Essay: Alice in Wonderland

Chapter 1.
Alice is at a riverbank with her elder sister that is reading a book, Alice, who is bored sees a white rabbit with a waistcoat and a pocket watch running by, she decides to follow it down a rabbit hole, after a while of falling and sputtering nonsense, she lands on some leaves and twigs, and enters a kitchen, she finds a small door to a garden, but she can’t fit through it, but she finds a bottle labeled with ‘DRINK ME’, so she does, and becomes smaller, but then realizes she left the key for the door on the table, and cries because she is so stupid, then finds a cake that reads ‘EAT ME’, she does and so the chapter ends.
‘There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she went back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes: this time she found a little bottle on it and round the neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words ‘DRINK ME’ beautifully printed on it in large letters’
Chapter 2.
Alice becomes big again, well bigger than before, and starts contemplating is she’s actually herself and not someone else, that might be dumber than herself, and as she put it, without toys or anything, so she starts crying and then she notices she is shrinking because she is holding a glove the rabbit dropped while running by, she dropped it before she shrank away completely, and she dropped into her own tears, that became a sea because she cried so much, she noticed a mouse, she started talking to it, after a while and they went out of the water, with a bunch of other animals following them.
Chapter 3.
After Alice and all the animals come onto shore, they start arguing on how to get dry, the mouse comes up with the idea to tell a tale about William the conqueror, because it’s the ‘driest’ thing he can think off, the dodo suggest a Caucus-race, it’s a race where everyone just runs in circles and there is no winner, (seems rather pointless doesn’t it?) after about a half hour the race is over and the dodo tells Alice that she can present the prizes, after she did there was no prize left for her, after some time the mouse disappears and Alice starts going off on how her cat could bring it back, and how it eats birds and such, all the animals run or fly away.
”What is was going to say,’ said the dodo in an offended tone, ‘was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race.’
Chapter 4.
As Alice saw the rabbit approaching it was saying something in the lines of: ‘oh dear oh dear if I don’t find it the duchess will have me executed!’. After the rabid notices Alice he orders her to go fetch some his stuff. Alice who is stunned that a rabid is ordering her around goes to its house and finds a bottle labeled once again with ‘DRINK ME’, so Alice did and grew, she could barely fit in the house, the rabbit who’s calling for his stuff tries to barge into its house, but Alice’s arm prevents him from entering, the rabbit then tries to enter from the window, but Alice just slaps him out of it, the rabbit calls his other servant and they start to think of a way to get rid of her, but then she slaps them away, the rabbit goes and finds himself another servant, and orders him to go through the chimney, but that fails as well, after a while a mob of animals gather at the house and start hurling pebbles through the window in which the rocks magically transform into cakes, so that Alice will shrink again if she eats one, and she does, Alice then flees through the doors into the woods, and comes to face a puppy significantly bigger than her, and manages to hold it off and escape.
Chapter 5.
Alice then comes across a caterpillar sitting on a mushroom smoking a hookah (pipe). The caterpillar asks her who she is, to which Alice replies that she doesn’t really know, the caterpillar asks her to explain herself, of which Alice does a terrible job of doing so.
After a while Alice gets annoyed and turns to walk away, however, the caterpillar then says that he has something important to say, he then asks her to recite a poem, after that he walks away telling her that eating one side of the mushroom will make her grow, and the other will make her shrink, as she first eats the part which makes her shrink, she then eats the part that makes her grow, however, only her neck does, and she reaches above the treetops only to get attacked by a pigeon because it thinks it’s a snake of some kind, Alice convinces the pigeon she is not a snake, and eats some of the mushrooms until she is the right size.
Alice then goes and wanders the forest, she eventually finds a 4 foot tall house, she decides to go in, and eats some off the shrinking mushroom.
”who are you’? said the caterpillar. this was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, ‘I-I hardly know, sir, just at present- at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”
Chapter 6.
Alice observes the house when a fish footman came to the door knocking, and a frog footman opened, the fish footman got a letter and said to the frog footman that the queen invites the duchess to play croquet.
As the fish leaves, Alice goes to the door, as she goes to knock, the frog tells her it’s no use, as that they make too much noise, after some talking Alice decides that she can’t argue with him, and goes in.
As she does, she sees the duchess nursing a baby, a cat sitting there grinning and a cook who’s putting too much pepper into a soup, which makes the duchess and baby sneeze, when Alice asks why the cat is grinning, the duchess tells her it’s the Cheshire cat, Alice then asks why the cat is grinning at all, the duchess insults her by telling her that she must not know much. As Alice tries to change the subject to the axis of the earth, the duchess mishears it and says to chop off Alice’s head, of course that doesn’t happen. The duchess then throws the baby to Alice and hurries off to play croquet with the queen.
Alice goes outside and notices that the baby is a pig, and not in fact, a baby, she then meets the Cheshire cat outside telling her that in that direction lives the mad Hatter, and in the other the march Hare.
Alice then goes on her way.
Chapter 7.
She arrives at a table under a tree, where the Hare and Hatter are having tea, she goes up to them and sees that they have their elbows on a sleeping dormouse. After some talking and arguing Alice decides it’s not worth it, and want to leave, stating that she doesn’t have time for this, as she says that, the Hatter responds with that time is a he, not it, and that he has been upset since that the queen insulted time, and because of that it stays at 6 o’clock, making it teatime forever. The Hare then states that it’s bored and wants to hear a story, so they wake up the dormouse, the dormouse proceeds to tell a confusing story to which Alice keeps asking questions, the dormouse gets insulted but Alice continues, the Hatter then insults Alice and she storms off. After some time walking she finds a tree with a door, enters the door, and finds herself in the great hall, she then eats the mushroom to grow, grab the key and then eats the other mushroom to shrink again, she then enters the garden trough the small door.
Chapter 8.
As Alice enters the garden she sees gardeners in the form of cards, numbered 2, 5 and 7, the seem to have an argument, they notice Alice and explain that instead of planting red roses, they have planted white ones, and are now painting them red before the queen notices.
The queen then arrives with a following of cards surrounding her, the gardeners bow and the queen asks Alice what her name is, she answers.
The queen the asks about the shaking gardeners, Alice then responds in a way that the queen doesn’t like, and she calls for her execution, however the king calms her down. She then discovers the gardeners mistake and wants them executed, and then moves on. Alice then proceeds to hide the gardeners in plant pots to avoid execution and then goes with the queen to play croquet.
As she arrives at the croquet ground she is told by a white rabbit that the duchess is sentenced to execution.
Alice has a hard time adjusting to the queen’s version of croquet, as that the ground is rigid, the balls are live hedgehogs, and the hammers are live flamingos and the some of the cards act like arches for the ball to pass under, the queen continues to carelessly call for everyone’s decapitation as she plays.
Alice tries to get away from the match, and then notices the Cheshire cat grinning, she explains the she thinks that the queen’s behavior is unusual, the king notices the cat and tries to taunt it away, however, the taunts do nothing to the cat and he asks the queen to remove the cat, she orders its decapitation, but considering the cat is a floating head, they call for the duchess, as that it’s her cat, but as she arrives, the cat disappears.
Chapter 9.
The croquet game restarts again after the Cheshire cat disappears, the duchess takes Alice by hand and walks with her, Alice feels uncomfortable because she if holding her so close, and thinks she behaves that way because there is no pepper around like the last time they’ve met.
The queen orders the duchess off and the game resumes once again, after a while only Alice, the queen and king remain, as the queen ordered for every other player their beheading, and because there are no cards to act like arches, the queen ends the game and advises Alice to visit the mock turtle.
A gryphon leads her to the turtle and also explains that the queen doesn’t actually execute people.
As they arrive Alice notices that the turtle is sad, but the gryphon explains that he likes himself being sad.
The turtles starts a life story about how he was a real turtle and went to school in the sea and that his master was named tortoise.
After a while the turtle states that the lessons became shorter every time, implying that they ‘lessen’ (haha, a pun), Alice then asks what they did when they had no time left for lessons, the gryphon then changes the subject.
Chapter 10.
The turtle asks Alice about if she met lobsters, Alice was about to tell him she once tasted one, but decides not to.
The turtle as well as the gryphon explain Alice the lobster-quadrille, a dance where sea animals, except the jellyfish, pair with a lobster, go ashore and then throw the lobsters into the sea.
The turtle wants to show Alice the dance, even though he doesn’t have any lobsters. As they dance, the turtle sings a tune about a whiting and a snail.
As the dance Alice asks about the whiting, as well as trying to not mention the fact that she also tried whiting. The gryphon explains that whiting is used for whitening shoes of the sea animals.
After some talking the turtle and gryphon ask Alice about her adventures in wonderland, as she was telling them, she only got to the part of the encounter with the caterpillar, they find it weird that Alice couldn’t recite ‘Father William’, as they ask her to recite the poem, Alice fails again. The turtle asks how she could mess up the verse so bad, that it got another meaning.
The gryphon suggest she stops reciting poems, and offers to either show the dance again or let the turtle sing a song, she chooses for the song, after the turtle is finished, the gryphon hears: ‘the trials are starting’, and takes Alice away.
Chapter 11.
Alice and the gryphon arrive in the courtroom, noticing the king and queen, surrounded by a deck of cards and a lot of animals and a chained up knave (jack of hearts. Alice notices that the jurors are writing down their own name, she asks the gryphon why they are doing that, he answers that they do that just in case they forget before the end of the trial, she calls the jurors stupid, and they write it down, Alice then goes to a juror and snatches the pen out of his hands, he then continues to write with his fingers.
The white rabbit begins naming the accusation, the knave had stolen tarts from the queen.
The first witness is the hatter, he comes up on the stand with tea and a piece of bread, as Alice watches she notices that she is growing, and the dormouse flees as it fears of being crushed by Alice.
The hatter then tells some bogus testimony, and says that the march hare said something, the march hare dismisses this and the hatter goes on that he heard the dormouse say something, however, he doesn’t respond as that he is asleep.
A juror asks the hatter what the mouse said, but he says he forgot.
The king then insults the hatter for his stupidity.
The king then asks the hatter to sit down, and after that he permits him to leave.
The next witness it he cook, he is asked what the tarts are made off, he replies that they’re made of pepper. The dormouse then in his sleep says the word ‘treacle’ and chaos ensues in the courtroom, the cook leaves and the next witness is called, Alice.
Chapter 12.
Alice jumps up to the rabbits request and knocks over the jury stand, as that she has grown.
The king asks her if she knows anything about the tarts, Alice answers that she knows ‘nothing whatever’, the king remarks that her statement is important, to which he gets corrected by the rabbit that it isn’t important, but unimportant.
The king then interjects that because of rule 42, persons over a mile high are to leave the court. Alice states that she isn’t a mile high and accuses the king of making up the rule, the king responds that it is the oldest rule in the book, to which Alice replies that if it was, it wouldn’t be rule 42, but #1.
The king calls for a verdict, but the rabbit tells him that evidence has to be shown first.
the evidence consist of a note that is supposedly written by knave, however it isn’t in his handwriting nor is it signed by him.
The king comes to the conclusion of mischief, as that knave was not a honest man to sign it.
Alice then demands to read the poem, it doesn’t make sense.
The king provides a bogus explanation and calls for the verdict, but the queen wants to give the sentence before, Alice makes fun of the proposal and the queen calls for Alice’s beheading.
Alice, who has grown to her full size, simply smacks the cards away.
Alice then wakes up on her sister’s lap by the riverbanks, she recounts her adventures and her sister proposes to have some tea inside.