Reading Notes: Alice in Wonderland (Part A)

This week's reading will be of the original Alice in Wonderland story. The first section covers Alice spotting the rabbit, chasing it down the hole, and entering Wonderland.

Down the Rabbit-Hole

• Alice was reading with her sister on the bank of a lake or river and is bored because the book her sister was reading had no pictures
• Alice is young and simple
• It was a hot day, and it made her "sleepy and stupid"
• She spots a white rabbit with pink eyes who mentions how late he is and pulls a stop-watch out of his waistcoat-pocket
• Alice immediately gets up to chase the rabbit and jumps down the hole
• I wonder what her sister is thinking at this time
• Alice falls down the hole for an extremely long time
• the hole is lined with shelves full of books and jars, some with labels some without
• Alice begins talking to herself quite a bit and exhibits her creativity and imagination with some of the thoughts she has
• As she gets closer to the bottom of the hole, she gets the feeling that she is starting to doze off and get sleepy
• She lands at the bottom of the hole just in time to see the rabbit hurrying down a long passage and she chases him only to lose him around the corner
• Alice is in a hallway lined with many doors
• She finds a table with a key, and a bottle labeled "drink me" sitting on it which she drinks to become smaller
• Alice eventually goes through the door and enters Wonderland and meets the caterpillar smoking hookah

Advice From a Caterpillar

• the caterpillar peppers Alice with existential questions
• Alice can't answer the questions and becomes frustrated and angry
• Alice claims she can't remember things so the caterpillar asks her to recite a rhyme she should know
• Alice is having memory loss
• Eventually the caterpillar tells her to eat the mushroom to grow bigger again
• one side makes her smaller the other bigger
• Alice eats some of the mushroom and her neck grows so long she is mistaken for a snake by birds

Pig and Pepper

• Alice meets the Duchess and the Cheshire cat
• she takes care of a baby which turns into a pig
• perhaps all the snorting the baby does due to the pepper causes it to make pig noises and therefore turns into a pig

Bibliography

Alice in Wonderland Unit here

Image Information: The grin of the cheshire cat Alice encounters at the house of the Duchess. Found on flickr