Alice in Wonderland XV -- chapter 11 & 12: ALICE GROWS UP

Portrait of Alice Liddell,
by Charles Dodgson

The trial is the final scene before Alice awakes and book ends.  While there are some points of interest through the course of the trial, the real discussion begins at its completion with the few paragraphs of epilogue of the older sister's dream of Alice's dream.  It is here in this final moment that Carroll makes another anonymous appearance, this time seemingly to wave goodbye.

1. Wonderland is not a large place.  Nearly all of its characters are present in the trial, or appeared, also recently, at the croquet game.
2. Alice imagines the the animals out of the juror box will not survive, as surely as goldfish out of their bowl will not survive.  This is very much like the creatures of Wonderland and the "bowl" of Alice's dream.
3. Alice's growth through the second half of chapter 11 and through the end of the trial in chapter 12 is unmotivated by any contrivances of the dream.  She is growing on her own.  As Carroll controls the elements of the dream and Alice is growing independently of it and him, might this not symbolize the very maturing of Alice that Carroll dreads?  The Dream--his dreams of her, his wish for a different reality--will inevitably conclude.
4. In Carroll's eye, is Alice perhaps the guilty one--the one who committed, and as unwittingly as any Wonderland creature, the crime? tarts and hearts, and whoever stole them?
5. (42 is a bit of a magic number for Carroll and other writers, including Douglas Adams.)
6. The verses read by W. Rabbit (or maybe Herald/Harold?) is the second layer of parody of a near-thoroughly buried original song (below), the first of which was published by Carroll as "She's All My Fancy Painted Him."
7. Notice that in Tenniel's final illustration (of which there are 42, by the way) W. Rabbit has lost his costume, and the cards, with the exception of a few noses, have lost their personifications.
8. What is the determining factor (for it's not the trial) that wake's Alice?
9. Alice's older sister, I think, is channeling Carroll here at the end.  She re-dreams (remembers fondly, really) Alice's experiences and adventures, and is generally idealized by her.  Remember, this book was written as a gift for Alice.  The dream seems to me to be a dramatization of time spent together by Alice and Carroll.  Unfortunately, and no matter how beautiful, wonderful, confusing, or terrible, dreams end; and dreams like this tend to end most commonly when their subject grows up.  The beauty of a pleasant dream is that it is forever idealized (like Carroll's own idealization of it through the here-unnamed older sister) by she who had it.  Alice will remember it fondly forever, regardless of what may or may not happen through her future within reality.  (Interestingly, the way its all put together, and appropriately so, the dream is more Carroll's than Alice's, yet it is Alice who ends it.)

from John Shaw's booklet 

(I don't know more about it than this)

She's all my fancy painted her,

She's lovely, she's divine,

But her heart it is another's,

She never can be mine.

Yet loved I as man never loved,

A love without decay,

O, my heart, my heart is breaking

For the love of Alice Gray.

Drawing by Carroll in his hand-penned
copy of Alice's Adventures Underground

This portrait of Alice
was pasted into the
original book over
the drawing above.

Alice in Wonderland XI -- chapter 8: CALVINBALL or CROQUET?

The BIG QUESTION of chapter 8:  Yes, Alice enters a garden, and at the end of chapter 7 she even identifies it as the garden; but is this indeed the garden which she spied first through the little door?

I humbly acknowledge that these questions are asked remarkably inefficiently but declaim irresponsibly that I intend not to change them.

1. More (see question 2 on "The Great Ugly") on the importance of appearances here, as three cards--gardeners--frantically paint mistakenly-planted white roses red.  Is this a parallel case to that of the previous post?
2. Disregarding Tenniel's illustration, what does it mean to "be-head" a non-face-card (impertinent question)? 
3. What would be the difference between Alice laying on her face (contrary to what may be minimally proper) like the cards?  What are the cards--gardeners--attempting to do, really, by prostrating themselves?  This introduces an interesting issue (and this also ties into the next question): what is going on with the utter lack of variety when their backs are turned: "she could not tell whether they were gardeners, or soldiers, or courtiers, or three of her own children."
4. The general community of Wonderland is very diverse, and I've never thought of it as one inclusive group until now, perhaps fittingly, having just finished Jane Eyre.  Describe this community in terms of how it fits within the format of a typical Victorian region and/or countryside.  Which type of people perhaps have more substance than others, and what commentary is Carroll making?  (Grammatical aside (trick question, subject to grammatical subjectivity): is there a way to rewrite "what commentary is Carroll making" without splitting the infinitive, "is making," and without going into the dangerous waters of The Passive?)
5. Interesting choice of words: "How should I know?  It's no business of mine," which, of course, comes across as rude; couldn't she have simply referred (*another ridiculous verbal split*) to the impossibility of distinguishing them in such a state.
6. Apart from the primary argument at hand (in chapter, in book, in "series"), are the Alice books inappropriate for children?  Gardner humorously offers: "'I pictured to myself the Queen of Hearts,' Carroll wrote in his article 'Alice on the Stage,' 'as a sort of embodiment of ungovernable passion--a blind and aimless Fury.'  Her constant orders for beheadings are shocking to those modern critics of children's literature who feel that juvenile fiction should be free of all violence and especially violence with Freudian undertones.  Even the Oz books of L. Frank Baum, so singularly free of the horrors to be found in Grimm and Andersen, contain many scenes of decapitation.  As far as I know, there have been no empirical studies of how children react to such scenes and what harm if any is done to their psyche.  My guess is that the normal child finds it all very amusing and is not damaged in the least, but that books like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz should not be allowed to circulate indiscriminately among adults who are undergoing analysis."
7. Is there any way for the King of Hearts to be other than timid in the face of his spouse?  (Poor man!)
8. What is Carroll doing to/with/by Alice when he writes her as contradicting, and effectively so, the Queen? Consider also that the Queen shifts from ordering the offing of her head to inviting her to play Croquet.
9. "The Knave did so, very carefully, with one foot."  I expect there's a fair level of bigotry between the four suits of cards in the deck.
10. "Their heads are gone, if it please your Majesty!"
11. How do you suppose W. Rabbit feels now that Alice has been invited to play?
12. Is it such a "great wonder," as Alice believes, that there are any members of the deck of cards yet alive?
13. Notice the King's lack of ability--or authority--in the removal of the cat and his subsequent deferment to his wife.
14. What of the court's petition to Alice to solve their problem?

by Bill Waterson: Calvinball