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Though the tea party challenges Alice’s understanding of the fundamental concept of time, the Mad Hatter’s answerless riddle reaffirms Wonderland’s unusual sense of order. The riddle seems to have no answer and exists solely to perpetuate confusion and disorder. In Wonderland, chaos is the ruling principle, but a strange sense of order still exists. Though riddles need not have answers, language must retain some kind of logic. The Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse point out to Alice that saying what she means and meaning what she says are not the same thing. Alice has said that she cannot take “more” tea because she has not had any yet. However, as the Mad Hatter points out, Alice can indeed take “more” tea even though she has not had any, since “it’s very easy to take more than nothing.” The language games at the tea party underscore the inconsistency of Wonderland, but also imply that the ordering principles that govern Alice’s world are just as arbitrary.

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The most obvious theme that can be found in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is the theme of growing up. Lewis Carroll adored the unprejudiced and innocent way young children approach the world. With Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, he wanted to describe how a child sees our adult world, including all of the (in the eyes of a child silly and arbitrary) rules and social etiquette we created for ourselves, as well as the ego’s and bad habits we have developed during our lives. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland represents the child’s struggle to survive in the confusing world of adults. To understand our adult world, Alice has to overcome the open-mindedness that is characteristic for children.

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It is said that the ‘Rabbit Hole’ can be found in the dining hall in Christ Church, Oxford. Alice’s father would have dined at the High Table with other senior members of the college. After dinner the senior members did not drop down amongst the undergraduates but went through a panelled door to the left of the spot where Liddell’s portrait is now hanging. Behind this door is a very narrow spiral staircase which descends to the senior common room, then to a corridor which emerges in Tom Quad. Dean Liddell would use the staircase and appear in Tom Quad on his way home to the Deanery. So it is said that it was the inspiration for the Rabbit Hole. However, as the spiral staircase behind the High Table in Hall was built in 1906, this claim can be doubted.

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The Jabberwock is a scary character from a poem in the book ‘Through the Looking Glass and what Alice found there’ and is mentioned in the first chapter. Jabberwock by John TennielThe poem in which he appears is called ‘Jabberwocky‘ and therefore the Jabberwock is often mistakenly referred to as ‘the Jabberwocky’. The poem tells the story of a brave man who sets out to slay the Jabberwock, and finally returns home with his head. The Jabberwock apparently lives on an island. In a letter to Mrs. Chataway, the mother of a child-friend, Carroll explains that the scene of the ‘Snark’ is “an island, frequented by the Jubjub and Bandersnatch – no doubt the very island where the Jabberwock was slain.”

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At the time Carroll wrote “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, state-sanctioned executions were a subject of public controversy and heated debate in England. The Queen of Heart’s impulsive and absurd calls for beheadings may therefore be a way of ridiculing this longstanding practice of executions, and represent Carroll’s opinion on the matter.

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The Queen of Hearts rules over Wonderland and is a tyrant – violent, authoritative and dominant. She likes to play croquet with live flamingoes and hedgehogs as mallets and balls (but only when she wins, and by her own rules) and constantly orders the beheading of people when something isn’t to her

liking (although these orders apparently never are actually carried out). She also has her own ideas
about how trials should be conducted, and is feared by all other Wonderland inhabitants because of her lack of patience and explosive character.

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This is one of the creatures that fell into the pool of Alice’s tears. He tries to dry the others by telling them the driest story he knows.

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He is holding a tea party with the Hatter and the Dormouse. The party will continue forever, as they live in a frozen time. Later on, the March Hare is a witness during the trial. Tenniel drew the March Hare with straw on his head. At Carroll’s time, this was a symbol of madness. He refers to it in his ‘Nursery Alice’: “That’s the March Hare, with the long ears, and straws mixed up with his hair. The straws showed he was mad-I don’t know why.”

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he is rather strict and not very friendly, and corrects Alice’s recitation of a poem, he does help her by advising her to eat from the mushroom if she wants to change her size. In the end, he crawles away. In Disney’s cartoon movie, however, he changes into a butterfly. The Caterpillar actually teaches Alice how to cope with the difficulties she encounters in Wonderland. He teaches her how to change size by eating the mushroom and thereby to adapt to her environment when needed. Because the Caterpillar is smoking a hookah, and advises Alice to eat from a mushroom, he is the main reason why many people think that the story of Alice in Wonderland contains hidden meanings to drug use, or that the author was on drugs when writing the book.

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Alice follows him when he hurries into his hole and thereby enters Wonderland. He appears to be late for his job with the Duchess. While walking through Wonderland, Alice comes upon his house where the White Rabbit, still in a hurry, mistakes her for his housemaid Mary Ann, and orders her to get his gloves and a fan. When she grows and gets stuck in the house, the Rabbit orders Pat to get her out. In the end we discover that the White Rabbit is a herald in the Queen of Heart’s court. The White Rabbit is nervous and always in a hurry. However, he is confident enough about himself to contradict the King of Hearts. Because Alice follows him, he gets things moving again whenever he appears during the story. In a way, he is some kind of a guide through Wonderland for her, only unintentionally.

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Dean Liddell, Alice’s father, might have been an inspiration for the White Rabbit. The Dean was always running late as well; when Alice was a child, there was no west entrance to the Christ Church Cathedral and the Dean would normally have had to leave the Deanery, walk along Tom Quad, around the Cloisters and into the Cathedral through the south door. Therefore he was notorious for being late for services.

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The Cheshire Cat is the only character in Wonderland who actually listens to Alice. With his remarks, he teaches Alice the ‘rules’ of Wonderland. He gives her insight in how things work down there. It  is not 100% clear why Carroll named this character ‘Cheshire Cat’. “To grin like a Cheshire Cat” was a common phrase in Carroll’s day. Its origin is unknown, but it may have originated from a sign painter in Cheshire, who painted grinning lions on the sign-boards of inns in the area. Another source may be the following: when you take a good look at the ‘Alice Window’ in Christ Church, Oxford, you can see 3 grinning animals at the top of the Liddell’s family arms. Perhaps this is what inspired Dodgson. Also, at one time, Cheshire cheeses were molded in the shape of a grinning cat. Finally, the Cheshire Cat might be inspired by a sedilia in Croft Church.

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Carroll may have asked Tenniel to draw the Mad Hatter to resemble Theophilus Carter, a furniture dealer near Oxford. Carter was known in the area as the Mad Hatter, partly because he always wore a top hat and because of his eccentric ideas. It is also often suggested that Tenniel made the Mad Hatter resemble the politician Disraeli. Mark Davies arguments that it may have been Thomas Randall, an Oxford tailor. Many people wonder about the tag on the Mad Hatter’s hat. It is a price tag, displaying the price ‘ten and six’: 10 shillings and 6 pennies.

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Although everybody calls him ‘the Mad Hatter’, Lewis Carroll never actually called him that in the story. He just referred to him as ‘the Hatter’. The phrase ‘mad as a hatter’ was common in Carroll’s time. ‘Mad as a hatter’ probably owes its origin to the fact that hatters actually did go mad, because the mercury they used sometimes gave them mercury poisoning.

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The character of Alice is based on a real girl, called Alice Liddell, who was one of the author’s child-friends. The illustrations of Alice by John Tenniel are not based on Alice Liddell. Carroll sent Tenniel a photograph of Mary Hilton Badcock, another child-friend, who was the daughter of the Dean of Ripon. He recommended her as a model, but whether Tenniel accepted this advice remains a matter of dispute. The name of one of the three little sisters in the Treacle Well refers to Alice: ‘Lacie’ is a transformation of the letters from the word ‘Alice’.

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She is a seven-year-old English girl with lots of imagination and is fond of showing off her knowledge. Alice is polite, well raised and interested in others, although she sometimes makes the wrong remarks and upsets the creatures in Wonderland. She is easily put off by abruptness and rudeness of others.