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Almost all of us are familiar with the Unbirthday or the Queen of Hearts, or the Cheshire Cat of Alice in Wonderland... since the given name is Wonderland, and since Lewis Carroll was a mathematician we might say that in this wonderland kingdom there are all possible degrees of freedom for the oddities to come true.

However... zooming at some topics of this novel, we come up to understand that Little Alice suffers from Hallucinations and Personality Disorders, the White Rabbit from General Anxiety Disorder "I'm late", the Cheshire Cat is schizophrenic, as he disappears and reappears distorting reality around him and subsequently driving other characters in the story to madness. the Queen of Hearts is affected by egotism and narcissist syndrome "head off", the hookah-smoking Caterpillar by drug addiction, and the Mad Hatter, simply by madness, repeating in an obsessive-compulsive way, for ten years at 6 p.m. the celebration of our beloved Unbirthday. But he is stuck there... no sense of time, while he is getting old.

What about the Cards? They are just servants, there to obey, with a vanished body and personality.

Let's read a little portion "read me"- as well "eat me, or drink me": Alice has just changed her size...This is her inner dialogue:
Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking: 'Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, THAT'S the great puzzle!' And she began thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them. 'I'm sure I'm not Ada,' she said, 'for her hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine doesn't go in ringlets at all; and I'm sure I can't be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a very little! Besides, SHE'S she, and I'm I, and - oh dear, how puzzling it all is! I'll try if I know all the things I used to know. Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is-oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate! However, the Multiplication Table doesn't signify: let's try Geography. London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of Rome, and Rome - no, THAT'S all wrong, I'm certain! I must have been changed for Mabel! I'll try and say "How doth the little - "' and she crossed her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons, and began to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and strange, and the words did not come the same as they used to do: - 'How doth the little crocodile'I'm sure those are not the right words,' said poor Alice, and her eyes filled with tears again as she went on, 'I must be Mabel after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky little house, and have next to no toys to play with, and oh! ever so many lessons to learn! No, I've made up my mind about it; if I'm Mabel, I'll stay down here! It'll be no use their putting their heads down and saying "Come up again, dear!" I shall only look up and say "Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up: if not, I'll stay down here till I'm somebody else" - but, oh dear!' cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears, 'I do wish they WOULD put their heads down! I am so VERY tired of being all alone here!' As she said this she looked down at her hands and was surprised to see that she had put on one of the Rabbit's little white kid gloves while she was talking. 'How CAN I have done that?' she thought. 'I must be growing small again.' She got up and went to the table to measure herself by it, and found that, as nearly as she could guess, she was now about two feet high, and was going on shrinking rapidly: she soon found out that the cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she dropped it hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether..... It's always teatime in Wonderland
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
Six o'clock meaning tea-time, so they have been stuck in that tea-party for ages. Of course, time ran curiously in Wonderland because it was simply a dream. Another thing to remember is that when Alice wakes up from the dream, it's tea-time, too. The Mad Hatter says that time is a living creature. Somebody holy to respect, not in the arrogant ways that Little Alice thinks to know. However, they are imprisoned by the never-ending tea party, since time for them, is not passing... Is it true that time can by stopping? We don't know, if they stay the same and they don't get old, or if they - as Alice says- are just wasting time.
"Nowhere, we mostly have days and nights two or three at a time, and sometimes in the winter we take as many as five nights together - for warmth, you know."
In the next book, " Through the Looking Glass " it's also mentioned that in Wonderland, the days are sometimes merged together. According to the Red Queen:
Alice sighed wearily. `I think you might do something better with the time,' she said, `than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.' `If you knew Time as well as I do,' said the Hatter, `you wouldn't talk about wasting IT. It's HIM.' `I don't know what you mean,' said Alice. `Of course, you don't!' the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously. `I dare say you never even spoke to Time!' `Perhaps not,' Alice cautiously replied: `but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.' `Ah! that accounts for it,' said the Hatter. `He won't stand to beat. Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he'd do almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it was nine o'clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons: you'd only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!' ....A bright idea came into Alice's head. `Is that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?' she asked. `Yes, that's it,' said the Hatter with a sigh: `it's always tea-time, and we've no time to wash the things between whiles.' `Then you keep moving around, I suppose?' said Alice. `Exactly so,' said the Hatter: `as the things get used up.' ....`I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, `so I can't take more.' `You mean you can't take LESS,' said the Hatter: `it's very easy to take MORE than nothing.' Why did Lewis Carroll write about Madness? Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. And ever since that,' the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, `he won't do a thing I ask! It's always six o'clock now.' "I see!' said the Queen, who had meanwhile been examining the roses. `Off with their heads!' and the procession moved on, three of the soldiers remaining behind to execute the unfortunate gardeners, who ran to Alice for protection. `You shan't be beheaded!' said Alice, and she put them into a large flower-pot that stood near. The three soldiers wandered about for a minute or two, looking for them, and then quietly marched off after the others. `Are their heads off?' shouted the Queen. `Their heads are gone, if it pleases your Majesty!' the soldiers shouted in reply. Bigger and smaller at the sight
Let's go back to the Mad Hatter Tea Party and "read me":

In 1873 Skeffington Lutwidge, a Lunacy Commission inspector of asylums in England, was killed by an asylum patient. Lutwidge was the uncle and close friend of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, also known as Lewis Carroll. One year later, Carroll began writing The Hunting of the Snark, a poem whose meaning has mystified Carroll enthusiasts. In fact, the poem is a description of the Lunacy Commission inspection team and reflects Carroll's personal understanding of, and reaction to, the killing of his uncle by an individual with a severe mental illness. Carroll's close relationship with his uncle also explains the prominence of psychotic thinking in Carroll's work, including the Mad Hatter's tea party, or even the more cruel, Queen of Hearts, who is as a matter of fact, a murderer.

Commenting on the Red Queen's "constant orders for beheadings," Gardner suggests that "violence with Freudian overtones" is quite harmless to children, but that the book "should not be allowed to circulate indiscriminately among adults who are undergoing analysis."

In the story, Alice experiences numerous situations similar to those of micropsia and macropsia. Speculation has arisen that Carroll may have written the story using his own direct experience with episodes of micropsia resulting from the numerous migraines he was known to suffer from. It has also been suggested that Carroll may have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy.

Lewis Carroll was said to have been inspired to write Alice in Wonderland after the onset of a bizarre neurological condition. Prey to "bilious headaches", Carroll recorded in his diary his experience of "curious optical effects ... seeing disordered 'fortifications'." Although the historical diagnosis is risky, scholars agree that these "disordered fortifications" were the likely product of Todd's syndrome, a condition which distorts perceptions of size and induces the shrinking feeling Alice experiences. Only formally recognized 60 years ago, it affects just a tiny number of people per year.
Alice in Wonderland syndrome
Meanwhile, in the medical literature, the analysts were supplanted by neurologists and neuropsychiatrists with the introduction in the 1950s of the Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (AIWS).

In 1952 migraine investigator Caro W. Lippman reported in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease on patients experiencing transitory "hallucinations of the sense of body image, in which the patient has the feeling that the entire body, or certain parts of the body, have become distorted in size or shape" in connection with their migraines. One patient compared her sensation of being abnormally short and wide to a "Tweedle-Dum or Tweedle-Dee feeling" (referencing the rotund twins from Looking Glass) and Lippman remarked on the "migraine hallucinations" which Carroll himself described and recorded "in immortal fiction form."

Todd expanded the list of diseases in which the symptoms occur to include "epilepsy, cerebral lesion, intoxication with hallucinogenic drugs, the deliria of fevers, hypnagogic states and schizophrenia." He likewise expanded the list of possible symptoms to include "illusory changes in the size, distance, or position of stationary objects in the subject's visual field; illusory feelings of levitation; and illusory alterations in the sense of the passage of time."

It is a disorienting neuropsychological condition that affects perception. People experience size distortion such as micropsia, macropsia, pelopsia, or teleopsia. Size distortion may occur of other sensory modalities. Anecdotal reports suggest that the symptoms are common in childhood, with many people growing out of them in their teens. It appears that AiWS is also a common experience at sleep onset, and has been known to commonly arise due to a lack of sleep.

A prominent and often disturbing symptom are experiences of altered body image. The person may find that they are confused as to the size and shape of parts of (or all of) their body. They may feel as though their body is expanding or getting smaller. Alice in Wonderland syndrome also involves perceptual distortions of the size or shape of objects. Other possible causes and signs of the syndrome include migraines, use of hallucinogenic drugs, and infectious mononucleosis.

Patients with certain neurological diseases have experienced similar visual hallucinations. These hallucinations are called "Lilliputian", which means that objects appear either smaller or larger than they actually are.

Patients may experience either micropsia or macropsia. Micropsia is an abnormal visual condition, usually occurring in the context of visual hallucination, in which affected persons see objects as being smaller than those objects actually are. Macropsia is a condition where the individual sees everything larger than it actually is.
The social dreaming at the end Wake up, Alice dear!' said her sister; `Why, what a long sleep you've had!' `Oh, I've had such a curious dream!' said Alice, and she told her sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange Adventures of hers that you have just been reading about; and when she had finished, her sister kissed her, and said, `It WAS a curious dream, dear, certainly: but now run in to your tea; it's getting late.' So Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she ran, as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been. But her sister sat still just as she left her, leaning her head on her hand, watching the setting sun, and thinking of little Alice and all her wonderful Adventures, till she too began dreaming after a fashion, and this was her dream. First, she dreamed of little Alice herself, and once again the tiny hands were clasped upon her knee, and the bright eager eyes were looking up into her-she could hear the very tones of her voice, and see that queer little toss of her head to keep back the wandering hair that would always get into her eyes-and still as she listened, or seemed to listen, the whole place around her became alive the strange creatures of her little sister's dream.
The eyes themselves are normal, but the person will often 'see' objects as the incorrect size, shape or perspective angle. Therefore, people, cars, buildings, houses, animals, trees, environments, etc., look smaller or larger than they should be, or that distances look incorrect; for example, a corridor may appear to be very long, or the ground may appear too close.

The person affected by Alice in Wonderland Syndrome may also lose the sense of time, a problem similar to the lack of spatial perspective. In other words, time seems to pass very slowly, akin to an LSD experience. The lack of time, and space, perspective leads to a distorted sense of velocity. For example, one could be inching along ever so slowly in reality, yet it would seem as if one were sprinting uncontrollably along a moving walkway, leading to severe, overwhelming disorientation. This can then cause the person to feel as if the movement, even within his or her own home, is futile.

In addition, some people may, in conjunction with a high fever, experience more intense and overt hallucinations, seeing things that are not there and misinterpreting events and situations.
https://youtu.be/FYt8Ab79Xao
Social dreaming, we could call it today: after Alice told the beautiful and somehow exciting dream she had, this was embodied in her sister phantasy. She starts to dream the same creatures of the Wonderland. Social Dreaming is a way of working with dreams where the focus is on the dream and not the dreamer, where dreams are shared amongst people who come together solely for this purpose. With Social Dreaming, the meaning of a dream is about the broader world in which one lives. In a Social Dreaming event, participants are invited to offer their dreams and, through association, explore the possible social meanings contained within them.

Participants at a Social Dreaming event, known as a "matrix", access a potential to create new thoughts that arise from what has been described as the "associative unconscious" (Long). These new thoughts are often an expression of ideas, thoughts, and feelings that are deeply held or known but yet to be expressed or thought (the "unthought known", Bollas). This key feature differentiates Social Dreaming from other forms of debate, discussion, and dream work.

Dreaming has long been used by communities around the world, including Native Americans, Africans, and Australians, to capture thinking about the past and learning about the present, while guiding them towards the future. Social Dreaming builds on this legacy to bring new thinking and meaning to the communities in which we live and work.

Social Dreaming was discovered by Gordon Lawrence of the Tavistock Center in London, in the '80s.

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So much inside Alice in Wonderland for Medical Humanities - MedicinaNarrativa.eu

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Almost all of us are familiar with the Unbirthday or the Queen of Hearts, or the Cheshire Cat of Alice in Wonderland... since the given name is Wonderland, and since Lewis Carroll was a mathematician we might say that in this wonderland kingdom there are all possible degrees of freedom for the oddities to come [...]

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Alice in Wonderland is perhaps one of the most iconic children's stories of all time. Whether you are most familiar with the classic 1865 novel with its detailed black and white sketches, the dark, twisted, live-action movie version with its Tim Burton flair, or the colourful, whimsical, Disney version that feels more like a two hour trip on mushrooms - the curious, blonde-haired little girl and her mad friends have likely made their way into your life at some point.

Alice Liddell inspired the children's classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) after she asked that he tell her a story during a boating trip in Oxford. The relationship between the two has been shrouded in mystery and suspicion due to the unconventional amount of time Carroll spent with his friend's children. He used to take them on picnics and boat rides, and while they were gallivanting Carroll would be inspired by the children and tell them fantastic stories.

The relationship between the Liddell children and Carroll is further clouded is suspicion thanks to the lack of his personal diaries from 1858 to 1863. We do know that the relationship between the family and the author suffered a sudden collapse in June 1863. Again there is no definitive record because the diary entries suspected of being around this time and centering on the breakdown were torn out. Much speculation about the breakdown has been tossed around by Carroll's biographers.
Alice Liddell by Lewis Carroll
Morton N. Cohen speculated that the break came from Carroll expressing a desire to marry Alice who at the time was 11. This theory coincides with the general belief that Alice's mother had become increasingly uncomfortable with a grown man's friendship with her daughter. In 1966 Karoline Leach found the "Cut pages in diary" document. The document is allegedly a note written by Carroll's niece, Violet Dodgson. Her memo is meant to summarize the torn out pages from June 27-29, 1863. If it's true, it is believed Violet or her sister Menella removed the pages from the diary.
"L.C. learns from Mrs. Liddell that he is supposed to be using the children as a means of paying court to the governess-he is also supposed soon to be courting Ina"
Her memo says:

The interpretation of this memo is generally that it was gossip that tore Dodgson and the Liddells apart. That it wasn't his attachment to Alice that was inappropriate but to the Liddell's governess and their oldest daughter Lorina. Biographer Jenny Woolf believes that the attachment was not on Carroll's side but was an attachment Lorina held for him. Woolf justifies this theory by explaining that Menella would remove the pages highlighting Lorina's unrequited love because she did not want to embarrass her by having details of a spurned childhood love available to the public. The censored and condensed version of Lorina's infatuation were to ensure Lorina would not be offended.
Alice Liddell dressed up as a beggar by Lewis Carroll Alice Liddell (right) with sisters by Lewis Carroll
Cohen believes the note was written by Carroll's great nephew who wrote it after remembering conversations with Carroll's nieces about the break.
Carroll did not visit the Liddell's for over 6 months. He eventually revisited but the friendship did not rekindle. And the relationship eventually faded away.
Alice Liddell, age 20
Carroll stated himself that his Alice is not based on Liddell. While the original drawings of Alice do not resemble Alice Liddell, they actually more resemble her sister Edith. Yet there are still many links between the fictional and real girl. Firstly, the story is set on May 4, which is Liddell's birthday and November 4, which is Liddell's half birthday. On said date the fictional Alice in Through the Looking-Glass declares she is "seven and a half exactly", the same age Liddell would be on that date. Secondly, the books are in fact dedicated to Alice Liddell. And thirdly, at the end of Through the Looking Glass, Carroll included a nameless poem that is commonly referred to as "A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky". This is an acrostic poem that when read downward, taking the first letter of every line spells out Alice Liddell's full name.

Carroll seemingly enjoyed photographing Alice and her sisters, as all the pictures before this are photographed by him.

Alice married a cricketer named Reginald Hargreaves and had three children with him. She died in 1934 at the age of 82.

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Lewis Carroll's mysterious (and creepy) infatuation with the real Alice in Wonderland

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Alice in Wonderland is perhaps one of the most iconic children's stories of all time. Whether you are most familiar with the classic 1865 novel with its detailed black and white sketches, the dark, twisted, live-action movie version with its Tim Burton flair, or the colourful, whimsical, Disney version that feels more like a two hour trip on mushrooms - the curious, blonde-haired little girl and her mad friends have likely made their way into your life at some point.

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"Who in the world am I?" Alice ponders in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. "Ah, that's the great puzzle." Outside the pages of the fantastical 1865 novel, however, the real-life Alice's identity is much less of a mystery.

While a young girl certainly never tumbled down a rabbit hole to a whimsical land of eccentric characters like a tea-party-hosting Mad Hatter, a perpetually late White Rabbit or a mischievously grinning Cheshire Cat, a dark-haired 10-year-old named Alice Liddell did inspire the iconic tale. In fact, Carroll (real name: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) even once referred to Liddell as one "without whose infant patronage I might possibly never have written at all."

Carroll met Alice when he was hired to photograph the Liddell family

Born on May 4, 1852, in Westminster, England, Liddell was the fourth of Henry and Lorina Liddell's 10 children. Her father, the Dean of Christ Church, first became acquainted with Carroll at the college where the author worked as a mathematics tutor. As Carroll noted in his diary, it was on April 25, 1856, that he first met the young Alice.

An avid photographer, Carroll was invited by Henry Liddell to snap photos of his family (of Alice in particular) and formed a close bond with the family. On July 4, 1862, Carroll and a friend took a then-10-year-old Alice, as well as her sisters Lorina and Edith, on a boat trip from Oxford to the nearby town of Godstow to have a tea party on the riverbank. It was on this day that the now-famous story was born.

While on the excursion, Carroll entertained the girls by making up a fantastical story about a young girl named Alice. The real-life Alice was so enamored by the tale, that she begged him to write down the story so that she could read it again and again.

Photo: Lewis Carroll/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Their encounters mysteriously stopped for a few years

His almost daily meetings with Alice and the other Liddell children came to a mysteriously abrupt halt the following summer, however. While the reason was likely explained in his diary, the page that may have contained the answer was cut out following his 1898 death. And so the cloud of mystery remains.

The Liddells finally made a reappearance in his diary in late 1864, and as a Christmas gift that year, he granted Alice's wish, giving her a handwritten and illustrated copy of what he had then called Alice's Adventures Under Ground.

Meanwhile, the author continued to expand upon the story - almost doubling it in length - and published a novel the following year with a new title suggested by her father: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. But, as Alice got older, their friendship seemed to dissipate. When Alice was 12 years old, he wrote that she seemed "...changed a good deal, and hardly for the better..."

Photo: National Media Museum/SSPL/Getty Images

The real Alice almost became a royal

As Alice grew up - and into her place in Victorian society - she met Queen Victoria's youngest son, Prince Leopold, while the royal was pursuing an undergraduate degree at Christ Church. In a storyline that very well could have been the basis for another type of fairy tale, the pair fell in love, but the Queen insisted that her son marry a woman of royal lineage, thus keeping the couple apart. When she was 28 years old, Alice married wealthy cricketer Reginald Hargreaves, another Christ Church student, at Westminster Abbey in 1880. Only after her wedding did Prince Leopold follow through with his mother's wishes, marrying a German princess in 1883.

Much like Carroll did in his book, Prince Leopold went on to give Alice's name to his daughter. In turn, Alice named the second of her three sons Leopold and asked the Prince to be the boy's godfather. In a stroke of tragedy, however, Alice's son Leopold and his older brother Alan were both killed in World War II. Alice and Reginald Hargreaves youngest son, Caryl, became their only surviving child.

Alice sold Carroll's manuscript in 1928

Seemingly unable to recover from the shock of losing his two eldest sons, Reginald died in 1926. For her part, Alice remained activity in high society, and in 1928, sold the illustrated Alice's Adventures Under Ground manuscript gifted to her by Carroll when she was a child to an American dealer for £15,400, or roughly more than $20,000 USD by today's standards. (In 1948, the handwritten work was given back to the United Kingdom and is now in the British Museum.)

In honor of the centennial of Carroll's birth, a then-80-year-old Alice, traveled with her son and sister to New York City in 1932 to attend a Lewis Carroll exhibition and receive an honorary doctorate from Columbia University for "awaking with her girlhood's charm the ingenious fancy of a mathematician familiar with imaginary quantities, stirring him to reveal his complete understanding of the heart of a child."

Two years later, Alice died at the age of 82, but her legacy continues to live on. She may not have given anyone more of a sense of wonder as she did for Carroll, however. As historian Martin Gardner wrote in 1960's The Annotated Alice, "A long procession of charming little girls (we know today that they were charming from their photographs) skipped through Carroll's life, but none ever took the place of his first love, Alice Liddell. 'I have had some scores of child-friends since your time,' he wrote to her after her marriage, 'but they have been quite a different thing.'"

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"Who in the world am I?" Alice ponders in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. "Ah, that's the great puzzle." Outside the pages of the fantastical 1865 novel, however, the real-life Alice's identity is much less of a mystery.

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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is a story about Alice who falls down a rabbit hole and lands into a fantasy world that is full of weird, wonderful people and animals. It is classic children's book that is also popular with adults. Personally, at 16, I found the book strange and uninteresting. However if I was 8-14 I would have loved the fantastic fantasy world Carroll creates. I never expected the events that happened because they were bizarre and unpredictable. I loved the Cheshire cat's wit and intelligence. I also love the hatter because his eccentric personality reminded me of the eccentric people I know. My favourite part was when Alice met the caterpillar, this was because of his ambiguous conversation with Alice.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is a story about Alice who falls down a rabbit hole and lands into a fantasy world that is full of weird, wonderful people and animals. It is classic children's book that is also popular with adults. Personally, at 16, I found the book strange and uninteresting. However if I was 8-14 I would have loved the fantastic fantasy world Carroll creates. I never expected the events that happened because they were bizarre and unpredictable. I loved the Cheshire cat's wit and intelligence. I also love the hatter because his eccentric personality reminded me of the eccentric people I know. My favourite part was when Alice met the caterpillar, this was because of his ambiguous conversation with Alice.

However, I thought the events were sometimes random and didn't always connect. I also disliked the number of characters, this is because sometimes I found it uninteresting and sometimes it meant that I didn't have the development of scenes I wanted.

I believe that it is a clever book that I world have preferred when I was younger because now I have a different taste in books. Carroll has depicted a unique world that I hadn't seen before. This why I believe it is a book that I would recommend.
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children's fantasy books (children's and teens)

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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - review

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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is a story about Alice who falls down a rabbit hole and lands into a fantasy world that is full of weird, wonderful people and animals. It is classic children's book that is also popular with adults. Personally, at 16, I found the book strange and uninteresting.

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The Philosophy of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”

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Essay using philosophical arguments and theories to prove or disprove the existence of alternate realities based on Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” Originally written as a college English paper in March 2010.

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here are various possible approaches to Alice in Wonderland, first published 150 years ago this April. One way to cope with the mountain of print inspired by Lewis Carroll [aka Charles Dodgson] and Alice Liddell, his haunting child-friend, is to follow the Gryphon's advice. "No, no!" exclaims this crotchety heraldic creature during the Lobster Quadrille, insisting on "adventures" before analysis. "Explanations take such a dreadful time."

In The Story of Alice, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, an Oxford don, has explored Dodgson/Carroll and Alice through a braid of "adventures" and "explanations". It's a strategy that yields fascinating insights, even though both the writer and his child-muse ultimately slip through our fingers. With Carroll, the denser the documentation, the greater the enigma. Appropriately, on the cover of Sgt Pepper, he appears between Marlene Dietrich and TE Lawrence.

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was the eldest son of a high church country clergyman, and had seven sisters. Childhood was the Dodgson family project. "Charlie" became its entertainer, a fount of "jokes, riddles, fun, poetry and tales". As well as limericks and nonsense poetry, he also put on shows in his marionette theatre, and contributed to the family's Rectory Magazine, for which, says Douglas-Fairhurst, young Charlie was "editor, leading author, illustrator, printer, publisher and distributor".

Childhood was the idyll Dodgson never quite recovered from, a parallel world where time stood still. Virginia Woolf believed that this held the key to the man, and was always "an impediment at the centre of his being".

Charles's father Skeffington Dodgson had wanted his son to follow him into the church, and sent him to that staff college for muscular Christians, Thomas Arnold's Rugby school. After his sisters and their jigsaw puzzles, teenage Charles was now maturing among mid-Victorian youth and higher mathematics, a precociously brilliant logician on course for Oxford and the ministry. He arrived at Christ Church in 1851, and would never really leave.

Christ Church was the Vatican of an academic and social establishment, a hothouse of eccentricity where Dodgson would be utterly at home. Douglas-Fairhurst is well-equipped to elucidate the mysteries of that earnest cocktail of frivolity and convention, the don's life. The young mathematician soon found the pen name for his fantasies, rejecting "Edgar Cuthwellis" in favour of "Lewis Carroll". He also took up the "black arts" of photography, an outre, transgressive link with the make-believe of childhood.

To be a Victorian photographer, says Douglas-Fairhurst, required "the knowledge of a chemist, the eye of an artist, and the patience of a saint". The craft suited Dodgson, and the art inspired Carroll. He could prolong his fascination with childhood by photographing little girls, ideally in the nude. "A girl of about 12," he wrote towards the end of his life, "is my ideal beauty of form." In words of pre-Freudian innocence, he could never see "why the lovely forms of girls should ever be covered up".

Perhaps only in Oxford would this not seem unusual. The dean of Christ Church, the classical scholar Henry George Liddell, and his bossy wife had three ideal subjects for the amateur photographer. They were Alice Liddell and her sisters, who played in the deanery garden outside the college library where Dodgson worked at his linear equations. Mid-Victorian Oxford revelled in the discreet charm of little girls. Carroll, asked if children ever bored him, replied simply: "They are three-fourths of my life."

Lewis Carroll's portrait of Alice Liddell as a beggar girl, circa 1862. Photograph: Bettmann/CORBIS

Pretty eight-year-old Alice, especially, captivated the young man. She had dark, elfin features, and the kind of fashionable clothes that made her look, says Douglas-Fairhurst, "rather like a well-dressed doll". Dodgson photographed her obsessively. One extraordinary window on to their relationship is The Beggar Maid, in which a barefoot Alice wears a tattered white dress in a pose of off-the-shoulder flirtation. Douglas-Fairhurst is far too sophisticated a literary critic to put it like this - though he's excellent on the sentimental rhetoric of this romance - but Dodgson was caught up in the biggest "adventure" of all. He was evidently in love.

This was the mood in which he and a friend named Duckworth took a boat trip with the three Liddell girls up the Thames to Godstow on the afternoon of 4 July 1862. Previous river trips had been full of adventure. A few weeks before, they had been caught in a thunderstorm and had to dry off in a bankside cottage. Later, as the origins of "Alice" became lost in myth, several outings morphed into a single "golden afternoon". Actually, meteorological records show that 4 July was dreary not dreamy, being "cool, and rather wet". More poignant still, the famous expedition on which Dodgson became forever Carroll and began to spin the tale that would become Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was an end not a beginning, the ecstatic climax of his relationship with the most famous little girl in English literature.

Already, from 1858 to 1862, Dodgson's peculiar intimacy with Miss Liddell had become the subject of intense Oxford gossip, with suggestions that the strange young Christ Church don had even proposed marriage and been rebuffed by the girl's parents. In the age of Rolf Harris, what the critic Hugh Haughton has called "Dodgson's mysterious paedophile sexuality" can make for queasy reading.

In June 1863, there was a crisis whose true meaning has never been fully clarified. On 25 June, after another boat trip, Dodgson records "a pleasant expedition with a very pleasant conclusion". Was this, some have speculated, a stolen kiss? We shall never know. But Mrs Liddell was furious about something. There was a decisive break with the family. The corresponding page for June was torn out of Carroll's diary.

When Carroll saw Mrs Liddell and her daughters six months later at Christmas he writes that he "held aloof from them, as I have done all this term". But Christ Church gossip filtered into upper-class conversation. Years later, Lord Salisbury noted that "They say that Dodgson has half gone out of his mind in consequence of having been refused by the real Alice (Liddell)". Like the best fairytales, Alice in Wonderland is edged with the tragedy of broken dreams.

Douglas-Fairhurst wrestles with our need to make Dodgson's sexuality "fit into established modern categories". No question: he was as camp as custard, signing letters, in purple ink, "from your affectionate little fairy friend, Sylvie", and displaying such effeminacy that to some of his students he was "Louisa Caroline". Still, concludes Douglas-Fairhurst, the quest for answers "cannot be satisfied by anything we know" and he reaches "the probable conclusion" that Carroll's "strongest feelings were sentimental rather than sexual".

Sigh.

What, meanwhile, of Alice Liddell's adventures? The Story of Alice also explores what this strange, thwarted passion did to Alice herself. In the two dream-books, she is a vivid and opinionated character surrounded by exotic caricatures, a believably cross little girl who is by turns generous and snobbish, keen to please, self-obsessed, and tormented by the question "Who am I?" In real life, she became a sphinx without a riddle. Like the boy model for Peter Pan who never grew up, and like Christopher Robin who is always saying his prayers, Alice Liddell was irritated by Dodgson's fixation. In 1870, her mentor photographed his beloved Alice for the last time. It's a shocking photo: exquisitely dressed, her hands clasped before her, looking stiff, awkward and even embarrassed, 18-year-old Miss Liddell's expression hovers between contempt and boredom.

End of an era: the 18-year-old Alice Liddell photographed by Charles Dodgson, 1870. Photograph: EPA

Her post-Wonderland career was as unfulfilled as Dodgson's. She continued to inspire hopeless romance. John Ruskin had a dalliance with her that was interrupted by her parents. The Prince of Wales's son, Leopold, pursued her briefly while he studied at Christ Church. Would this be a fairy tale with a real Prince Charming? In the end, on 15 September 1880, Miss Liddell married Reginald Hargreaves, a decent, dull, and rich Old Etonian, at a ceremony in Westminster Abbey. In her new life as Mrs Hargreaves, Alice followed the conventions of Victorian domestic fiction: she had eight servants and three sons, two of whom were killed in the first world war.

By then, Carroll himself was dead, carried off by bronchial pneumonia at the comparatively early age of 65. His work was already part of the English imagination, and beginning to filter into global consciousness. Captain Scott took copies of both Alice books on his Antarctic explorations. As an old lady, Alice Hargreaves became a minor literary celebrity in the US, but wrote to her surviving son Caryl (an interesting choice of name): "I am tired of being Alice in Wonderland!"

So, finally, to the "Explanations". Next to the Bible and Shakespeare, Alice in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass are said to be the most quoted works of English literature. "Nonsense" is a peculiarly English genre, but Carroll's apparently inconsequential wordplay is replete with consequences. As the Queen of Hearts says: "Every joke should have a meaning." Douglas-Fairhurst is the latest recruit to an army of Alice analysts baffled to distraction by the quest for answers to the Alice conundrum.

"Who in the world am I?" is Alice's refrain. It's a question she answers when she meets the caterpillar on his mushroom. "I can't explain myself," she says, "because I'm not myself, you see." The psychological grip in which Carroll holds his reader is all to do with a search for identity in which, teasing, he supplies more questions than answers. Possibly that reflects Dodgson's unresolved dialogue with his own childhood. These dream-books are hypnotically nostalgic. Virginia Woolf identified this when she observed that "these are not books for children. They are the only books in which we become children".

And so this bizarre kaleidoscope of fantasy, logic and autobiography gets refracted through the crazy lens of nonsense to become a unique and marvellous dreamworld. Robert Douglas-Fairhurst loves these books to the point where, he says, they have given meaning to his own life. He has interrogated them with the severity of a queen, the subtlety of a caterpillar, and the allusive sympathy of a mock turtle. The Story of Alice is the best book on the myriad enigmas of Carroll's heart-breaking wonderland I have ever read.
The Story of Alice is published by Harvill Secker (£25). Click here to buy it for £20

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson AKA Lewis Carroll. Photograph: Science & Society Picture Library/Getty Images

Lewis Carroll: A Life

27 January 1832 Born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, son of a country parson, in Cheshire.

1843 The family move to Croft-on-Tees, Yorkshire, where Charles is home-educated and develops a stammer that will trouble him throughout his life.

1846 Enters Rugby school, where he excels academically but is very unhappy.

1850 Matriculates at Oxford as a member of his father's old college, Christ Church. Two days after he arrives, his mother dies of "inflammation of the brain", aged 47.

1854 Obtains first-class honours in mathematics, with the highest marks in his year, despite his self-confessed inability to work hard.

1855 Wins the Christ Church mathematical lectureship, which he holds for the next 26 years.

1854 Begins publishing poems and short stories in national publications. Starts moving in the pre-Raphaelite circle, making friends with John Ruskin, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Arthur Hughes.

1856 Buys his first camera. Meets and becomes friends with the new dean of Christ Church, Henry Liddell, his wife Lorina and his young family, Lorina, Edith and Alice Liddell, all of whom will figure hugely in his life - and his photography. Later in the year, he publishes Solitude, his first poem under the name Lewis Carroll.

1861 Ordained a deacon - but applies for permission not to become a priest.

4 July 1862 The three Liddell sisters, Carroll and his friend Robinson Duckworth take one of many boat trips on the river Isis in Oxford. Carroll tells the story of Alice's adventures in Wonderland for the first time and Alice Liddell begs him to write it down for her.

June 1863 Another boat trip with the Liddell girls ends in a mysterious "crisis", leading to a decisive break with the family. Relations are never restored.

26 November 1865 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is first published by Macmillan, with illustrations by Sir John Tenniel. The book receives poor reviews but is an enormous commercial success and is said to be adored by Queen Victoria. It has not been out of print since.

1871 Sequel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is published, with Carroll's great nonsense poem Jabberwocky included.

1876 Publishes The Hunting of the Snark.

1880 Abruptly ceases photography after 24 years and 3,000 images.

1881 Resigns from teaching mathematics in order to have more time for his publishing projects but remains at Christ Church in various capacities until his death.

14 January 1898 Dies of pneumonia at the age of 65. Marta Corato

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The Story of Alice review - the worrying, winding road to Wonderland

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here are various possible approaches to Alice in Wonderland, first published 150 years ago this April. One way to cope with the mountain of print inspired by Lewis Carroll [aka Charles Dodgson] and Alice Liddell, his haunting child-friend, is to follow the Gryphon's advice. "No, no!"

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Character description for the Mad Hatter from ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ and ‘Through the Looking-Glass’.

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"Your hair wants cutting," said the hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.

Introduction

The Hatter does not appear in Alice's Adventures Underground, being added, along with the rest of the Mad Tea Party, for the printed edition. Interestingly, although commonly referred to as the "Mad Hatter," Carroll never calls him this in the book, where he is simply the "hatter." Of course, the connection between the Cheshire Cat's assurance that he is mad and his profession was certainly intentional. The colloquial phrase "Mad as Hatter" entered common use in the 1830s although the origin is uncertain. Many speculate that it refers to the symptoms of Mercury poisoning which affected many hatters in the early nineteenth century who used mercury to cure pelts. In any case, although Carroll's Hatter's symptoms do not match those of mercury poisoning, his behavior certainly is peculiar, and, especially in Alice's view, quite insane.

The Hatter is one of the most famous and most popular characters from the book, appearing in every adaptation and illustrated edition. And critics have long been fascinated by the hatter, and especially with his obsession with time. Despite his rudeness and annoying penchant for asking riddles that have no answer, Carroll's compassionate treatment of his insanity has encouraged some critics to read the chapter as radical stance for the humane treatment of the insane. Others have interpreted the Hatter simply as an adult, showcasing the ridiculous and nonsensical elements of adulthood.

Texts

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Chapter 7
Plain Text

Reappears in Chapter 11

Image Gallery

Below you can see how illustrations of the Hatter have changed over time. Many illustrators have relied heavily on Tenniel's drawing, copying the price-tag on the hat motif, and even giving him a similar look. Especially noteworthy are Barry Moser's, Rodney Matthews' and Willy Pogany's Hatters. Ralph Steadman wrote this about his version: "THE HATTER represents the unpleasant sides of human nature. The unreasoned argument screams at you. The bully, the glib quiz game compre who rattles off endless reels of unanswerable riddles and asks you to come back next week and make a bloody fool of yourself again" ( Textbooksrus.com). Click on the name of an illustrator in the right hand column to see the next image.

Other Media

The Mad Tea Party scene is one of the only scenes to make it into every Alice adaptation. Unlike some other scenes, the Mad Tea Party translates remarkably well, with snappy dialogue and an abundance of verbal and physical gags. Big name actors are often cast as the Hatter, each bringing his own unique stamp. Below are Disney's 1951 version (voiced by Vaudeville comedian Ed Wynn) and Johnny Depp in Tim Burton's 2010 film, which greatly expanded the role of the Mad Hatter in the action of film. Additionally, in many music videos which are based on Alice imagery, the main singer chooses to be depicted as the Mad Hatter. The role seems to be a comfortable one for Rock singers. As Steve Tyler sings in his "Sunshine" (2001), "I took to the Hatter like a walk in the park."

A Mad Tea Party
Disney's Alice in Wonderland (1951)

A Mad Tea Party Clip (Johnny Depp)
Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Aerosmith's "Sunshine" (2001)

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers "Don't Come Round Here No More" (1985)

Also See

Wikipedia article on the Mad Hatter

Short Documentary of Ed Wynn recording the voice of the Mad Hatter on YouTube.

The Hatter also has an expanded role in Syfy's "Alice": watch a clip of Alice meeting the Hatter on YouTube

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"Your hair wants cutting," said the hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech. The Hatter does not appear in Alice's Adventures Underground , being added, along with the rest of the Mad Tea Party, for the printed edition.

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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, widely beloved British children's book by Lewis Carroll, published in 1865. With its fantastical tales and riddles, it became one of the most popular works of English-language fiction. It was notably illustrated by British artist John Tenniel.

The story centres on Alice, a young girl who falls asleep in a meadow and dreams that she follows the White Rabbit down a rabbit hole. She has many wondrous, often bizarre adventures with thoroughly illogical and very strange creatures, often changing size unexpectedly (she grows as tall as a house and shrinks to 3 inches [7 cm]). She encounters the hookah-smoking Caterpillar, the Duchess (with a baby that becomes a pig), and the Cheshire Cat, and she attends a strange endless tea party with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. She plays a game of croquet with an unmanageable flamingo for a croquet mallet and uncooperative hedgehogs for croquet balls while the Queen calls for the execution of almost everyone present. Later, at the Queen's behest, the Gryphon takes Alice to meet the sobbing Mock Turtle, who describes his education in such subjects as Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision. Alice is then called as a witness in the trial of the Knave of Hearts, who is accused of having stolen the Queen's tarts. However, when the Queen demands that Alice be beheaded, Alice realizes that the characters are only a pack of cards, and she then awakens from her dream.

The story was originally told by Carroll to Lorina, Alice, and Edith Liddell (the daughters of Henry George Liddell, dean of Christ Church, Oxford, where the author had studied and held a fellowship) on a picnic in July 1862. Alice asked Carroll to write out the stories for her, and in response he produced a hand-lettered collection entitled Alice's Adventures Under Ground. A visitor to the Liddell home saw the storybook and thought it should be published, so Carroll revised and expanded it. Appearing at a time when children's literature generally was intended to teach moral lessons, the book at first baffled critics, who failed to appreciate the nonsense that so captivated its young readers. But Carroll understood how children's minds worked, and the way he turned logic on its head appealed to their sense of the ridiculous. In the riddles and the poems-such as "How doth the little crocodile" and "You are old, Father William" (both parodies of well-known didactic poems)-he reached even more absurd heights. The work attracted a following and led to a sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (dated 1872 but published in December 1871). By the end of the 19th century, Alice (taking the two volumes together) had become the most popular children's book in England, and within two more decades it was among the most popular storybooks in the world. It inspired numerous films, theatrical performances, and ballets as well as countless works of scholarly analysis.

Cathy Lowne Pat Bauer

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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland | Summary, Characters, & Facts

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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, widely beloved British children's book by Lewis Carroll, published in 1865 and illustrated by John Tenniel. It is one of the best-known and most popular works of English-language fiction, about Alice, a young girl who dreams that she follows a white rabbit down a rabbit hole.

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Character Analysis: The Mad Hatter

Few tales have the influence and longevity of Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland". Since the story it was first published in 1865 "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" has gone on to entertain and inspire countless generations, and it makes sense. With a bizarre story, in a bizarre setting, and characters who are just as bizarre, it's should come as surprise to know one that "Alice in Wonderland" has been adapted into many different mediums in television in films. There have been animated adaptations, live action adaptations, musical adaptations, and a horror version. Hell, in 1976 there was even a pornographic adaptation released called "Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Comedy". So yeah, it's a pretty popular story. Of the many memorable characters, in Carroll's classic tale, my favorite has to be the Mad Hatter. Now like I said, there are many different adaptations, and a lot of different characters who played "The Mad Hatter" so save myself (and you the reader time) I'm only going to talk about the two Disney film versions of "The Mad Hatter", but don't worry I will talk briefly about some of the Mad Hatters from TV Mini-series and comic books as well.

: The Mad Hatter from "Alice in Wonderland" (1951) (2010).

So the Mad Hatter is quite the unique and unusual character. In both films Alice first encounters the Mad Hatter holding a tea party. Why is he having a tea party? Why Because it's his Un-Birthday of course! The Mad Hatter is joined by his two close friends the March Hare (sometimes referred to as "The Mad Hare" and the Dormouse. He is a very neurotic and-dare I say-a hyper-active fellow. He is sincere in his eccentric mannerisms. He is a very gracious host who is forever trapped in a tea party that-seemingly-never ends.

Is he really "Mad" though? Eccentric? Yes. Unorthodox in his mannerisms? Yes. Mad? Very likely. He appears to have the symptoms of a person who is "mad", but he is only a danger to himself. When we see him acting high-strung and even a little crazy he only appears to be putting himself in danger. What I like the most about his character is that everyone around him seems to be asking him "Why?" (or more specifically "Why do you do that?) and his reply simply comes off as "Why Not?!". I've kind of discovered that philosophy in High School and it's something that's stuck with me all the way to adulthood. When those ask "Why?"; You ask "Why not?!". He is one of my favorite characters of all-time (without me even realizing it), but I mean it's not like there's pictures of me going around in Public dressed like the Mad Hatter...

The Mad Hatter was voiced by actor Ed Wynn in the 1951 animated film and was played by actor Johnny Depp in the 2010 Live Action version. Even though both men are playing the same character they both have their own distinctive differences.

Wynn did not get a lot of screen time in the film. The first time we see The Mad Hatter in the film it's past the half-way mark and even then it's only for a few minutes. He also makes a brief reappearance towards the end of the film. Wynn's Mad Hatter comes off as more feminine than Mad. His character has a slight lisp and he just appears to do things that are more weird, rather than crazy. The craziest thing we see him do in the film is destroy the White Rabbit's watch. Wynn had a number of disadvantages as the Hatter. For one, the running time of the film is only 75 minutes long. That's only one-and-a-quarter hours; very short for a "Feature Length" animated film. Also, the Mad Hatter was more of a secondary character. The majority of the 1951 version focuses on Alice and terrible songs numbers. I'll be perfectly honest with you all. I think that "Alice in Wonderland" is the worst soundtrack of all the Disney films. None of the songs were that good or memorable, but I digress.

Now, in the 2010 version directed by Tim Burton, the Mad Hatter plays a much larger role, and it's obvious why; it had a much larger budget than the 1951 version, it had a very popular director, and he was played by freaking Johnny Depp-one of the Best and most loved actors of the last 30 years-of course he was going to have a large role in the film. I mean, he's on the freaking Movie Poster for crying out loud, and the film is called "Alice in Wonderland", not "The Mad Hatter in Wonderland". So-you know-don't you think Alice should be on the poster instead of the Mad Hatter? The 2010 version was actually based off of the sequel to "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", "Through the Looking Glass", but like the story and the 1951 film version we have our first encounter with The Mad Hatter at a tea party with the March Hare. Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter is much taller than in the animated version. His costume is also more outrageous and colorful, and he has a pale/painted face with outrageous orange hair and different colored eyes. Also, Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter has two different voices. He has his regular speaking voice (that sounds very similar to when he played Willy Wonka in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory") and then when he's talking about the past he has a Scottish accent, and to be honest with you all, I was really confused with when I saw it theatres because it came out of nowhere. I remember thinking to myself the first time I heard Depp speaking in that Scottish accent; "Did Johnny Depp stop caring?". Later, I found out the different voices were done on purpose; though I have to be honest, I thought the Scottish accent was really stupid.

Oh, that Johnny Depp!

Character is similar to or Inspired by:

Obviously, the character is inspired by Lewis Carroll's literary works. Not only that, but Lewis Carroll's Mad Hatter character has gone one to inspire character's in other shows, comic books, and entertainment mediums as well. The Mad Hatter character has been transformed into a villain in the Batman Comic Book and Television series. The Mad Matter Hatter in Batman is actually Jervis Tetch, a Scientist who creates many different devices to control people's minds. His costume is very similar to the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll's books. In recent years the Mad Hatter has garnered a bit of a cult-following amongst Batman fans.

The Mad Hatter has been portrayed by Sebastian Stan on the ABC Primetime Series Once Upon a Time. Actor Andrew-Lee Potts played the character "Hatter" on the SyFy Mini-series "Alice". His characters sort of like a "Drug dealer of Human Emotions" and he is a very enjoyable interpretation of the Mad Hatter. There are over a dozen other characters on Television series based off of "The Mad Hatter" from "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass". Not only that, but musicians have also drawn inspiration from the Mad Hatter in their music videos. Musicians such as Tom Petty and Dero Goi of Oomph! have both dressed up as the Mad Hatter in some of their music videos.

The Mad Hatter still remains in Wonderland to this day. He in the March Hare are forever trapped at 6:00 forever at Tea Party that will never end.

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Character Analysis: The Mad Hatter Few tales have the influence and longevity of Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland". Since the story it was first published in 1865 "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" has gone on to entertain and inspire countless generations, and it makes sense.

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The Mad Hatter is one of the most famous Disney characters ever to be imagined and portrayed on the big screen. He is not your typical character as his name suggests but over the years, he has become one of the most well-loved Disney personalities because of his quirkiness and peculiarity in nature.

Mad Hatter

The phrase mad as a hatter dates back to the early 19th century when fine hats were the talk of the town. As it symbolizes social status, the hat makers were taking a big health risk in producing such wonderful head pieces. In an effort to create fine felt hats, they would use a mercury-based compound in creating the hats.

The problem with this was that long-term exposure meant serious physical side effects. This would develop over time and come out in different forms. It can manifest in terrible mood swings, slurred speech, tremors, memory loss, and other neurological problems. This was where the term "mad as a hatter" originate from.

Appearance

Hatter is quite fashionable and impossible to miss in the movie. He is a wild-eyed character with a bow tie on top of a strange suit. Of course, he wears a nice large hat with a card bearing the text "In this style 10/6." It is the price tag of the hat which is indicative of his trade. This amounts to ten shillings and six pence.

In Hatter that seems to constantly annoy the young Alice was very much different from the more recent character. He took on the role of a guide and at times, a protector to the older Alice when she fell down the rabbit hole again. Together with the March Hare, they are in a never-ending tea party as punishment by Time when the Queen of Hearts found them guilty of trying to murder time.

In the latest installment Alice Through The Looking Glass, "Hatta" is again on the wrong side of the law for something he has yet to commit. What is surprising in this movie is that Alice does not seem to recognize him despite looking exactly the same.

Personality

As the name suggests, the mad hatter is a seemingly insane character that gives out riddles and dresses fashionably. His obsession with tea time as well as tea parties is a result of trying to sing for the Queen of Hearts where he was found guilty of murdering time. That and his endless conflicts with the Wonderland's Queen has left him wondering about the passage of time.

It is interesting to note that the character was never directly referenced as the Mad Hatter in the book. This was just a description by Cheshire the Cat when he tries to warn Alice in the forest. He mentioned that the hatter had a somewhat unstable frame of mind, thus, making him mad.

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Mad Hatter The Character - The-madhatters.co.uk

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The Mad Hatter is one of the most famous Disney characters ever to be imagined and portrayed on the big screen. He is not your typical character as his name suggests but over the years, he has become one of the most well-loved Disney personalities because of his quirkiness and peculiarity in nature.

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Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" famously features an eccentric character called the Hatter, who's referred to in the story as "mad" and became popularly known as the Mad Hatter. However, the phrase "mad as a hatter," used to describe someone who's crazy or prone to unpredictable behavior, didn't originate with Carroll. Instead, the expression is linked to the hat-making industry and mercury poisoning. In the 18th and 19th centuries, industrial workers used a toxic substance, mercury nitrate, as part of the process of turning the fur of small animals, such as rabbits, into felt for hats. Workplace safety standards often were lax and prolonged exposure to mercury caused employees to develop a variety of physical and mental ailments, including tremors (dubbed "hatter's shakes"), speech problems, emotional instability and hallucinations.

In Connecticut, mercury-induced tremors were called the Danbury shakes, after the city of Danbury, which was a leading center for hat making during the 19th century and into the early years of the 20th century (by the 1920s, only a handful of headwear manufacturers remained in the place once billed as the "Hat Capital of the World"). In the U.S., the use of mercury in the production of felt finally was banned in the early 1940s.

Researchers have suggested that Boston Corbett, a hat industry worker who killed John Wilkes Booth, President Abraham Lincoln's assassin, might've suffered from poor mental health due to mercury poisoning. Corbett, who'd been employed as a hat maker since he was a young man, became a religious zealot and in 1858 castrated himself with a pair of scissors as a way to curb his libido. He went on to serve in the Union Army during the Civil War, and after Lincoln was shot by Booth on April 14, 1865, at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., Corbett and his regiment, the 16th New York Cavalry, were sent to track down the gunman, who was on the lam. On April 26, the soldiers surrounded Booth in a Virginia barn; however, Corbett disobeyed orders to capture the fugitive alive and instead shot and killed him. Corbett was cleared of blame by the military and lauded by many in the public as a hero for his role in avenging the president's death. Eventually, he resumed working in the hat industry in the Northeast before moving to Kansas in 1878, where he lived a solitary existence as a homesteader. In 1887, he landed in a mental asylum after threatening a group of people at the Kansas Statehouse with a gun. The following year, this possible "mad hatter," who was then in his 50s, escaped the facility and soon disappeared for good.

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Where did the phrase "mad as a hatter" come from?

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Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" famously features an eccentric character called the Hatter, who's referred to in the story as "mad" and became popularly known as the Mad Hatter. However, the phrase "mad as a hatter," used to describe someone who's crazy or prone to unpredictable behavior, didn't originate with Carroll.

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After succumbing to her child-like naivety and following the white rabbit down the hole to Wonderland, Alice finds herself in a seemingly nonsensical world. Very different from that of her Victorian upbringing, this world contains talking creatures, magical snacks, and even live playing cards. Following her long fall that Alice believes will inevitably bring her "right through the center of the earth," (8) she shrinks herself with a bottle of potion in order to fit though a tiny door no more than a couple of inches high. However, because she has forgotten to fetch the key necessary to open the door, she sits down and cries in anguish. Later, falling into her own pool of tears, Alice thinks nothing more of it than "I wish I hadn't cried so much! I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That will be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day" (18).

Alice clearly acknowledges the strange nature of Wonderland. Nonetheless, she tries to impose some kind of order on it by constantly reciting knowledge that she holds to be true, and upon meeting some of the creatures that live in Wonderland, Alice constantly attempts to correct their crude behavior. During her mad tea party with the Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse, she disagrees incessantly with her company over their table manners, or, in her eyes, the lack thereof.

"Have some wine," the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.

Alice looked all around the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. "I don't see any wine," she remarked.

"There isn't any," said the March Hare.

"Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it," said Alice angrily.

"It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being invited," said the March Hare.

"I didn't know it was your table," said Alice: "it's laid for a great many more than three."

"Your hair wants cutting," said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.

"You should learn not to make personal remarks," Alice said with some severity: "it's very rude." (54-55)

Alice clearly hails from a middle class, if not higher, family in Victorian society. This much can be gleaned from her level of education, as well as from the leisure time that we observe her enjoying at the book's beginning. It can also be assumed, for this reason, that the morals of propriety and good manners so central to Victorian culture have been instilled in Alice to such a degree that although she knows that Wonderland and all of the creatures that reside in it are nonsensical and almost fantasy-like, she cannot help but to try to instill on them the same behavior that is expected of her. Alice epitomizes an adolescent, Victorian female, and the manner in which she conducts herself as perhaps the only civil character in Wonderland proves that she represents little more than a product of the society in which she was raised.

Questions

1. Tea parties and tea time were largely regarded by the ladies and gentlemen of Victorian society as a tradition central to the social culture of the era. What significance does including a "mad tea-party" have in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland? Why was Alice particularly perturbed by the conduct of the March Hare and the Hatter at the tea party?

2. Both Estella and Alice represent adolescent Victorian females. How does Alice's upbringing as a member of middle class Victorian society differ from Estella's upbringing as a member of a similar social class? We are not aware of the extent to which Estella has been educated in comparison to Alice, an obviously learned youth. Could this aspect of life account for any of the differences that persist between the characters of Alice and Estella?

3. Alice seems fairly mature for her age, scolding herself at times and often giving herself good advice. How has Alice's life thus far as a Victorian youth discouraged the growth of her imagination? Do you think this early maturation could have accounted for the fantasy-like nature of her dreams?

4. Despite the vast knowledge that Alice constantly tries to flaunt throughout the story, Carroll chooses not to employ sophisticated vocabulary in Alice's speech. How does this help Carroll control the pace at which we read the text?

5. Alice becomes offended when the March Hare calls her uncivil, yet she constantly takes it upon herself to point out the flaws in the behaviors of the creatures she meets. In addition, Alice herself has the bad habit of interrupting those who are speaking. Could this be a comment by Carroll on the nature of Victorian society? If so, what point does Carroll convey through scenes such as the "mad tea-party" quoted above?

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Alice's Imposing Victorian Etiquette on Wonderland

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After succumbing to her child-like naivety and following the white rabbit down the hole to Wonderland, Alice finds herself in a seemingly nonsensical world. Very different from that of her Victorian upbringing, this world contains talking creatures, magical snacks, and even live playing cards.

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By modern standards, the introduction to Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland isn't particularly attention-grabbing. The story starts out with a calm pastoral scene, and doesn't really begin to pick up until the main character is falling down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. However, by Victorian standards, the seemingly mundane beginning would be full of potential, as well as more fitting for a children's story than an action-introduction followed by a flashback to introduce all the characters properly. The characters themselves are all unique and colorful, with even minor characters having unforgettable quirks and roles to play. Despite the strangeness of the settings and characters, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is firmly ...show more content...
To a detail-oriented child, he would also represent the second (after the Duchess) human character Alice meets in Wonderland. However, an adult reader of Carroll 's time might see a representation of the extremely unsafe working conditions of Victorian England. This was especially true of the hat making industry, in which hatters used highly toxic mercury compounds to treat the felt used for hats (Park and Zheng). Although long-term exposure to these chemicals was not usually fatal, a lifetime of working amid mercury fumes would result in severe brain and nerve damage (Park and Zheng). Hat making was an essential industry in Victorian England; due to the emphasis on conformity, the rules of fashion were strictly followed. As no self-respecting man of that time would be caught out of doors without his hat, there was a consistently high demand for well-made felt hats. Yet, as shown by the Mad Hatter 's insanity, the human cost of fashion was equally high ...show more content...
Notably, the Caterpillar is uninterested in the details of Alice 's problem, and additionally is offended that she even has the nerve to complain about being a few inches high. Its "cure" in the form of edible mushrooms initially only worsens Alice 's size problem, causing uncontrolled growth and shrinking. Caterpillar 's hostile, uninterested response to Alice 's frustrations could be a subtle reference to the way that women of the Victorian era were treated. The social roles open to Victorian-era women were extremely limited; few had the opportunity to earn an independent living ("Women's Rights"). Due to the era 's emphasis on conformity, women in Lewis Carroll 's time were expected to be satisfied with their lot in life, and any sentiments expressing different beliefs were met with indignation and hostility. Thus, just as Caterpillar was surprised and offended that Alice could be frustrated by being only a few inches high, Victorian society was shocked by women who were bold enough to protest their limited social roles and lack of equal

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The Mad Hatter In Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland | ipl.org

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By modern standards, the introduction to Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland isn’t particularly attention-grabbing. The story starts out with a...

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Shutterstock/British Library

The Mad Hatter from Lewis Carroll's "Alice In Wonderland" is arguably one of the most popular children's book characters in...

The Mad Hatter from Lewis Carroll's "Alice In Wonderland" is arguably one of the most popular children's book characters in history. The zany, tea-obsessed hatmaker has inspired costumes, art pieces, clothing, fan-fiction, films, songs, and musicals across the globe. However, the Mad Hatter (and other members of the Mad Tea-Party) isn't merely a brain-child of Carroll. In fact, much of Carroll's inspiration for his characters came from real people in his life and the lives of those close to him. According to the writings of Franziska E. Kohlt, a graduate student at Brasenose, the Mad Hatter and his friends were likely inspired by Carroll's exposure to Victorian-era mental asylums.

Lewis Carroll's exposure to insanity

Growing up, Carroll was very close with his uncle, Robert Wilfred Skeffington Lutwidge, who was a Commissioner in Lunacy. His uncle's job was to inspect asylums. This gave Carroll some of his early exposure to both psychiatric practices and to lunatic asylums of his era. His uncle also had a flair for photography. Both of these professions and interests allowed Carroll to connect to his uncle's colleagues in psychiatry and psychology, including Dr. Hugh Welch Diamond. Dr. Diamond was an avid photographer and a doctor at the Surrey lunatic asylum. He felt as if though photography could help diagnose mental illness, as a person's appearance could give people a glimpse into their mental state. This theory may have contributed to the unique appearance of many of Carroll's characters in "Alice in Wonderland," particularly the tall-hat, colorful coat, and massive bowtie belonging to the Mad Hatter.

Viewing real-life "mad" tea parties

One of the most famous elements of Carroll's novel is the Mad Tea-Party that the Cheshire Cat leads Alice to early on in the book. It is central to the introduction of Caroll's most zany and "mad" characters, including the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse. As it turns out, similar tea parties were held in the asylums as a form of therapy. They were meant to stimulate and entertain the patients, creating an environment that wasn't entirely bleak and depressing. The Mad Tea-Party in Carroll's novel is, perhaps, the earliest instance of pure insanity in the book. It paints a picture of total madness and chaos, which even the Cheshire Cat confirms: "We're all mad here." From the frantic actions of the March Hare and Dormouse to the cluttered thought patterns of the Mad Hatter, Carroll seems to have drawn on the behaviors of the patients he observed in the asylum at their own "mad" tea parties.

Examining class differences in asylums

In addition to drawing inspiration from the environment of the asylums, the patients' appearances, and their "mad" tea parties, Carroll also seemed to draw attention to how class affected the behavior and treatment of asylum patients. Kohlt argued that there were two clear classes of patients in the Victorian era asylums: the "lunatics" and the "pauper lunatics." Those lunatics with wealth were treated with much more dignity than pauper lunatics, who were often ignored, mistreated, and even taunted. Kohlt believed that the Mad Hatter encompassed the image of the pauper lunatic to a tee. This seems to be especially accurate considering that pauper lunatics often included manual workers such as hatters. In Carroll's novel, the Mad Hatter is treated as completely nonsensical and delusional by everyone except Alice, who, according to Kohlt, encompasses the "popular perceptions of insanity." No matter who or what inspired the final form of the Mad Hatter, its clear that Carroll cared about portraying madness as something more than degrading. His work drew attention to psychiatry and psychology in a way that celebrated the role of those deemed "insane" by society.

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Lewis Carroll's exposure to Victorian asylums inspired the beloved Mad Hatter

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Shutterstock/British Library The Mad Hatter from Lewis Carroll's "Alice In Wonderland" is arguably one of the most popular children's book characters in... The Mad Hatter from Lewis Carroll's "Alice In Wonderland" is arguably one of the most popular children's book characters in history.