The Complete Alice in Wonderland (39 page)

“Can I do anything for you?” Alice went on. “Aren’t you rather cold here?”

“How you go on!” the Wasp said in a peevish tone. “Worrity, worrity! There never was such a child!”

Alice felt rather offended at this answer, and was very nearly walking on and leaving him, but she thought to herself “Perhaps it’s only pain that makes him so cross.” So she tried once more.

“Wo’n’t you let me help you round to the other side? You’ll be out of the cold wind there.”

The Wasp took her arm, and let her help him round the tree, but when he got settled down again he only said, as before, “Worrity, worrity! Ca’n’t you leave a body alone?”

“Would you like me to read you a bit of this?” Alice went on, as she picked up a newspaper which had been lying at his feet.

“You may read it if you’ve a mind to,” the Wasp said, rather sulkily. “Nobody’s hindering you, that I know of.”

So Alice sat down by him, and spread out the paper on her knees, and began.
“Latest News. The Exploring Party have made another tour in the Pantry, and have found five new lumps of white sugar, large and in fine condition. In coming back—”

“Any brown sugar?” the Wasp interrupted.

Alice hastily ran her eyes down the paper and said “No. It says nothing about brown.”

“No brown sugar!” grumbled the Wasp. “A nice exploring party!”

“
In coming back
,” Alice went on reading,
“they found a lake of treacle. The banks of the lake were blue and white, and looked like china. While tasting the treacle, they had a sad accident: two of their party were engulphed—”

“Were
what
?” the Wasp asked in a very cross voice.

“En-gulph-ed,” Alice repeated, dividing the word in syllables.

“There’s no such word in the language!” said the Wasp.

“It’s in the newspaper, though,” Alice said a little timidly.

“Let’s stop it here!” said the Wasp, fretfully turning away his head.

Alice put down the newspaper. “I’m afraid you’re not well,” she said in a soothing tone. “Ca’n’t I do anything for you?”

“It’s all along of the wig,” the Wasp said in a much gentler voice.

“Along of the wig?” Alice repeated, quite pleased to find that he was recovering his temper.

“You’d be cross too, if you’d a wig like mine,” the Wasp went on. “They jokes, at one. And they worrits one. And then I gets cross. And I gets cold. And I gets under a tree. And I gets a yellow handkerchief. And I ties up my face—as at the present.”

Alice looked pityingly at him. “Tying up the face is very good for the toothache,” she said.

“And it’s very good for the conceit,” added the Wasp.

Alice didn’t catch the word exactly. “Is that a kind of toothache?” she asked.

The Wasp considered a little. “Well, no,” he said: “it’s when you hold up your head—
so
—without bending your neck.”

“Oh, you mean stiff-neck,” said Alice.

The Wasp said “that’s a new-fangled name. They called it conceit in my time.”

“Conceit isn’t a disease at all,” Alice remarked.

“It is, though,” said the Wasp: “wait till you have it, and then you’ll know. And when you catches it, just try tying a yellow handkerchief round your face. It’ll cure you in no time!”

He untied the handkerchief as he spoke, and Alice looked at his wig in great surprise. It was bright yellow like the handkerchief, and all tangled and tumbled about like a heap of sea-weed. “You could make your wig much neater,” she said, “if only you had a comb.”

“What, you’re a Bee, are you?” the Wasp said, looking at her with more interest. “And you’ve got a comb. Much honey?”

“It isn’t that kind,” Alice hastily explained. “It’s to comb hair with—your wig’s so
very
rough, you know.”

“I’ll tell you how I came to wear it,” the Wasp said. “When I was young, you know, my ringlets used to wave—”

A curious idea came into Alice’s head. Almost every one she had met had repeated poetry to her, and she thought she would try if the Wasp couldn’t do it too. “Would you mind saying it in rhyme?” she asked very politely.

“It ain’t what I’m used to,” said the Wasp: “however I’ll try; wait a bit.” He was silent for a few moments, and then began again—

“When I was young, my ringlets waved

And curled and crinkled on my head:

And then they said ‘You should be shaved,

And wear a yellow wig instead.’

But when I followed their advice,

And they had noticed the effect,

They said I did not look so nice

As they had ventured to expect.

They said it did not fit, and so

It made me look extremely plain:

But what was I to do, you know?

My ringlets would not grow again.

So now that I am old and grey,

And all my hair is nearly gone,

They take my wig from me and say

‘How can you put such rubbish on?’

And still, whenever I appear,

They hoot at me and call me ‘Pig!’

And that is why they do it, dear,

Because I wear a yellow wig.”

“I’m very sorry for you,” Alice said heartily: “and I think if your wig fitted a little better, they wouldn’t tease you quite so much.”

“
Your
wig fits very well,” the Wasp murmured, looking at her with an expression of admiration: “it’s the shape of your head as does it. Your jaws ain’t well shaped, though—I should think you couldn’t bite well?”

Alice began with a little scream of laughing, which she turned into a cough as well as she could. At last she managed to say gravely, “I can bite anything I want.”

“Not with a mouth as small as that,” the Wasp persisted. “If you was a-fighting, now—could you get hold of the other one by the back of the neck?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Alice.

“Well, that’s because your jaws are too short,” the Wasp went on: “but the top of your head is nice and round.” He took off his own wig as he spoke, and stretched out one claw towards Alice, as if he wished to do the same for her, but she kept out of reach, and would not take the hint. So he went on with his criticisms.

“Then, your eyes—they’re too much in front, no doubt. One would have done as well as two, if you
must
have them so close—”

Alice did not like having so many personal remarks made on her, and as the Wasp had quite recovered his spirits, and was getting very talkative, she thought she might safely leave him. “I think I must be going on now,” she said. “Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, and thank-ye,” said the Wasp, and Alice tripped down the hill again, quite pleased that she had gone back and given a few minutes to making the poor old creature comfortable.

By Kent David Kelly

THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS
is, if anything, a treasure trove even more filled with secrets than
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
. Carroll had, in the writing of this novel, observed the success of his prior work for several years. He knew what his audience wanted, and he provided it.
Looking-Glass
is quite different, however, in that Carroll at the time was no longer a friendly companion of Alice Liddell (due to the insistence of Alice’s mother, as Alice grew to be a young woman).
 
However, Carroll still drew from many incidents in his earlier life with Alice, and supplemented these scenes with even more parodies, hinted references and in-jokes than ever before.

I hope you find these notes and observations toward
Through the Looking-Glass
entertaining. They were difficult to write, but the secrets revealed here are just as surprising as those for Wonderland, if not more so!

The Chess Problem

Clarifying the Conundrum:
Due to the limitations of the Kindle regarding modifiable text and the challenge of a dual-column display on a narrow screen, the format of the original move summary has been changed slightly to show the correctly alternating moves between White and Red. Further, Carroll’s intentionally cryptic acronyms following strict Victorian chess notation (“W.Q. to Q. B’s 4th,” etc.) have been spelled out to improve the reader’s understanding. This is one of the exceedingly few passages where I truly feel that direct de-codification actually enriches Carroll’s text!

The Nature of the Game:
In the same manner that Wonderland is ruled by game pieces (cards), Looking-Glass Land is ruled by the game of chess. The land itself is laid out like a chessboard, reflecting the “squared-off” nature of the English countryside with various fields bordered by fences, hedges and streams. In the Victorian age, chess pieces were often
red
and white, as opposed to the
black
and white known today. The additional complexity and maturity of the game of chess (as opposed to aimless cards and croquet) is a telling sign that Alice is growing up, and becoming cleverer all the time. This motif also reflects the nature of the powers of Wonderland, with the red and white roses, and the importance of those colors in the War of the Roses of England’s history.

The Journey Across the Board:
In chess, moves alternate per side, and each square is controlled by a single piece. Throughout the story, Alice comes into conflict with characters (pieces) for various reasons. She plays the part of a White Pawn, which is restricted in moving forward (“north”) across the board in the hopes of becoming a White Queen at the very end. A quick study of the board and its key will give the reader many hints of the nature of Alice’s coming adventures in Looking-Glass Land.

The Preface

Looking-Glass Chess:
While the chess motif is brilliant and deftly explored, the needs of the story outweigh the needs of the game. In other words, the chessboard as shown gives an extremely unlikely game in progress, with nonsensical moves by the various pieces. But what else is to be expected in a land governed by madness? The game in Looking-Glass Land has its own rules, which make sense only to the participants themselves.

Castling Queens:
This move, in “real” chess, involves the fortification of the King by positioning the Rooks in the backmost rank. In Looking-Glass Chess, castling refers to three Queens being present at the same time in the final rank. This is demonstrated in the story by Alice entering the palace, and the beginning of the great feast.

The Prefatory Poem

A Song of Autumn:
This poem, written in perhaps 1871, is clearly written by Carroll to Alice Liddell directly. By “half a life asunder,” Carroll is referring to the fact that Alice would then be 19 years old, and Carroll himself 39. The poem also introduces one of the major themes in
Through the Looking-Glass
, the passing of time and changing of people’s hearts, as reflected by the seasons. The time of
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
is here regarded as summer, and
Through the Looking-Glass
represents autumn.

Darker, Colder Tidings:
The verse beginning “Come, hearken then” is a strong symbolic passage concerning the coming of death (for those, such as Alice and Carroll, who believe themselves to be far too young at heart to fully die. Indeed, they remain immortal in literature.)

Pleasance:
The last line, of course, has a double meaning. It implies that the story will be too enjoyable to be spoiled by grim tidings; but it is also a word-play on Alice Liddell’s middle name.

Chapter I

A Tale of Three Cats:
From the very first, Carroll writes with the expectation that the reader is familiar with Alice and her world. The “old cat” mentioned here is Dinah, from
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
. The two kittens, black and white, are her children. The Liddell family had a male companion for Dinah, named Villikens, but sadly he died to poison. Whether or not he was the father of these two kittens remains a mystery.