big white rabbit carrying a pocket watch
Alice goes back to the croquet ground, where a trial has been
rushes by. Alice impetuously follows him down a rabbit hole
set up. The Knave of Hearts is charged with stealing the
that turns into a long tunnel. When she finally lands, she is in a
Queen's tarts. Alice watches as the jurors write down their own
dark hallway, and the White Rabbit is nowhere to be seen.
names to keep from forgetting them. The King of Hearts, as
Alice's first challenge in Wonderland is figuring out what size to presiding judge, tells the witnesses not to be nervous "or I'll
be. The same sense of adventure that led her down the rabbit have you executed on the spot."
hole causes her to eat and drink several mysterious
Just before she is called as a witness, Alice realizes she's
substances that change her size from tiny to huge and back
growing again. Startled, she knocks over the jury box, and all
again. At nine feet tall, she cries a pool of tears; at three inches
the jurors topple out. When Alice has righted them, her
tall, she's forced to swim through the pool with a crowd of
questioning begins. None of the proceedings make any sense,
talking animals—including a dodo. She grows so big that she
and Alice points this out. After all, she's now so tall that she's
fills the White Rabbit's house; she shrinks so fast that her chin
not afraid of anyone in the court. When the Queen orders that
hits her foot. Finally, she meets a caterpillar sitting on a
the Knave be sentenced before a verdict is given, Alice says
mushroom who tells her that she can control her size
loudly, "Stuff and nonsense!" The Queen calls for her
depending on which side of the mushroom she eats.
execution, and Alice exclaims, "You're nothing but a pack of
Alice begins to explore Wonderland, hoping to reach a garden cards!"
she spied through a door in the tunnel. On her way, she meets
The entire pack rises into the air and flies down on her.
an increasingly strange cast of characters, beginning with the
Screaming, Alice tries to beat them off—and wakes to find that
Duchess, who hands over a screaming baby. A few minutes
she's lying on the riverbank and that her big sister is brushing
later, the baby turns into a pig and walks away. Next comes the
some leaves off her face. She tells her sister about her odd
Cheshire Cat, who can appear and vanish at will. "We're all mad
dream. Her sister sends Alice in to have her tea, but the older
here," the Cheshire Cat tells Alice.
girl lingers on the bank, dreaming about Alice's adventures.
The next characters Alice meets—the Hatter, the March Hare,
and the Dormouse—certainly fit that category. When Alice joins
their tea party, they treat her so rudely that she leaves. Alice
finds a way into the garden, but it turns out to be more bizarre
than beautiful, with gardeners painting a white rosebush red.
The garden belong to the King and Queen of Hearts, animated
playing cards who have just arrived for a croquet game along
with the rest of the deck of cards.

Alice joins the game, which is difficult to play because

flamingos are used as mallets and hedgehogs as croquet balls.
Even more disruptive is the Queen of Hearts, who keeps
demanding that one or another character be beheaded. Finally,
the only players left are the King and the Queen of Hearts,
Alice, and the Duchess.

The Queen orders the Gryphon to introduce Alice to the Mock

Turtle, a morose creature who recounts a long story about his
school days. The Gryphon and the Mock Turtle teach Alice an
intricate dance called the Lobster Quadrille. Alice, in turn, tries

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Alice in Wonderland Study Guide Plot Summary 8

Plot Diagram

Climax

7
Falling Action
6
Rising Action
5 8

4
9
3
Resolution
2
1

Introduction

Climax
Introduction
7. Queen's court rises up against Alice.
1. Alice chases the White Rabbit down a tunnel.

Falling Action
Rising Action
8. Alice realizes cards are actually leaves.
2. Alice keeps changing size and meets some talking animals.

3. Alice attends Hatter's tea party.

Resolution
4. Alice meets grumpy Queen of Hearts, who orders
executions.
9. Alice wakes from her dream.
5. Alice plays croquet and learns Lobster Quadrille.

6. Alice called as witness at trial of Knave of Hearts.

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Alice in Wonderland Study Guide Plot Summary 9

Timeline of Events

A May afternoon

Alice is dozing on a riverbank when the White Rabbit

runs by; she follows him down a rabbit-hole.

Minutes later

Alice gets too small, too big, and too small again, which
she finds very frustrating.

Immediately after

A caterpillar on a mushroom tells Alice how to use the

mushroom to change her size.

A little later

Alice arrives at the Duchess's house; the Duchess gives

her a screaming baby that turns into a pig.

Just after that

Alice meets the Cheshire Cat, who sends her to see the
(mad) Hatter.

In a little while

Alice joins the Hatter, the March Hare, and the

Dormouse at their tea party in the woods.

Later on

In a beautiful garden, Alice meets the vicious Queen of

Hearts and plays croquet.

After the game

The Gryphon and the Mock Turtle teach Alice to dance

the Lobster Quadrille.

Suddenly

The Knave of Hearts is on trial for stealing the Queen's

tarts, and Alice is called as a witness.

At the end

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Alice in Wonderland Study Guide Plot Summary 10

All the playing cards in the Queen's court fly at

Alice—and she wakes up on the riverbank again.

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Alice in Wonderland Study Guide
c Chapter Summaries
Chapter 1
Summary
On a May afternoon in the English countryside, seven-year-old
Alice is dozing on a riverbank when a large white rabbit races
by. The rabbit checks a pocket watch and then disappears
down a large hole with Alice in impetuous pursuit. The hole
turns into an exceedingly deep tunnel. After a seemingly
endless fall, Alice touches bottom and finds herself in a long,
dark hallway lined with closed doors.
Alice finds a gold key on a table and uses it to open a little
door, through which she spots a lovely garden. She longs to
explore the garden but is too tall to get through the door. The
contents of a bottle labeled "drink me" cause Alice to shrink
until she's too short to reach the key on the table. Next she
finds a small cake labeled "eat me." She obeys the instruction
and waits to see what will happen.
Analysis
Readers see from the beginning that Alice's adventures will be
extraordinary. Almost as strange will be her reaction to them.
Throughout the story, Lewis Carroll uses an unemphatic,
almost deadpan style. Like a person in a dream, Alice takes in
stride everything that happens to her. Carroll's understated
style is convincingly dreamlike and very effective; after all, the
book would become tedious if Alice were constantly reeling
with shock.
It must have been refreshing for young female readers to see a
child heroine act so boldly and decisively the minute she sees
the White Rabbit. Alice doesn't hesitate to follow the White
Rabbit, and she's not daunted by landing in a new world. She's
ready for this adventure.
Alice's adventures are also trials—trials of her patience, her
courage, and even her manners. As she learns that nothing in
Wonderland makes sense, she struggles to stay cheerful and
to maintain her own understanding of reality.
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Chapter Summaries 11
Chapter 2
Summary
Eating the magic cake makes Alice shoot up to nine feet tall.
She can easily reach the golden key, but once again, she's far
too big to get into the garden. She begins to cry with
frustration, and her "gallons" of tears create a pool that's four
inches deep. The White Rabbit rushes by and, terrified at the
sight of giant Alice, drops his gloves and fan. Alice picks up the
fan, which causes her to shrink until she almost disappears.
The key is out of reach again. Worse, Alice slips and falls into
the pool of tears, which—now that she's tiny—reaches up to
her chin. A mouse swims by. Alice tries to start a conversation
but blunders by talking about what a good mouser her cat is.
The Mouse offers to tell her its sad story on the "shore" of the
pool. Alice notices that the pool of tears now contains several
other strange animals. She swims to shore with the other
creatures following.
Analysis
Talking animals have long been a staple of children's picture
books, and Alice in Wonderland is full of them. Unlike the
animals in more traditional stories, the ones in Wonderland are
rarely sweet or friendly; Lewis Carroll does not pander to his
readers simply because they're children.
In Chapter 2, the White Rabbit is terrified by Alice, and the
Mouse instantly dislikes her. This is partly because of Alice's
clumsy references to cats, but many of the creatures Alice
meets will be angry or nervous. Throughout the book, it is often
Alice's role to feed lines to other characters that will bring out
their offbeat answers.
Chapter 3
Summary
Alice, the Mouse, and several other animals climb out of the
pool of tears. The Mouse tells a "dry" story to dry them off.
When this doesn't work, the Dodo suggests they hold a
Alice in Wonderland Study Guide Chapter Summaries 12

"Caucus-race." This turns out to mean running in a circle for house.

half an hour, after which the Dodo declares that everyone is
the winner. Alice hands out prizes, and the Mouse tells another The White Rabbit comes to his house in search of Mary Ann.

story—this one a "tale" that turns out, when written on the Seeing Alice's huge arm sticking out of the window, he sends

page, to be shaped like a mouse's tail. Naturally, Alice doesn't for help. A crowd of animals throw pebbles through the

understand what's happening, and the Mouse leaves in a huff. window, and the pebbles change into little cakes. Alice eats

The other animals soon follow, leaving Alice alone again. one to see if it will shrink her. It does, and tiny Alice runs out of
the house. After escaping from a puppy, she spots a
mushroom with the Caterpillar sitting on top. The Caterpillar is
Analysis smoking a hookah.

The "dry" story the Mouse tells is taken from the text of a
children's history book owned by Alice Liddell and her two Analysis
sisters. It is indeed very dry, in the sense of being very
boring—a good example of Lewis Carroll's fondness for puns Lewis Carroll was obsessed with the world of childhood. In his

and for making fun of the educational customs imposed on letters to children, he sometimes mentioned how sad it was

Victorian children. The author's wordplay continues with the that they would have to grow up one day. Alice "grows up" with

Caucus-race; in England, the word caucus meant a political a vengeance in this chapter, and the process is

organization made up of committees. Carroll is likely hinting disagreeable—awkward and uncomfortable. The White Rabbit

that committee meetings run in circles without getting threatens to burn down the house with her inside; the other

anywhere. animals throw rocks at her.

The Mouse's tale involves visual as well as aural wordplay. Alice herself is mournful about having grown so much. "At least

When printed, the tale turns out to resemble a mouse's long, there's no room to grow up any more here," she reflects.

curving tail. Poems laid out to resemble their subject matter are Without reading too much into Carroll's intentions, the reader

called visual poetry or shaped verse. Because the Mouse tells can still recognize that Chapter 4 reveals some ambivalence

the story aloud, Alice wouldn't actually be able to see its shape about a child getting bigger.

in real life, but in Wonderland the rules are obviously different.

The White Rabbit is a caricature of a Victorian

Alice tends to be sensitive to the reactions of characters gentleman—self-important, vain, and somewhat ineffectual.

around her. It's a bit surprising that she's so obtuse about True to the stereotype, the White Rabbit pays little attention to

mentioning her pet cat, Dinah—a sign, perhaps, that she the people around him. When he mistakes Alice for his

perceives the animals around her as peers rather than as housemaid, it is clear that he has no idea what his housemaid

animals. She never wishes she could bring any of her family or looks like. It is also likely that he doesn't know his housemaid's

friends to Wonderland, just Dinah. name, as he calls Alice by the name of Mary Ann, which was
actually slang for "servant girl" in Victorian England.

Some critics have noted that the puppy doesn't seem to fit into
Chapter 4 Wonderland. It is the only important animal in the book who
doesn't talk to Alice.

Summary
Chapter 5
As Alice sits alone in the hall, the White Rabbit passes again.
This time he mistakes her for his housemaid, Mary Ann, and
orders her to fetch him some gloves and a fan. Alice makes her
way to the White Rabbit's house. In addition to the fan and
gloves, she finds a little bottle whose contents she decides to
try. Instantly, she starts growing until her body fills the entire

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Alice in Wonderland Study Guide
Summary
The Caterpillar stares at Alice before asking her who she is.
They have a confusing and roundabout conversation. Before
he crawls away, the Caterpillar tells Alice that eating one side
of the mushroom will make her tall and eating the other will
make her short. Alice tries a bit of mushroom edge and shrinks
until her chin hits her foot. She tries a piece from the other side
and grows until she's taller than the trees and has a long,
snakelike neck.
The Pigeon begins flying frantically around Alice's head,
accusing her of being a serpent hunting for bird eggs. Unable
to persuade the Pigeon that she's a little girl, Alice takes
alternating bites of the mushroom pieces until she's nine
inches tall, seemingly the perfect height for Wonderland.
Analysis
Victorian literature was preoccupied with eating—and with
hunger. The 1830s and 1840s saw severe food shortages in
urban England. In Ireland, a devastating potato famine took
place at the same time. Newspapers were filled with articles
about the shortages, and British city dwellers saw many
starving people on the streets. Hunger drove plotlines in
Victorian novels such as Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist (1838)
and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847).
In Chapter 5, Alice eats pieces of an unidentified mushroom
based purely on the Caterpillar's recommendation. Later in the
chapter, the Pigeon is afraid Alice will eat her eggs and kill her
children. Throughout the book, Alice eats and drinks to control
her size. For her, hunger and its consequences are
inescapable.
Chapter 6
Summary
Alice reaches a strange house and hears terrible howling and
screaming inside. She enters to find a kitchen, where the Cook
is stirring a very peppery soup. In the middle of the room, the
Duchess is holding (and occasionally shaking) a screaming
baby boy, who is also sneezing nonstop because of the
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Chapter Summaries 13
pepper.
The Duchess hands the baby over to Alice, who takes him
outside. Gradually, the baby turns into a pig, which Alice turns
loose. She then spots the Cheshire Cat in a tree, who gives her
directions to the Hatter's. When Alice remarks that she doesn't
want to "go among mad people," the Cheshire Cat says, "We're
all mad here."
Analysis
Lewis Carroll's father was rector of a church that featured a
carving of a cat's head on one wall. Looked at from a child's
perspective, the carving showed the cat to be smiling broadly.
This carving may have inspired Carroll's creation of the
Cheshire Cat. Additionally, the expression "grinning like a
Cheshire cat" was a familiar one in Carroll's day.
The Cheshire Cat makes the book's first mention of madness,
a popular theme in Victorian literature. This is also the first time
that Alice is warned that the characters she'll meet next are
insane, though most of the characters she has already
encountered have also seemed mad.
The baby's transformation into a pig is a good example of the
dream motif that runs through the novel. In dreams, things can
change in unexpected and illogical ways. The transformation of
the baby boy is also in keeping with Carroll's opinion of little
boys. "My best love to yourself," he once signed off in a letter
to a little girl. He added, "To your small, fat, impertinent,
ignorant brother, my hatred."
Chapter 7
Summary
In front of the Hatter's house, a long tea table is set under a
tree. The March Hare, the Hatter, and a sleepy Dormouse are
sitting at one end. They shout, "No room!"—but Alice
indignantly sits down, and they have a conversation about
meaning and time. The Dormouse tells Alice a story and then
falls asleep at the table. Alice is so disgusted by the rudeness
of the three that she leaves.
Alice reenters the long hall, takes up the golden key, and walks
Alice in Wonderland Study Guide
into the garden she's been waiting so long to visit.
Analysis
In Victorian times, many books about etiquette were published.
Up until the 18th century, land ownership was the main way to
amass wealth in Britain. The growth of manufacturing during
the Industrial Revolution brought with it new ways to become
rich. As a result, the middle classes burgeoned in the 19th
century. Perceiving themselves as upwardly mobile, the newly
wealthy sought to emulate the traditional upper classes by
voraciously consuming manuals of good manners.
Ten years before Alice in Wonderland was published, Lewis
Carroll wrote a parody of etiquette rules about eating. ("As a
general rule, do not kick the shins of the opposite gentleman
under the table.") His depiction of the Hatter and animals at tea
returns to this topic. These characters break just about all the
rules of etiquette: the March Hare offers Alice wine even
though he has no wine to offer, the Dormouse falls asleep at
the table, and the Hatter and the March Hare repeatedly
interrupt and insult Alice. Alice tries to remind them of the rules
of etiquette, but it does no good. Up until this point, Alice has
tried to understand the odd speech and behavior of the
characters she's met in Wonderland. In this chapter, she starts
getting impatient. This is not the behavior of a traditional
Victorian child heroine, who would more likely endure with
patient meekness the cruelties heaped on her. Alice is too
spunky for that.
Wordplay is coupled with the dream motif in this chapter,
which has a basis in real-life facts and expressions. For
example, hatmakers once used mercury to make felt hats.
Mercury is a serious neurotoxin that can cause shaking hands,
personality changes, and memory loss. "Mad as a hatter" was a
common British expression. Another British expression—at
least 300 years old by the time Carroll used it—was "mad as a
March hare." Male hares were believed to become aggressive
and excitable in March, the beginning of the breeding season.
Dormice, which are endangered today, were common in
Carroll's day. These hamster-like animals were strictly
nocturnal and therefore drowsy during the day; they also
hibernated for long periods. Victorian children sometimes had
them as pets. The actions of all the animals at the tea party
reflect these associations.
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Chapter Summaries 14
Chapter 8
Summary
At the garden entrance, Alice sees three gardeners painting
some white roses red. Before they can finish, a royal
procession begins filing in. Last to arrive are the most
important: the King and Queen of Hearts and their court. All of
these characters take the form of animated playing cards.
Furious at everyone and everything, the Queen of Hearts
constantly orders beheadings. Fortunately, the Queen is
distractible, and Alice—along with the Duchess—joins the
croquet game everyone has come to play. The game is
thoroughly confusing; no one is following the rules. Alice
complains about this to the Cheshire Cat when its head shows
up in the sky above her. The Queen orders that this head also
be cut off, but the Cheshire Cat disappears before anyone can
decide how to carry out the order.
Analysis
In Chapter 8, Alice meets the book's angriest character, the
Queen of Hearts. Carroll later wrote that he pictured her "as a
sort of embodiment of ungovernable passion—a blind and
aimless Fury."
Alice stands up to the Queen. As soon as they meet, Alice tells
herself, "They're only a pack of cards, after all." When the
Queen asks who the gardeners are, Alice answers, "How
should I know? ... It's no business of mine"—the first time she's
been openly rude to a Wonderland character. And when the
Queen screams, "Off with her head!" Alice interrupts her by
saying, "'Nonsense!'" In Chapter 7, Alice grows angry with the
rudeness of the animals at the tea party and reminds them of
the rules of etiquette. In this chapter, she takes the next step
and responds to rudeness with rudeness. Alice comes from a
middle-class home where people follow rules and try to behave
well toward one another. Wonderland is a constant challenge
to her concepts of etiquette and good behavior.
In its first half, Alice in Wonderland is episodic. One adventure
follows another without much discernible progress. Alice
grows, shrinks, and wanders around meeting talking animals. In
the second half, Alice turns more assertive, and the plot
Alice in Wonderland Study Guide
becomes more linear. In the early chapters of the novel, Alice
doesn't question the reality of the characters she meets. In
Chapter 8, her realization that the royals and courtiers are
"only a pack of cards" suggests that she may be starting to
wake up from her dream.
Chapter 9
Summary
Alice and the Duchess (who's been reprieved from execution)
stroll around the garden together until the Queen commands
Alice to return to the game. When the game dissolves because
the Queen has put all the players under sentence of death, the
Queen takes Alice to meet the Gryphon, who introduces Alice
to the Mock Turtle.
The Mock Turtle dolefully tells Alice a long, sad story about his
education until the Gryphon interrupts and says, "Tell her
something about the games."
Analysis
Wordplay dominates Chapter 9. Not much happens in this
chapter, but it will please readers who like puns. The names of
practically everything the Mock Turtle has ever studied are
puns. For instance, when the Mock Turtle mentions "the old
conger-eel," he's talking about Lewis Carroll's real-life friend
John Ruskin. Ruskin, the most famous art critic of his day,
taught the Liddell children drawing, etching, and painting in oils,
which the Mock Turtle refers to as "Drawling, Stretching, and
Fainting in Coils." Once again, Carroll is making fun of
traditional schooling. He also does this at the beginning of the
chapter, when the Duchess delivers a long spiel on morals. It is
worth noting that the Duchess is extremely polite and that
Alice responds in kind.
Because this chapter deals with education, it's fitting that
Trinity College at Oxford has an emblem featuring a gryphon.
Carroll and the Liddell family would have often seen the
gryphon on the main Trinity gates.
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Chapter Summaries 15
Chapter 10
Summary
Though the Mock Turtle is crying almost too hard to talk, it
manages to sob out that Alice has probably never heard of a
Lobster Quadrille. When she agrees that she has not, the Mock
Turtle becomes a vortex of energy. He and the Gryphon
scream out instructions while "capering wildly about." With
equal suddenness, they collapse and look mournfully at Alice.
Then they dance solemnly around her, singing.
The dancing over, they ask Alice to recite some lessons for
them. She obediently does so, getting the words wrong. Then
the Mock Turtle begins to weep out a song about turtle soup.
In mid-song, someone calls, "The trial is starting!" The Gryphon
takes Alice's hand and rushes her away.
Analysis
Like many well-educated 19th-century Englishmen, Lewis
Carroll knew a great deal about natural science and
incorporated it into the book. This is the case with the Mock
Turtle. When they are on land, sea turtles appear to shed tears,
which is actually their way of discharging excess salt from their
bodies. The Mock Turtle is traditionally illustrated as a tortoise
with a calf's head, reflecting the use of veal in an English dish
called mock turtle soup.
From a critical standpoint, this chapter is weakened by its
reliance on parodies; there's no action except for the quadrille
demonstration. Fortunately, the manic instructions from the
Gryphon and Mock Turtle make that scene very funny. The
actual ballroom dance known as the quadrille is complicated
and hard to learn; Alice Liddell and her siblings learned it from
a tutor. The song "Beautiful Soup" is based on a real song
called "Star of the Evening." In an 1862 diary entry, Carroll
writes that Alice Liddell and her sisters performed it for him.
The song's chorus—"Beautiful star, / Beautiful star, / Star of
the evening, beautiful star"—prove that it was certainly well
worth a parody.
It is clear in this chapter that Alice has learned from her gaffe
in Chapter 2, when she terrified the Mouse by talking of her
cat's mousing prowess. She is about to tell the Mock Turtle
Alice in Wonderland Study Guide
that she has eaten whiting (a type of fish) but stops herself,
and the Mock Turtle continues talking, oblivious to her true
association with the little fish.
Chapter 11
Summary
Back on the croquet lawn, Alice and the Gryphon learn that the
Knave of Hearts has been charged with stealing a plate of
tarts. The bewigged King of Hearts is serving as judge in the
trial, and 12 creatures make up the jury. The White Rabbit is
acting as herald.
"Consider your verdict," the King tells the jury before the trial
even begins. It's clear the whole proceeding will be a shambles.
In the midst of the confusion, Alice realizes that she's starting
to grow again. The next witness is the Duchess's Cook, who
refuses to give evidence and slips away in the confusion. Alice
is startled to hear her own name being called as the third
witness.
Analysis
The action in this trial scene is based on the famous nursery
rhyme that begins, "The Queen of Hearts / She made some
tarts / All on a summer's day." The first stanza of the poem is
familiar; the next three, about the other Kings and Queens in a
card deck, are surprisingly violent and never appear in modern
Mother Goose books.
Alice finds the trial ridiculous from the beginning; she's
becoming impatient with her long adventure. Note that this
time she starts growing without eating anything special—she is
literally growing out of Wonderland, a reflection of her dawning
awareness that she's dreaming and is starting to wake up. She
wonders if she should leave but decides to stay as long as
there's room—an accurate portrayal of the way dreams seem
to dissipate as the dreamer gradually pulls away from sleep.
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Chapter Summaries 16
Chapter 12
Summary
Alice jumps to her feet, knocking over the jury box in her hurry.
Hastily, she replaces all the creatures who have fallen out onto
the floor. The King tells her that "Rule Forty-two" bans from
court anyone more than a mile high, but Alice refuses to leave.
The King subjects the Knave to a meaningless grilling and then
sums up the evidence with hilarious ineptness. The Queen
announces that the Knave should be sentenced before the
verdict is reached. Alice blares out, "Stuff and nonsense!"
Shocked, the Queen shouts, "Off with her head!" Alice, now her
full size, says, "You're nothing but a pack of cards!"
Immediately, the whole pack soars into the air and rains down
on her head.
Alice wakes to find herself back on the riverbank, with her
older sister brushing fallen leaves off Alice's face.
Analysis
Even in the comic chaos of the trial, readers can see that Alice
has come a long way since she first fell into Wonderland. She's
no longer inhibited by timidity or politeness; she's able to speak
up for the Knave in open court. She may have fallen into
Wonderland, but she's standing on her own two feet when she
makes her exit. As seen from her reaction to "Rule Forty-two,"
she has also learned to differentiate between rules that make
sense and rules that make no sense at all, and she is ready to
apply reason to defend herself against nonsensical rules.
The dream motif is present again in the way the cards throwing
themselves at Alice turn out to be leaves drifting onto her face.
This is typical of how dreams can incorporate and reinterpret
things that are sensed in reality just before the dreamer
awakens.
After Alice wakes up, the tone changes, becoming soft and
sentimental—in typical Victorian manner—as Carroll neatly
winds up the story. As Alice heads home to take her tea, her
sister stays by the river, daydreaming about the younger girl's
adventures.
Alice in Wonderland Study Guide
g Quotes
"What is the use of a book without
pictures or conversations?"
— Alice, Chapter 1
Alice asks herself this question in the book's first paragraph.
She's sitting on the riverbank next to her sister, who's reading
what looks to Alice like a very dull book. Alice can't know that
she herself is about to become the star of an adventure whose
conversations and pictures will become famous around the
world.
"Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too
late!"
— White Rabbit, Chapter 1
This commonplace sentence has become world-famous. The
White Rabbit mutters it as he passes Alice. Seeing a talking
rabbit doesn't rouse Alice, but when he takes out a pocket
watch to check the time, she jumps to her feet and follows him
into Wonderland.
"Curiouser and curiouser!"
— Alice, Chapter 2
Alice's famous exclamation opens Chapter 2. Alice is only
seven, and she's so flummoxed by suddenly being nine feet tall
that proper grammar is the last thing on her mind.
Ungrammatical as it is, the remark shows that Alice has kept
her composure: many seven-year-olds in Alice's position would
have burst into tears.
""Who in the world am I?" Ah,
that's the great puzzle!"
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Quotes 17
— Alice, Chapter 2
One of Alice's greatest challenges is holding onto her identity
when she's undergoing so many changes in size. Early in the
book, she can't quite believe that she's still herself whether
she's three inches or nine feet tall. This speaks to the theme of
growing up—how children struggle to develop their own
identities as they mature.
"Speak roughly to your little
boy,/And beat him when he
sneezes."
— Duchess, Chapter 6
Most people wouldn't consider this a lullaby, but it's what the
Duchess sings when she's trying to soothe her screaming
baby. It is not only an extreme interpretation of how children
were disciplined in the Victorian era but another example of
parody, making reference to the American poem "Speak
Gently" (1848) by David Bates. From a child's perspective,
punishment might often have seemed just this undeserved. The
stricture is, however, very much in keeping with how the
creatures in Wonderland often treat one another.
"We're all mad here."
— Cheshire Cat, Chapter 7
Alice knows that Wonderland is different from the real world,
but the characters she's met so far have insisted that they're
normal and she's the one who's out of step. The Cheshire Cat
is one of the few characters in the book whose conversation
makes sense to Alice. As this line shows, the Cheshire Cat is
also more self-aware than most other Wonderland inhabitants.
"Why is a raven like a writing-
desk?"
— Hatter, Chapter 7
Alice in Wonderland Study Guide
The Hatter poses this riddle to Alice. After she's thought about
it for a while, she gives up. The Hatter tells her that he doesn't
know the answer either. Lewis Carroll heard from many
readers who believed they had come up with an answer. In a
preface to the 1896 edition, he suggested, "Because it can
produce [a] few notes, though they are very flat; and it is never
put with the wrong end in front."
"Off with her head!"
— Queen of Hearts, Chapter 8
This is what the Queen of Hearts says when Alice displeases
her at their first meeting. The Queen is always displeased and
always ordering people to be beheaded. Luckily, the sentences
are never carried out.
"Everything's got a moral, if only
you can find it."
— Duchess, Chapter 9
The Duchess says this to Alice during the royal croquet game.
She can always find a moral in what people say, even when the
moral makes no sense.
"'Tis the voice of the Lobster: I
heard him declare/'You have
baked me too brown, I must sugar
my hair.'"
— Alice, Chapter 10
Like most educated children in the 19th century, Alice has
learned many poems and songs by memory. But whenever a
Wonderland character asks her to recite something,
Alice—who cannot control what she dreams—can only
stammer out a parody version. Here, the Gryphon has just
asked her to recite a real-life poem called "'Tis the Voice of the
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Symbols 18
Sluggard." Since they're standing on the beach, this parody is
what comes out of poor Alice's mouth.
l Symbols
The Journey
Despite its dreamlike qualities, Alice in Wonderland shares the
same focus as many other fantasy and adventure novels, that
of the main character's journey. This journey is not only
geographical but also psychological and emotional. In tandem
with her journey through Wonderland, Alice progresses toward
adulthood, learning to question the orders she receives and to
rely on herself.
Following Orders
Wonderland demands that Alice perform actions before she
discovers the consequences. For instance, Alice is repeatedly
told to consume something without being told what it is, such
as the "Drink Me" bottle and "Eat Me" cake in Chapter 1.
Although Alice sometimes wonders whether she should keep
sampling unidentified food and drink, she generally complies.
Some scholars have suggested that this is because Alice
typifies the obedient Victorian female obeying the rules of a
patriarchal society. However, Alice's own curiosity also plays a
part, as she often simply wants to see what will happen when
she drinks and eats the things she's given. (And of course
there wouldn't be a story without Alice consuming these items.)
Alice complies with many other orders in the course of the
story, such as going to get the White Rabbit's gloves and fan in
Chapter 4, even though she is not the serving girl he has
mistaken her for. This may also be seen as her being obedient
or curious, but it should be noted that the major shifts in the
story occur—Alice achieving access to the garden and
eventually waking up—when she ceases to follow orders and
acts on her own initiative.
Alice in Wonderland Study Guide
The Hidden Garden
Alice spends a lot of time trying to enter the garden that she
sees for the first time in Chapter 2. Walled gardens were
popular in the 19th century. Walled vegetable gardens were
more common than the walled flower garden Alice enters, but
walled flower gardens are generally more attractive to the
imagination.
In Alice in Wonderland, the garden's symbolism is fluid.
Obviously it shares imagery with the Garden of Eden—a lost
paradise. It can also be seen to represent unattainable beauty.
It looks beautiful when Alice sees it from afar, but the
loveliness vanishes as soon as she's actually inside the garden
in Chapter 8. Gardeners are painting the roses, a croquet
game is being set up, and the angry Queen of Hearts is
storming around spreading panic wherever she goes.
The garden turns out not to be walled after all. Alice hasn't
been there long before the Gryphon leads her to a stony beach
that's somehow part of the same property. If Alice's
adventures are a dream, the garden is like a dream within a
dream; the setting changes without warning, and none of the
action is logical.
Growing and Shrinking
Alice undergoes 12 size changes in Wonderland, almost always
as a result of something she eats or drinks. Repeatedly, she's
the wrong size for whatever she's trying to do—too big to get
into the garden, too small to reach the key that would help her
get in, and so on.
Until the Caterpillar gives Alice the mushroom, she can't
control how big or small she gets; she just has to accept
whatever happens. Of course, children can't control their
growing in real life, and children at the age of puberty are
famously awkward; they feel too small for some things and too
big for others. The growing and shrinking in the book are
clearly signs for growing up—for reaching maturity. As Carroll
depicts it, growing up is a painful and confusing process, and it
doesn't necessarily have positive results.
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Themes 19
m Themes
Communication Breakdown
From the beginning of her stay in Wonderland, Alice finds she
has trouble communicating with the creatures she meets. She
says exactly the wrong thing to the Mouse, for instance, when
she brings up her cat, Dinah. Communication between Alice
and the others at the Hatter's tea party is fraught with trouble
as well, especially because they are so rude to her. At the
croquet match, the Duchess acts friendly and confiding, but
her aphorisms make little sense. In general, many characters
preach at Alice rather than share ideas. All these exchanges
recall and parody real-world social situations in which
strangers and acquaintances meet and attempt to make
conversation.
Charles Dodgson, the real name of author Lewis Carroll, was a
reserved man who suffered from a stammer since childhood.
Although he enjoyed a wide circle of friends and
acquaintances, he was all too familiar with the pitfalls inherent
in the types of social situations Alice encounters in
Wonderland. His parodies focus the reader's attention on the
problem of breakdowns in social communication.
Growing Up (and Down)
Alice undergoes 12 changes in size while she's in Wonderland.
When she's tiny, she can't reach what she needs, but when
she's giant, she frightens everyone away. Like many children,
she rarely feels as though she's the right size for what she
wants to do. Like all children, she has no control over what
happens to her body.
But then she meets the Caterpillar, who teaches her how to
control her size. That's something most children would envy.
Being able to choose her size is, in a way, like being able to
choose her age. For the rest of the story, she chooses to stay
little—until, with no warning, she grows back to her full size and
has to leave Wonderland abruptly.
Alice in Wonderland Study Guide
In the end, Alice can't escape growing up. She even matures in
the course of her adventures, learning to trust her instincts
more and to make informed judgments on the actions of the
characters she meets—actions often frowned upon in Victorian
England.
Identity
Children tend to form their identities based on those around
them—their parents, their siblings, their circle of friends—and
how those people view and respond to them. When Alice finds
herself alone in Wonderland, she starts to question her identity.
Not only does she see the world from a new perspective (quite
literally, since she keeps growing and shrinking), but the
creatures she meets do not respond to her as she is used to.
The Pigeon, for example, sees Alice as a serpent and, like the
Mouse, considers her a threat. Alice has to question herself as
well, because she suddenly cannot rely on her memory. She
forgets poems she previously knew by heart and can't answer
questions to other characters' satisfaction, all of which she
finds extremely frustrating. This leads Alice to doubt that she is
still the same person she thought she was. In fact, when the
Caterpillar asks who she is, she replies, "I—I hardly know, Sir,
just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this
morning, but I think I must have been changed several times
since then."
Rules versus Good Behavior
Wonderland is full of rules that have little to do with how
people should behave toward one another.
It's a challenge for Alice to make sense of the way Wonderland
characters behave, and no wonder—in her world, they would
be perceived as behaving badly. A strange child has landed in
front of them, but no one offers to help her. They refuse to
answer her questions and never ask her any questions about
herself. They criticize her. The Queen threatens to behead her
more than once. For the most part, the only thing about Alice
that interests them is whether she can recite things from
memory—a common task asked of Victorian children.
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Themes 20
At first, Alice is startled by this rudeness but tries to remain
polite. But as she progresses through Wonderland, she
becomes more assertive and less concerned with appearing
polite. When characters are rude, she pushes back. And it's
only after she actually insults the Queen and her court that she
returns home.
Self-Reliance
Alice chooses her own path when she follows the White Rabbit
into Wonderland, and despite feeling utterly disoriented, she
manages to hold it together. Like any seven-year-old, she
breaks down from time to time, but she never despairs, and
she accepts the fact that she alone is responsible for being in
Wonderland.
When the Hatter and the March Hare tell Alice there's no room
at the tea party, she sits down anyway; she can see for herself
that there are plenty of chairs. When she decides they're being
too rude, she leaves. The first time she meets the Queen of
Hearts, Alice tells herself there's nothing to be afraid of. And in
the trial scene, she openly disagrees with the King and Queen,
at times even correcting them. She's definitely not a helpless
little Victorian girl.
Victorian Society
Alice in Wonderland is full of comments on Victorian society, in
which Carroll found much to criticize. He addresses topics
such as how children are raised and disciplined (the Duchess
and her varied reactions to her baby), the middle-class
obsession with time and punctuality (the White Rabbit
frantically checking his watch), and 19th-century views on
mental illness (the Cheshire Cat's comments about everyone in
Wonderland being "mad").
Carroll returns again and again to the one area of Victorian life
with which he himself was most involved: education. Much of
Victorian schooling was based on rote learning, and Alice is
repeatedly asked to recite from memory, whether it is her
times tables or a poem. In such situations, Carroll frequently
Alice in Wonderland Study Guide
subverts the content and parodies the task. For instance, Alice
attempts to recite Isaac Watts's instructive poem "How Doth
the Little Busy Bee" in Chapter 2, but instead she recites "How
Doth the Little Crocodile." In Chapter 9, the Gryphon and the
Mock Turtle discuss their school days with Alice, and Carroll
uses wordplay to ridicule the common school subjects:
"'Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,' the Mock
Turtle replied; 'and then the different branches of
Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.'"
b Motifs and Literary
Devices
Dreams, mathematics, and science are three motifs that recur
frequently in Alice in Wonderland. Carroll also returns again
and again to the plot devices of inversion and reversal and to
the literary technique of wordplay.
Dream
Wonderland is a dream, and characters and settings change in
dreamlike ways. From the moment she arrives, Alice grows
smaller and taller in response to what she eats or drinks, but at
the end she grows for no reason at all. When the Duchess
hands her a baby, the baby promptly turns into a pig. When she
leaves the tea party, she opens a door in a tree only to find
herself back in the room where she first arrived in Wonderland.
In Chapter 3, the Mouse tells a tale about a Fury who puts a
mouse on trial and ends up ordering the mouse's execution;
later on, Alice meets the Queen of Hearts, who is very
definitely a Fury and who frequently orders beheadings.
Snippets of reality morph into unreality in Wonderland, as
cards become the King and Queen of Hearts and their court
and a game of croquet is played with flamingos for mallets and
hedgehogs for balls.
Mathematics
Because Carroll was a mathematics professor at the University
of Oxford, it is not surprising that he engages in number play
and parodies the teaching of mathematics in Alice in
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Motifs and Literary Devices 21
Wonderland. Such references to mathematics are superficial,
however, in comparison to his subtle jabs at the symbolic
algebra that intrigued so many of his contemporaries.
The tea party is the best example of this. In 1843 the Irish
mathematician William Rowan Hamilton came up with a way to
multiply and divide the coordinates of two points in three-
dimensional space; he did this by assuming a fourth dimension.
He called his new system quaternion algebra. As the name
implies, a quaternion comprises four elements, and according
to Hamilton, time is one of these elements. Carroll used the
Hatter's tea party to show what happens when time is taken
out of the equation: the remaining elements are stuck in limbo,
rotating aimlessly—just as the Hatter, the March Hare, and the
Dormouse rotate around the table.
Science
Science was a popular topic in Victorian times. Whereas earlier
it had been a pastime of the upper classes, science during the
Victorian era was a pastime and vocation for the middle
classes as well. Throughout Alice in Wonderland, there are
many references to topics in the natural sciences, such as
evolution, metamorphosis, and the characteristics of specific
animal characters.
This motif can be seen in Alice's constant changes in size.
Carroll suffered from migraines, which can leave sufferers
feeling as if their bodies are changing uncontrollably in size
and shape, and it is thought that the author used his own
physical experiences to inform his description of Alice's
predicament. (This neurological condition was dubbed Alice in
Wonderland syndrome in 1955 by John Todd, an English
psychiatrist.) As Alice tries to regulate her size, she uses trial
and error—a very scientific approach.
Inversion and Reversal
Nothing in Wonderland is quite as expected; in fact, it's often
just the opposite. The animals have a race, but they run in a
circle and all stop at once. Alice, who thinks of herself as a
polite little girl, is often perceived as a threat. For instance, in
trying to make conversation with the Mouse, she manages to
terrify the creature, and later the Pigeon mistakes Alice for a
serpent trying to steal her eggs. At the tea party, the March
Alice in Wonderland Study Guide
Hare offers Alice wine even though they have no wine. In the
garden, the gardeners are painting the white roses red. And in
Chapter 12, when the King wants the jury to consider their
verdict, the Queen of Hearts insists, "Sentence first—verdict
afterwards."
Of course, some of these inversions are misinterpreted by
Wonderland characters. In Chapter 6, for instance, the
Cheshire Cat convinces Alice to agree that dogs are not mad
and then points out, "A dog growls when it's angry, and wags
its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and
wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad."
Another example of inversion and reversal is Carroll's
pervasive use of parody. Many of his verses are more than
nonsensical or silly rewordings of well-known poems—they
also undermine the original morals or messages of those
poems. This is clearest in the Duchess's parody of David
Bates's "Speak Gently":
Speak gently to the little child!
Its love be sure to gain;
Teach it in accents soft and mild:
It may not long remain.
Bates's moral is that a person should treat others with gentle
kindness in order to receive the same in return. This moral is
completely subverted in the Duchess's lullaby:
Speak roughly to your little boy,
And beat him when he sneezes;
He only does it to annoy,
Because he knows it teases.
Wordplay
The novel is packed with puns, trick questions, and other
wordplay. In Chapter 3, for instance, Alice and the animals are
soaking wet after falling into the pool of Alice's tears. They
wonder how they can dry off, and the Mouse decides to tell
them "the driest thing I know," a lecture on William the
Conqueror's conquest of England. In Chapter 7, the Hatter
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Suggested Reading 22
asks Alice, "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?" When she
cannot solve the riddle, he admits he doesn't know the answer
himself. When Alice finally asserts, "At least I mean what I
say—that's the same thing," the animals disagree vehemently
with her, and a debate about sentence grammar ensues:
"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'!"
"You might just as well say," added
the March Hare, "that 'I like what I
get' is the same thing as 'I get
what I like'!"
"You might just as well say," added
the Dormouse, who seemed to be
talking in his sleep, "that 'I breathe
when I sleep' is the same thing as
'I sleep when I breathe'!"
"It IS the same thing with you,"
said the Hatter.
e Suggested Reading
Carroll, Lewis. Alice in Wonderland, 3rd. Ed. Donald Gray. New
York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. Print. Norton Critical
Editions.
Carroll, Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 2nd ed. Ed.
Richard Kelly. Peterborough ON: Broadview, 2000. Print.
Carroll, Lewis. The Annotated Alice: 150th Anniversary Deluxe
Edition. Eds. Martin Gardner and Mark Burstein. New York and
London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2015. Print.
Alice in Wonderland Study Guide Suggested Reading 23

Carroll, Lewis. The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition. Ed.

Martin Gardner. New York and London: W.W. Norton &
Company, 2000. Print.

Cohen, Morton N. Lewis Carroll: A Biography. New York:

Vintage, 1996. Print.

Day, David. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Decoded.

Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2015. Print.

Douglas-Fairhurst, Robert. The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and

the Secret History of Wonderland. Cambridge, MA: The
Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 2015. Print.

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