{"id":2342,"date":"2025-04-08T19:48:40","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T19:48:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/?p=2342"},"modified":"2025-04-08T19:48:40","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T19:48:40","slug":"not-my-mad-hatter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/2025\/04\/08\/not-my-mad-hatter\/","title":{"rendered":"Not My Mad Hatter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Re-introduced as the White King\u2019s Messengers, the March Hare and the Mad Hatter of Alice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland <\/em>are transformed in Carroll\u2019s Through the Looking Glass<\/em>. In a play on regional pronunciations, the Hare becomes \u201cHaigha\u201d and the Hatter, \u201cHatta.\u201d However, the recurring characters are only identifiable through the embedded illustrations by John Tenniel. Carroll\u2019s description within the narrative itself completely obscures the character\u2019s familiar identities. Upon approach to Alice and the White King, \u201cHaigha\u201d is described as \u201cskipping up and down, and wriggling like an eel\u2026with his great hands spread out like fans\u201d (Carroll 186). Although the first action suggests the hopping of a hare, the subsequent simile likening him to an \u201ceel\u201d and mention of his large \u201chands\u201d confuses our understanding of what \u201cHaigha\u201d is. <\/em>Is he a human or an animal? If the latter, what species?<\/p>\n

Immediately following this idiosyncratic description, the White King declares \u201cHaigha\u201d is \u201can Anglo-Saxon Messenger\u201d and explains his odd movement as a result of his \u201cAnglo-Saxon attitudes\u201d (Carroll 186). Here, Carroll seems to be using the historical definition of \u201cattitude,\u201d meaning \u201c[a] posture of the body proper to, or implying, some action or mental state\u201d (\u201cAttitude\u201d n. 2.a.). The description of \u201cHaigha\u201d as \u201cAnglo-Saxon\u201d also identifies him as human, complicating the initial description. Furthermore, this description displaces this character in time, since the Anglo-Saxons lived several centuries ago, perhaps suggesting that the Looking-Glass World exists somewhere outside of our linear chronology.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Fig. 1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cHatta\u201d is introduced in a similarly vague manner, watching the fight \u201cwith a cup of tea in one hand and a piece of bread-and-butter in the other\u201d (Carroll 189). While the tea and bread reference the first book\u2019s \u201cmad tea party,\u201d this new version of \u201cHatta\u201d is neither mad nor a hatter. While identifiably human, \u201cHatta\u201d is not labeled as \u201cAnglo-Saxon. However, his character is similarly displaced in time, at least within the narrative, as he first<\/em> appears in the White Queen\u2019s story on page 164 (Fig. 1). The White Queen uses \u201cthe King\u2019s Messenger\u201d as an example of \u201cliving backwards,\u201d serving a prison sentence for a crime has not yet been tried for, or even committed (Carroll 164). This story is illustrated by an image on the opposite side of \u201cHatta\u201d chained up in a jail cell, his elusive hat hanging on the wall above his head. \u201cHatta\u201d is thus aligned with the concept of \u201cliving backwards,\u201d jumbling chronological clarity.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While \u201cHatta\u201d appears twenty pages prior to his official entry into the narrative, \u201cHaigha\u201d is not given visual form until noticeably after<\/em> his introduction. The first drawing of \u201cHaigha\u201d comes on page 190 and pictures him retrieving a sandwich from his bag to hand to the King (Fig. 2). This illustration breaks into the text a full two pages after this action has occurred, scrambling the relationship between the textual and visual narratives that are being told. This divide is accentuated by the recognizability of the March Hare in Tenniel\u2019s drawing as a hare <\/em>(albeit with hands), opposing the vaguely human description in the text.<\/p>\n

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Fig. 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

A second illustration on the opposite page (191) features \u201cHaigha\u201d and \u201cHatta\u201d at last in the same frame, in which the \u201clatta\u201d (latter) sips from a teacup, a half-eaten piece of bread held in his other hand (Fig. 3). This drawing closely mirrors the character\u2019s textual introduction, yet Tenniel has notably added a top hat, the identifiable accessory of the Mad Hatter. While Carroll\u2019s writing obscures the clarity of these characters\u2019 identities, Tenniel\u2019s images work in contrast to help the reader find familiar faces in a bizarre, unfamiliar world.<\/p>\n

Overall, the effect of this dissonance between text and image, interwoven together within this book, disrupts the reader\u2019s perception of time within the narrative as well as its characters. Embodying the uncertain linearity of a dreamscape, the Looking-Glass World confuses our understanding of reality and reliability.<\/p>\n

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Fig. 3<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dictionary Source:<\/p>\n

\u201cAttitude, N., 2.a.\u201d Oxford English Dictionary<\/em>, Oxford UP, December 2024, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/OED\/1203692887<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Re-introduced as the White King\u2019s Messengers, the March Hare and the Mad Hatter of Alice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland are transformed in Carroll\u2019s Through the Looking Glass. In a play on regional pronunciations, the Hare becomes \u201cHaigha\u201d and the Hatter, \u201cHatta.\u201d However, the recurring characters are only identifiable through the embedded illustrations by John Tenniel. Carroll\u2019s … Continue reading Not My Mad Hatter<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4760,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[135984],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2025-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4760"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}