Dear readers,
We can generally agree that Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has some questionable scenes and even more mind-boggling dialogue. The characters are mad, Alice is lost, and Wonderland is one big psychedelic fever dream. But don’t let the oddness get to you. I’d like to propose that to an extent, there is form beneath the surface craziness. To be specific, I want to examine how we make sense of time through the setting, Alice’s internal thoughts, and the chapter titles.
One of these key scenes takes place at the beginning of the book where Lewis Carroll wastes no time (haha) giving the audience a taste of what’s to come later on. The chapter title “Down the rabbit-hole” already gives away the “where” of the setting yet readers don’t know “what” to expect. Our “what” ends up coming from Alice as she falls “Down, down, down.” (which is repeated twice in this chapter) and “very slowly” (Carroll 2). She has thoughts like “ ‘I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down’ ” and “ ‘I wonder if I shall right through the earth!’ “ (Carroll 3). So we get direction, speed, and an exaggerated sense of distance.
Something else I noticed that I thought was interesting was Alice’s thoughts. Yes, she’s a child and that much is clear through the inaccuracy and imagination of the centre of the earth, but there is rationality. Since readers are experiencing Wonderland through Alice, we also have to think how we would react if this was real life. If I fell down what was supposed to be a rabbit hole that somehow fit me with plenty of space to spare and I was falling for that long among other objects that shouldn’t be found in a rabbit hole, I would start to question where it was going too. And then it wouldn’t be crazy to entertain the possibility that it could go near the centre of the earth. Having said that, that’s another beauty of Alice’s thoughts. They’re entertaining and so provoking of the readers’ own thoughts that they make time fly by as suddenly as it does for Alice.
Sincerely,
Alucard
Hi Alucard! This is a fascinating inspection of several different oddities in Carroll’s text. I was particularly intrigued by your analysis of place, both in the chapter title and in the text. Furthermore, I thought that the idea of close reading chapter titles was a great thread to follow! You could trace the pattern of “place” or other themes that appear as well, since the chapter titles are numerous and definitely interesting!