Alice in Wonderland Flashcards
What is the exposition of Alice in Wonderland?
Alice is bored on a bank with her sisters, she sees the White Rabbit and follows him down a rabbit hole
The fall is very long, and she lands in a “great hall” with items that say “eat me” and “drink me”
When are asterisks used in the book?
when Alice grows or shrinks
What is important about the White Rabbit?
Alice follows him into Wonderland
What is important about the Caterpillar?
chats with and teaches Alice (he recites her “You are old Father William”)
Alice learns that one side of the mushroom he sits on will make her grow, and the other will make her shrink
What is important about the Cook, Duchess, and baby?
the cook used lots of pepper, Alice tried to save the baby from the duchess (it was getting verbally and physically abused by the duchess) so she takes it out of the kitchen and into the woods
BUT it ended up turning into a pig, she thinks this was for the best because it was an ugly baby
the duchess is very investing in determining the (nonsensical) morals of things
What’s important about the Cheshire Cat?
Alice asks it for directions
before the tea party, the cat tells Alice that “we’re all mad here” - and that if she wasn’t mad she wouldn’t have come to Wonderland
the cat slowly disappears
Who attended the Mad Tea Party? Why are they mad?
Mad Hatter - making hats required mercury
March Hare - march is the hare’s mating season
Doormouse - nocturnal, so very sleepy
What happened of note at the Mad Tea Party?
they cycled through places at the table, because the dishes were dirtied but ALSO because the Mad Hatter made time angry (shows that they truly are mad and not just kooky)
What was unique about croquet in Wonderland?
played with flamingoes (mallets), hedgehogs (balls), and card soldiers (wickets)
What does the King of Hearts do after the croquet game?
pardons a lot of the people the queen asks to be beheaded
What is important about the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon?
they teach Alice the lobster quadrille (a dance) - form two lines, advance twice (each with a lobster as a partner), change lobsters, retire in the same order, throw the lobsters and then swim after them, turn a somersault, change lobsters again, repeat
the mock turtle sings a song about beautiful soup (ironic)
How did the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon get their names?
Mock Turtle is named after mock turtle soup (not actually made with turtle)
the gryphon is a gryphon (legendary creature with the body, tail, and back legs of a lion, and the head and wings of an eagle)
What is important about the court scene?
Bill - lizard that was forced to write with his finger, then got ink after it was thrown at him
Alice grows really big, knocks over the jury box, and then the Queen of Hearts gets mad and asks her card soldiers to attack Alice
Alice realizes they are just a pack of cards and wakes up
What is the resolution of this story?
Alice tells her sister about her dream
Her sister retells/reinterprets her dream
Her sister thinks about how Alice will tell that story to her children
Why are there so many conclusions?
the book is so confusing that it has to be resolved 3 times
What is the order of the chapters?
exposition / down the rabbit hole
the pool of tears
a caucus-race and a long tale
Alice grows in the house
advice from a caterpillar
pig and pepper (duchess & cat)
mad tea party
croquet with the queen
the mock turtle’s story
the lobster quadrille
the trial begins
Alice on stand & resolution
What does Alice in Wonderland represent?
a card game - criticism of pedagogy and literature in British culture of the time (was too enforced and uppity)
Who is Halliwell?
wrote the nursery rhyme about the Queen of Hearts
What characters are nursery/folk rhymes come to life?
Queen of Hearts, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Humpty Dumpty
How does Alice in Wonderland employ dreams?
dream frame with loosely held together episodes which seem only unified by their cosmic, characterological, nonrandomly random rules
WHICH MAKE the beginning (falling asleep) and ending (waking up) seem less ‘real feeling’ than the dream elements themselves
