Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Decoded

by David Day

  Eaglet-Edith: Interrupted the tale not more than once a minute.

  At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of authority among them, called out, “Sit down, all of you, and listen to me! I’ll soon make you dry enough!” They all sat down at once, in a large ring, with the Mouse in the middle. Alice kept her eyes anxiously fixed on it, for she felt sure she would catch a bad cold if she did not get dry very soon.

  “Ahem!” said the Mouse with an important air, “are you all ready? This is the driest thing I know. Silence all round, if you please! ‘William the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured by the pope, was soon submitted to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had been of late much accustomed to usurpation and conquest. Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria—’ ”

  “Ugh!” said the Lory, with a shiver.

  “I beg your pardon!” said the Mouse, frowning, but very politely. “Did you speak?”

  “Not I!” said the Lory hastily.

  Lory-Lorina: “I am older than you, and must know better.”

  If further evidence were needed, we might wish to examine the earlier Alice’s Adventures Under Ground version of the story. In it is a passage left out of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland wherein Carroll makes sure that the sisters recognize themselves in the guise of the two birds. This passage has Alice talking “to herself again as usual: ‘I do wish some of them had stayed a little longer! and I was getting to be such friends with them—really the Lory and I were almost like sisters! and so was that dear little Eaglet!’ ”

  The other two birds would also be recognizable to the three sisters. The Duck was the Reverend Robinson Duckworth and the Dodo was the Reverend Charles Dodgson himself. We have proof of this with a signed copy of the 1886 facsimile edition of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground that Carroll inscribed with a dedication to Robinson Duckworth: “From the Dodo to the Duck.”

  ROBINSON DUCKWORTH (1834–1911) was a friend and colleague of Dodgson’s at Oxford. He was a Fellow of Trinity College who went on to a distinguished career in the church. He eventually became royal chaplain to two monarchs, Queen Victoria and Edward VII. During the Wonderland years, he was a famously fine ecclesiastic singer who often sang to the Liddell sisters on their expeditions with Dodgson. This is acknowledged in the Under Ground version, in a passage in which Alice comments: “How nicely the Duck sang to us as we came along through the water.” Ducks are not generally known for their fine singing voices, but the Duckworth proved to be the exception.

  “I thought you did,” said the Mouse. “—I proceed. ‘Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him; and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable—’ ”

  “Found what?” said the Duck.

  “Found it,” the Mouse replied rather crossly: “of course you know what ‘it’ means.”

  “I know what ‘it’ means well enough, when I find a thing,” said the Duck: “it’s generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?”

  The Mouse did not notice this question, but hurriedly went on, “ ‘—found it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer him the crown. William’s conduct at first was moderate. But the insolence of his Normans—’ How are you getting on now, my dear?” it continued, turning to Alice as it spoke.

  “As wet as ever,” said Alice in a melancholy tone: “it doesn’t seem to dry me at all.”

  Robinson Duckworth: Dodgson the Dodo acknowledged him as the Duck.

  THE OXFORD DODO The Oxford University Museum’s Dodo was in Carroll’s time believed to be the only surviving relic of this famously extinct bird. The flightless Dodo was the world’s largest member of the pigeon family: a giant dove with the weight of two large domestic turkeys. It was first recorded in 1598 by Dutch sailors, who called it the Dodoor because it appeared to be a giant version of the Dodaer, or Dutch little grebe.

  The Oxford Dodo was brought to London live from its native Mauritius sometime before 1638. It was exhibited in a private house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Upon its demise, it was stuffed and afterwards acquired by the naturalist John Tradescant for his “cabinet of curiosities.” By the 1680s, the Dodo was extinct, and the Oxford Dodo was a unique museum specimen.

  Eventually, Tradescant’s curiosities were integrated into the collection of the antiquarian, Rosicrucian and Freemason Elias Ashmole. This collection became the Ashmolean Museum and was donated to Oxford University. Preservation techniques of the time were not sophisticated, and by 1755 the specimen had deteriorated to such an extent that only the skull, beak and a foot along with some skin and feather samples were retained by the curators of the Ashmolean.

  These remains of the Oxford Dodo—along with the iconic 1651 Flemish painting of the bird by Jan Savery—were transferred to the newly constructed Oxford University Museum of Natural History sometime after 1858. That new museum’s director and curator was none other than Sir Henry Acland, Oxford’s Regius Professor of Medicine and real-life model for the White Rabbit.

  The Dodo: Extinct since the 1680s and Carroll’s favourite bird.

  ZENO’S PARADOX On the philosophical level, the Dodo was the ancient Greek, ZENO OF ELEA (490–430 BC). Zeno’s most famous conundrum is known as the paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise. With absurd logic, this argument “proves” that Achilles (the world’s fastest man) can never overtake the tortoise, which has been given a modest head start in a race. When the tortoise has reached a given point, a, Achilles starts. But by the time Achilles reaches a, the tortoise has already moved on beyond to point b. And by the time Achilles reaches b, the tortoise has moved on to point c. Since this process continues on infinitely, Achilles can never overtake the tortoise.

  Zeno’s argument is based on the assumption that you can infinitely divide space. It is both absurd and theoretically logical, so long as one does not take into account the factor of time. Mathematically, however, the resolution of the paradox had to await the discovery of calculus and the proof that infinite geometric series can converge.

  In Wonderland, the Dodo gives instructions on how to run a Caucus-race. This is a send-up of the race of Achilles and the Tortoise that is even more absurd than Zeno’s race: it is a race with no rules and no fixed racetrack. It can begin or end whenever the participants wish, and when the Dodo calls time, all are declared winners and all are awarded prizes.

  Zeno: The Greek philosopher still puzzles us with his paradoxes.

  Zeno’s paradoxes were examples of a method of logical proof known as the reductio ad absurdum—meaning to reduce to the absurd—a method of refuting a premise by showing that it leads to an absurdity. This was known as the “destructive” method of argument and is employed by Carroll in absurd dialogues (to great comic effect) throughout Wonderland.

  As an inventor of paradoxes himself, and a lover of the absurd, Carroll’s favourite philosopher was Zeno, and the Dodo was his favourite bird. Over the years, Carroll would construct scores of other paradoxes to puzzle logicians, but the best known today is an infinite-series reversal of Zeno’s most famous paradox.

  Carroll’s paradox was entitled “What the Tortoise Said to Achilles” and has been seriously pondered by Bertrand Russell and several other twentieth-century philosophers. It is also the central focus of Douglas Hofstadter’s remarkable book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid—A metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll.

  The transformation of Robinson Duckworth to the Duck is obvious enough, but that of Dodgson himself into the Dodo is a little more obscure. The Liddell children on a number of occasions visited the newly opened Oxford University Museum of Natural History, which at the time housed the only known relics of the famously extinct dodo of Mauritius. While in the museum, the Liddells would certainly have been shown the seventeenth-century Flemish painting of a dodo by Jan Savery, which was the model for Tenniel’s drawings of the Dodo in Wonderland.

  The real reason
for Dodgson’s becoming the Dodo could be revealed only through knowledge of a private self-mocking joke shared with the Liddell children. Though Dodgson suffered from a nervous stutter that made him a reluctant public speaker, he was seldom afflicted when in the relaxed company of children. Nonetheless, the Liddell girls would frequently have heard him nervously introduce himself on public occasions as Mr. Do-Do-Dodgson. And so we have the origin of the Dodo.

  “In that case,” said the Dodo solemnly, rising to its feet, “I move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies—”

  “Speak English!” said the Eaglet. “I don’t know the meaning of half those long words, and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!” And the Eaglet bent down its head to hide a smile: some of the other birds tittered audibly.

  “What I 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.”

  “What is a Caucus-race?” said Alice; not that she wanted much to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that somebody ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.

  “Why,” said the Dodo, “the best way to explain it is to do it.” (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter-day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)

  First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (“the exact shape doesn’t matter,” it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no “One, two, three, and away,” but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out “The race is over!” and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, “But who has won?”

  What’s more, the thirty-something Reverend Dodgson always tended to see himself as elderly (compared to six- to twelve-year-olds) and rather set in his ways, like the extinct bird. Furthermore, he certainly identified with the Wonderland Dodo with his walking stick who was the creator of original games. For indeed, Dodgson often carried a walking stick and delighted in inventing and organizing games for children.

  The expedition that inspired “A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale” was not, as might be expected, the famous “golden afternoon” voyage to Godstow that is credited with inspiring Wonderland. Rather, it was a voyage taken a few weeks earlier to another favourite picnic spot: Nuneham Park, on the Harcourt family estate in the village of Nuneham Courtenay, Oxfordshire. There, Dodgson picnicked with his college friend Robinson Duckworth, the three Liddell sisters, two Dodgson sisters (Fanny and Elizabeth) and his aunt, Lucy Lutwidge. Caught in an unexpected downpour, the entire company was drenched with rain.

  Dodgson recorded the voyage in his diary: “Expedition to Nuneham. Duckworth … and Ina, Alice and Edith came with us. We set out about 12½ and got to Nuneham about 2:15, dined there, and then walked in the park and set off for home about 4½. About a mile above Nuneham heavy rain came on, and after bearing it a short time I settled that we had better leave the boat and walk: 3 miles of this drenched us all pretty well. I went on first with the children … and took them to the only house I knew in Sandford … I left them … to get their clothes dried, and went off to find a vehicle … Duckworth and I walked on to Iffley, whence we sent them a fly. We all had tea in my rooms about 8½, after which I took the children home.”

  In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, not a great deal of evidence remains of the Nuneham picnic. However, in the original manuscript, instead of the Dodo’s proposal of a Caucus-race, a completely different passage appears that much more obviously draws on the real-life Nuneham outing:

  This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said “Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.”

  “But who is to give the prizes?” quite a chorus of voices asked.

  “Why, she, of course,” said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with one finger; and the whole party at once crowded round her, calling out in a confused way, “Prizes! Prizes!”

  Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand in her pocket, and pulled out a box of comfits (luckily the salt water had not got into it), and handed them round as prizes. There was exactly one a-piece all round.

  “But she must have a prize herself, you know,” said the Mouse.

  “Of course,” the Dodo replied very gravely. “What else have you got in your pocket?” he went on, turning to Alice.

  “Only a thimble,” said Alice sadly.

  “Hand it over here,” said the Dodo.

  Then they all crowded round her once more, while the Dodo solemnly presented the thimble, saying “We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble”; and, when it had finished this short speech, they all cheered.

  “I only meant to say,” said the Dodo in rather an offended tone, “that I know of a house near here, where we could get the young lady and the rest of the party dried, and then we could listen comfortably to the story which I think you were good enough to promise to tell us,” bowing gravely to the mouse.

  The mouse made no objection to this, and the whole party moved along the river bank (for the pool had by this time begun to flow out of the hall, and the edge of it was fringed with rushes and forget-me-nots), in a slow procession, the Dodo leading the way. After a time the Dodo became impatient, and, leaving the Duck to bring up the rest of the party, moved on at a quicker pace with Alice, the Lory, and the Eaglet, and soon brought them to a littler cottage, and there sat snugly by the fire, wrapped up in blankets, until the rest of the party had arrived, and they were all dry again.

  A few pages later, Alice informs us: “if the Dodo hadn’t known the way to that nice little cottage, I don’t know when we should have got dry again.”

  Scene of the expedition: A view of Nuneham Courtenay by William Turner of Oxford (1789–1862).

  The differences between the Under Ground and the Wonderland versions at this point are peculiar. Why would Carroll switch finding a nearby house to a Caucus-race? A Caucus-race is a much less convincing way of getting dry, and certainly it is more confusing and less appealing to children. And what exactly is it? When no one can explain what a Caucus-race is, the Dodo simply states, “The best way to explain it is to do it.”

  The truth is that with the insertion of this episode into the Wonderland version, Carroll has entirely changed the agenda. The Caucus-race is not there to entertain children; it is there as a parody of Christ Church politics. One result is a shifting of the real-life identities of the Mouse, Dinah the cat and Fury the dog.

  Although not explained by the Dodo, caucus is a term for a committee of political fixers who try to avoid a competitive race between candidates by arranging to promote a single candidate (or a united political position for the party) before an election. Martin Gardner convincingly suggests that Carroll meant the Caucus-race to symbolize a committee that typically does “a lot of running around in circles, getting nowhere, with everybody wanting a political plum.” We certainly see this in the pointlessness of the race and the strange process and expectation of the prize-giving ceremony at the end of the race and the announcement that everybody wins!

  Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave that she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not think of anything to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn as she could.

  The next thing was to eat the comfits: this caused some noise and confusion, as the large birds complained that they could not taste theirs, and the small ones choked and had to be patted on the back. However, it was over at last, and they sat down again in a ring, and begged the Mouse to tell them something more.

  The Dodo’s formal presentation to Alice of
the “prize” of her own thimble is undoubtedly a reference to “thimblerigging,” or the “shell game,” a sleight-of-hand performed by Victorian fairground swindlers in which the victim is invited to bet on which of three shells a pea is hidden under.

  In 1834, the expression entered the political arena when Lord Stanley gave his famous “Thimblerig speech,” an attack on the Whigs’ manipulation of Irish Church tithes and taxes. Thereafter, thimblerig came into common usage whenever a party or individual appeared to be manipulating or swindling the public. In Alice’s case, the Dodo is a metaphoric politician who taxes a member of the public, then makes a great show of presenting it back as a “gift” for which he must be thanked.

  LACHESIS, OR “SHE WHO ALLOTS”

  For over two millennia, the most respected and established source of information about metempsychosis and ideas concerned with the resurrection of souls was the Myth of Er, from Plato’s Republic. Er, the son of Armenios, dies in battle but revives days later on his funeral pyre and tells others of his journey into the afterlife. Carroll, of course, knew Plato’s Republic well, and as a clergyman and a classicist, he was most interested in this extremely influential account of the world beyond the grave.

  In Plato’s Myth of Er, the behaviour of souls in the underworld is comparable to that of the creatures that emerge from the Pool of Tears. Many Victorians, like the ancient Greeks, believed in metempsychosis: the resurrection of the immortal soul in various human and animal forms.

  Wonderland’s “queer-looking party” of birds and animals assembled around Alice might be compared to a scene in the Myth of Er in which—in Francis Cornford’s translation—“each company, as if they had come on a long journey, seemed glad to turn aside into the Meadow, where they encamped.… It was indeed, said Er, a sight worth seeing, how the souls severally chose their lives—a sight to move pity and laughter and astonishment; for the choice was mostly governed by the habits of their former life.… Souls in like manner passed from beasts into men and into one another, the unjust changing into the wild creatures, the just into the tame, in every sort of combination.”