The Complete Alice in Wonderland (18 page)

“Où Est Ma Chatte?”:
Literally in French, “Where is my cat?”
 
Alice is innocently trying out the tiny bit of French that she has learned. Of course, this question would be quite upsetting to a mouse, especially one which has had a past of being pursued by cats and dogs!

Torturing the Mouse:
Much like Alice was surprised by the grimness of her improvised “Crocodile” poem, here she cannot seem to stop herself from threatening the Mouse with her admiring chatter about the predatory Dinah. She is again showing aggressive tendencies, and is quite horrified to find that she cannot control these subconscious urges from surfacing.

The Duck, the Lory and the Eaglet:
In one of his letters, Carroll’s friend Robinson Duckworth explained who these three caricatures were written to allude to: “I figure as the ‘duck’ in the
Adventures
, Lorina Liddell (now Mrs. Skene) is the ‘lory’ or parrot, Edith Liddell (now no more) is the ‘eaglet.’”
 
These four individuals, along with Carroll himself, comprised the boating party which was present when Carroll began improvising the stories which would later become
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
.

The Dodo in Wonderland:
Alice and Lewis Carroll were quite familiar with this most curious of birds. One of the only “surviving” specimens is located in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, not far from Alice’s home. The Dodo is quite a natural denizen of Wonderland; since he is extinct in the real world, the land of dream is his last refuge!

Lewis Carroll, Dodo Extraordinaire:
Carroll suffered from a speech impediment, which caused him to stammer in uncomfortable or stressful situations. As an example, his diary entry for August 31, 1862 includes the following: “… Read service in the afternoon. I got through it all with great success, till I came to read out the first verse of the hymn before the sermon, where the two words ‘strife, strengthened,’ coming together were too much for me, and I had to leave the verse unfinished.”
 
When Carroll would introduce himself, he would sometimes nervously call himself “Do-Do-Dodgson.”

Chapter III

“I Must Know Better,” “Hold Your Tongue”:
These two lines are probably parodies of an episode in the novel
Holiday House
, where one Mrs. Crabtree says to the uppity young Master Harry, “Give me no more of your nonsense, Master Harry!
 
I was in the world long before you were born, and must know best; so hold your tongue.”

A Most Serious Mouse:
Unlike most of the creatures of Wonderland, the Mouse has an exceedingly low tolerance of nonsense. His self-respect and indignation arise from his education, which he is quick to lord over Alice and the others. We are tempted to draw direct parallels to one or more of Carroll’s Oxfordian associates, who admired Carroll’s success in writing “children’s stories,” but may have been quite unable to enjoy the fun in the stories themselves!

“The Driest Thing I Know”:
The Mouse is quoting from
A Short Course of History
, by Havilland Le Mesurier Chepmell. Carroll’s mockery of boring lesson books (first Latin, then French, now English) continues merrily apace!

Edith the Eaglet:
The Eaglet is a caricature of Alice’s younger sister, Edith. As we can see, the Eaglet does not suffer the pomposity of authority figures. She is more than willing to snub those who are putting on adult airs. In heraldry, the eagle stands for courage and action, a watchful bird who is quick to challenge.

“Speak English!”:
Here we can tell quite a bit about how Edith Liddell may have reacted to Carroll’s too-fancy language when it came to storytelling!

A Caucus-Race:
This incident is a parody of politics. In a political race, rivals run against one another for election. In a caucus, political allies gather together to discuss, negotiate and strategize. A caucus-race, then, is a political race in which allies bustle about and compete against one another for no real reason at all.

The Formatting of the Mouse’s Tale:
Due to the limitations of the Kindle and adjustable text sizing, the tail-shaped formatting of the poem can unfortunately not be perfectly reproduced here. This change represents one of the few compromises I have been forced to make in creating the complete electronic
Alice
.

A Long and Sad Tale:
In the original version, Mouse’s friends were squashed and killed by hungry animals. Carroll must have thought this version was too dark for public consumption, and so we have the Mouse’s tale here as a conflict between Mouse and an imperious dog Fury, with the threat of death but not the actual act. We will see that this poem’s mockery of the court system foreshadows the trial that serves as the climax to
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
, and also the scene of the Barrister’s dream in
The Hunting of the Snark
.

The Mysterious Fury:
Although it is not made clear in the poem, Fury was the name of a terrier owned by one of Carroll’s friends. The name is also appropriate when we consider the Erinyes, or furies, of Greek mythology.
Those
furies were demonic spirits of justice and divine retribution who haunted the dreaming ghosts of the netherworld. When we consider the underground nature of Wonderland itself, the allusion is quite a clever one!

She Had Got to the Fifth Bend:
Alice is visualizing the Mouse’s poem in tail form, bending back and forth. The Mouse, of course, is simply furious because he realizes that Alice has been going off with her own daydreaming, and has forgotten (yet again!) to be sympathetic to his fears.

The Old Crabs:
Later, when the Mock Turtle is regaling Alice with tales of the Underwater School, we will learn that this school has a classics master who is an old Crab as well: a caricature of the author of a famous Greek lexicon, Alice’s father Henry Liddell. the
female
old Crab is pedantic and chiding of her daughter, and may represent Alice’s society-climbing mother, Mrs. Lorina Liddell. Carroll may be taking jabs at those stuffy parents who sometimes forbade him from taking the Liddell sisters boating on the River Isis!

Chapter IV

“As Sure as Ferrets Are Ferrets”:
The Rabbit here is hinting at the hunting instinct of wild ferrets, who often clamp their teeth into rabbits’ necks, drain their blood, and even kill them. The White Rabbit’s obvious fear of the Duchess here (and her death threats, which Alice will learn of later) is ominous indeed.

Mary Ann, the Housemaid:
Carroll may have chosen this common English name at random, or may have been naming one of Alice’s friends. However, it is more likely that he is providing a winking reference to Mary Ann Hillier. Ms. Hillier worked as a parlor maid for Carroll’s colleague, the pioneering experimental photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. Mary Ann was quite beautiful and was Julia’s favorite model throughout the years when the “Alice” stories were written.

Why Is
Mary Ann in Wonderland?:
As Carroll pointed out in his character sketch of the White Rabbit, Mr. Rabbit is a bit elderly and has poor vision. Here he has mistaken Alice for Mary Ann, his housemaid. This curious episode leads one to wonder if Mary Ann is a dreamer much like Alice herself, who was unable to wake and was “taken in” by the Rabbit; or, if Mary Ann is a simultaneous dreamer, caught up in the same dream as Alice.

The Fragility of Kid-Gloves:
Kid-gloves are made of fine, thin leather and are very comfortable. However, they tear or split easily, and—despite care with olive oil—often need to be replaced. This is likely why the White Rabbit owns multiple pairs.

Going Messages for a Rabbit:
Alice is of course referring to the servant’s duty of running messages between houses in the age before telephones! Same-day business (for which the mail was too slow) was always conducted by servants “going messages.”
 
In Wonderland, as we shall see, this duty is performed by the Fish and Frog Footmen as well.

“When I Grow Up, I’ll Write One”:
This passage is intriguing because it might imply that Alice had told Lewis Carroll that she was interested in writing her own stories when she got older. This never happened, but Alice was certainly a creative young woman. She was very skilled in sketching and watercolors, and studied under John Ruskin himself. (Many of these works survive.)
 
But she was quite secretive about her talents. If Alice ever wrote a book of her own, it has never come to light.

Cucumber Frames, Digging for Apples:
Here we learn a bit about White Rabbit’s favorite foods. A cucumber frame is a miniature greenhouse for cultivating cucumbers quickly and in abundance. By digging for apples, Pat is making a jest about the French term for potatoes,
pomme de terre
—“apple of the earth.”

“It’s an Arrum”:
Pat here is a caricature of a typical servant in the English countryside: garrulous, well-natured and poorly spoken.

Alas, Poor Bill:
Bill, it seems, is a hearty Irish lad, with more loyalty than sense. He’s industrious, takes orders well, is fairly clumsy, and when he is hurt, is by no means averse to drink. The name William means “valiant protector”: an apt one in this case, considering that the White Rabbit intentionally sends Bill in his place to take care of a dangerous situation!
 
(By the way: From a color illustration in
The Nursery “Alice,”
we can venture a guess that Bill is a common, or viviparous lizard (
Lacerta vivipara
), a species native to England. If this is the case, he is agile, swift, an excellent climber, and none too bright.)

Many Voices All Talking Together:
This section of confused babble is written for effect, not for clarity. If it were properly attributed (with some guesswork applied), it would probably go something like this:

White Rabbit:
Where’s the other ladder?

Pat:
Why, I hadn’t to bring but one. Bill’s got the other.

White Rabbit:
Bill! Fetch it here, lad!

Pat:
Here, put ’em up at this corner.

Guinea Pig:
No, tie ’em together first—they don’t reach half high enough yet.

White Rabbit:
Oh, they’ll do well enough. Don’t be particular.

Guinea Pig:
Here, Bill! Catch hold of this rope.

Pat:
Will the roof bear?

White Rabbit:
Mind that loose slate.

Guinea Pig:
Oh, it’s coming down! Heads below!

Pat:
Now, who did that?

Guinea Pig:
It was Bill, I fancy.

Pat:
Who’s to go down the chimney?

Guinea Pig:
Nay,
I
sha’n’t!
You
do it!

Pat: That
I wo’n’t, then!

White Rabbit:
Bill’s got to go down.

Guinea Pig:
Here, Bill! The master says you’re to go down the chimney!

White Rabbit’s Darker Side:
When Mr. Rabbit is thwarted on his own territory, he becomes quite imperious indeed. The White Rabbit has many servants, including Bill, Pat, Mary Ann, the guinea pigs and many birds as well. He feels no guilt in ordering his servants about, to clean the dread imposter (Alice) out of his home as quickly as possible. He even threatens to burn the house down with Alice still inside it!

The Subtlety of Pebble Cakes:
There is no particular reason why pebbles would turn into “Eat Me” cakes, of course. But Alice had a prior experience with cakes shrinking her, and here she might be subliminally giving the cakes properties they normally would not have. Alice has considerable control over her environment (since it is
her
dream, after all), but does not yet realize that she has mastery over the situation. When she
does
finally realize this, it will be at the trial, and her insistence on control of the situation will lead to her waking up and leaving Wonderland. (In other words, when she realizes she is dreaming, the dream will then end.)

The Enormous Puppy:
This creature is quite out of place in Wonderland, as it is one of the few animals unable to speak. It is only enormous, of course, because Alice herself has become quite small again. The puppy might, in fact, be a child of Fury who tormented the Mouse.

Chapter V

The Nature of the Caterpillar:
The Caterpillar is a cranky, terse and self-obsessed philosopher. He shows an Oriental influence with his hookah and flowing sleeves. (The sleeves that are part of his body, in fact, hint that he might be a
silkworm
as opposed to a common English caterpillar!)
 
It is quite possible that he is smoking opium, which was an omnipresent drug of choice in Carroll’s time. Opium visions are akin to hallucinatory dreams, and Carroll was probably familiar with Thomas de Quincey’s 1821 autobiographical account,
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
.

Father William:
Carroll’s parody here takes aim at a popular moralizing poem. Alice’s oration, however, gives us further insight into her own secret nature.
Her
Father William poem is centered on role reversal. Father William’s young son is responsible and overly serious, while the old man is playful, childlike and rebellious.