Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Decoded

by David Day

  In Wonderland, the trial over this same alleged crime of stealing some tarts is held in the royal court, where “the King and Queen of Hearts were seated on their throne” and “the judge … was the King.” The royal couple’s herald, the White Rabbit, appears to be in charge of courtroom protocol and keeps a close eye on events while Alice, jurors and witnesses are brought into the courtroom.

  WHO STOLE THE TARTS?

  The King and Queen of Hearts were seated on their throne when they arrived, with a great crowd assembled about them—all sorts of little birds and beasts, as well as the whole pack of cards: the Knave was standing before them, in chains, with a soldier on each side to guard him; and near the King was the White Rabbit, with a trumpet in one hand, and a scroll of parchment in the other. In the very middle of the court was a table, with a large dish of tarts upon it: they looked so good, that it made Alice quite hungry to look at them—“I wish they’d get the trial done,” she thought, “and hand round the refreshments!” But there seemed to be no chance of this, so she began looking at everything about her, to pass away the time.

  Alice had never been in a court of justice before, but she had read about them in books, and she was quite pleased to find that she knew the name of nearly everything there. “That’s the judge,” she said to herself, “because of his great wig.”

  In classical Greek mythology and literature, this scene is reminiscent of the tableau portrayed in Greco-Roman art of the King and Queen of Hades seated on their thrones. In this underground court of justice, the King is the judge, and he and his Queen are attended by their herald, the god Hermes (or Roman Mercury), who directs the proceedings as souls are brought before the royal couple. A similar subterranean court of justice was portrayed in Egyptian mythology and in the underworld kingdoms of many other civilizations. Alice, then, is witnessing a confusing and comical version of a trial of the soul.

  The judge, by the way, was the King; and, as he wore his crown over the wig (look at the frontispiece if you want to see how he did it), he did not look at all comfortable, and it was certainly not becoming.

  “And that’s the jury-box,” thought Alice, “and those twelve creatures,” (she was obliged to say “creatures,” you see, because some of them were animals, and some were birds,) “I suppose they are the jurors.” She said this last word two or three times over to herself, being rather proud of it: for she thought, and rightly too, that very few little girls of her age knew the meaning of it at all. However, “jury-men” would have done just as well.

  The twelve jurors were all writing very busily on slates. “What are they doing?” Alice whispered to the Gryphon. “They can’t have anything to put down yet, before the trial’s begun.”

  “They’re putting down their names,” the Gryphon whispered in reply, “for fear they should forget them before the end of the trial.”

  Soul on trial: Hermes in the court of the King and Queen of Hades.

  In Greek mythology, a number of tales record a descent into the underworld culminating in a pleading for the return of a lost soul before the throne of Hades as King and judge of the dead. The theme of love conquering death was a popular one, especially when focused on romantic love, as in the legends of Eros and Psyche, Aphrodite and Adonis, and Orpheus and Eurydice.

  “Stupid things!” Alice began in a loud, indignant voice, but she stopped hastily, for the White Rabbit cried out, “Silence in the court!” and the King put on his spectacles and looked anxiously round, to make out who was talking.

  Alice could see, as well as if she were looking over their shoulders, that all the jurors were writing down “Stupid things!” on their slates, and she could even make out that one of them didn’t know how to spell “stupid,” and that he had to ask his neighbour to tell him. “A nice muddle their slates’ll be in before the trial’s over!” thought Alice.

  One of the jurors had a pencil that squeaked. This of course, Alice could not stand, and she went round the court and got behind him, and very soon found an opportunity of taking it away. She did it so quickly that the poor little juror (it was Bill, the Lizard) could not make out at all what had become of it; so, after hunting all about for it, he was obliged to write with one finger for the rest of the day; and this was of very little use, as it left no mark on the slate.

  But Hades has also released souls for the sake of other forms of love: Dionysus won the release of his mother, Semele; Demeter won the (conditional) release of her sister-daughter, Persephone. In Wonderland’s underground court, Alice recognizes the judge “because of his great wig.” Then we are informed: “The judge, by the way, was the King, and he wore his crown over the wig … he did not look at all comfortable, and it was certainly not becoming.”

  Love conquers death: Orpheus in the Underworld Reclaiming Eurydice, by Jean Restout, 1763.

  The Chapter House: Where Dean Liddell was a towering presence.

  The Oxford equivalent of Wonderland’s court of justice was the college’s Chapter House, where all decisions concerning Christ Church’s business were resolved. Like the King of Hearts, Dean Henry Liddell presided over the Chapter House with an air of authority that assumed the dual role of judge and king. Certainly, this was how the dean’s critics viewed his manner of running the affairs of the college. As the German philologist and Orientalist Friedrich Max Müller observed, “In the University there were those who could not bear his towering high above them as he did, not in stature only, but in character and position.”

  “Herald, read the accusation!” said the King.

  On this the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and then unrolled the parchment scroll, and read as follows:—

  “The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,

  All on a summer day:

  The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts,

  And took them quite away!”

  “Consider your verdict,” the King said to the jury.

  “Not yet, not yet!” the Rabbit hastily interrupted. “There’s a great deal to come before that!”

  “Call the first witness,” said the King; and the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and called out, “First witness!”

  Door to Chapter House: Recognisable in Looking-Glass.

  At the same time Carroll was adding the courtroom chapters to his manuscript for Wonderland, he wrote a squib titled “The Majesty of Justice,” which concludes:

  That makes the silliest men

  Seem wise; the meanest men look big:

  The Majesty of Justice, then,

  Is seated in the WIG.

  The “WIG” punningly implies that this court is unjust because the judge is a Whig (that is, Liberal), just like Dean Liddell of Christ Church.

  The real-life identity of the Knave of Hearts—whose trial at the climax of Wonderland insults Alice’s natural sense of justice so badly that she violently rejects the laws of Wonderland—has always been a puzzle.

  Flirtatious Knave: As drawn by Carroll himself.

  The first witness was the Hatter. He came in with a teacup in one hand and a piece of bread-and-butter in the other. “I beg pardon, your Majesty,” he began, “for bringing these in; but I hadn’t quite finished my tea when I was sent for.”

  “You ought to have finished,” said the King. “When did you begin?”

  The Hatter looked at the March Hare, who had followed him into the court, arm-in-arm with the Dormouse. “Fourteenth of March, I think it was,” he said.

  “Fifteenth,” said the March Hare.

  “Sixteenth,” added the Dormouse.

  “Write that down,” the King said to the jury, and the jury eagerly wrote down all three dates on their slates, and then added them up, and reduced the answer to shillings and pence.

  It does appear that the Knave was something of a flirt. Carroll portrays his crime both as the theft of baked goods and as the stealing of the affections of a young girl: tart in Victorian times meaning sweetheart or young maiden (and not, as in later usa
ge, a prostitute). In the original Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, a drawing by Carroll shows the Knave of Hearts kissing one of the maids. So, despite the Knave’s protestations, one must suppose he was guilty of at least one form of theft.

  “Take off your hat,” the King said to the Hatter.

  “It isn’t mine,” said the Hatter.

  “Stolen!” the King exclaimed, turning to the jury, who instantly made a memorandum of the fact.

  “I keep them to sell,” the Hatter added as an explanation: “I’ve none of my own. I’m a hatter.”

  Here the Queen put on her spectacles, and began staring at the Hatter, who turned pale and fidgeted.

  “Give your evidence,” said the King; “and don’t be nervous, or I’ll have you executed on the spot.”

  This did not seem to encourage the witness at all: he kept shifting from one foot to the other, looking uneasily at the Queen, and in his confusion he bit a large piece out of his teacup instead of the bread-and-butter.

  Just at this moment Alice felt a very curious sensation, which puzzled her a good deal until she made out what it was: she was beginning to grow larger again, and she thought at first she would get up and leave the court; but on second thoughts she decided to remain where she was as long as there was room for her.

  In the original manuscript, completed in the first months of 1863, the trial is over almost before it begins. The White Rabbit reads the offence in the form of the nursery rhyme about the Knave of Hearts stealing the tarts. Although the guilt of the Knave is assumed, the King insists on proper procedure, and an argument ensues. It ends before the bottom of the page.

  In the final version, published two years later, the one page of the trial has grown to over twelve. There are the testimonies of several witnesses, an entire chapter entitled “Alice’s Evidence,” and a number of increasingly outrageous and unjust rulings before Alice shouts “Stuff and nonsense!”—and everything collapses like a house of cards.

  Why such outrage? Why does Carroll have Alice involved in such a protracted trial? What injustice has really been committed? And what happened in the two years between the writing of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground in early 1863 and the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1865?

  “I wish you wouldn’t squeeze so,” said the Dormouse, who was sitting next to her. “I can hardly breathe.”

  “I can’t help it,” said Alice very meekly: “I’m growing.”

  “You’ve no right to grow here,” said the Dormouse.

  “Don’t talk nonsense,” said Alice more boldly: “you know you’re growing too.”

  “Yes, but I grow at a reasonable pace,” said the Dormouse: “not in that ridiculous fashion.” And he got up very sulkily and crossed over to the other side of the court.

  All this time the Queen had never left off staring at the Hatter, and, just as the Dormouse crossed the court, she said to one of the officers of the court, “Bring me the list of the singers in the last concert!” on which the wretched Hatter trembled so, that he shook both his shoes off.

  The weighing of the heart: The scene most often depicted in Egyptian art.

  The trial of the Knave of Hearts is a curious thing, for Alice appears to be the only defender of the Knave and finally causes the whole court to collapse. A mythological precursor to the Knave of Hearts would most likely be Triptolemus, the young hero who received the secret of agriculture from Persephone.

  Once rescued by Persephone from the underworld, Triptolemus ascends to the world of the living as the god of sowing and planting. As the only figure in the Under Ground version of the fairy tale portrayed with even vaguely romantic intentions—kissing one of the tarts (maidens)—the Knave might best fit the role of the god of sowing and planting.

  “Give your evidence,” the King repeated angrily, “or I’ll have you executed, whether you’re nervous or not.”

  “I’m a poor man, your Majesty,” the Hatter began, in a trembling voice, “—and I hadn’t begun my tea—not above a week or so—and what with the bread-and-butter getting so thin—and the twinkling of the tea—”

  “The twinkling of the what?” said the King.

  “It began with the tea,” the Hatter replied.

  “Of course twinkling begins with a T!” said the King sharply. “Do you take me for a dunce? Go on!”

  “I’m a poor man,” the Hatter went on, “and most things twinkled after that—only the March Hare said—”

  “I didn’t!” the March Hare interrupted in a great hurry.

  “You did!” said the Hatter.

  “I deny it!” said the March Hare.

  “He denies it,” said the King: “leave out that part.”

  However, it is not until the real-life Oxford identity of the Knave of Hearts is revealed that the nature—and savagery—of the intended satire becomes vividly clear.

  For the Knave is the author, LEWIS CARROLL himself, and the trial is based on a trial of the heart that left Carroll feeling unjustly convicted. It was a pivotal moment in Carroll’s life, and one about which he became forever embittered.

  “Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said—” the Hatter went on, looking anxiously round to see if he would deny it too; but the Dormouse denied nothing, being fast asleep.

  “After that,” continued the Hatter, “I cut some more bread-and-butter—”

  “But what did the Dormouse say?” one of the jury asked.

  “That I can’t remember,” said the Hatter.

  “You must remember,” remarked the King, “or I’ll have you executed.”

  The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and bread-and-butter, and went down on one knee. “I’m a poor man, your Majesty,” he began.

  “You’re a very poor speaker,” said the King.

  Carroll: Felt unjustly convicted.

  For all his sincere intent to give Alice—and all children—(in his own words) “a gift of love” in this beautiful, intricately wrought fairy tale, the book had other agendas. One of them made it a poisoned apple offered up to a few unsuspecting adults. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is written on many levels, and the darkest of these is the waging of a vengeful feud with Alice Liddell’s parents—the real-life King and Queen of Hearts.

  In every account of Charles Dodgson’s life, biographers are left to puzzle over the sudden and complete breakdown of the relationship between Dodgson and the Liddell family. From 1857 to 1863, Dodgson spent much of his free time at Christ Church, away from academic work and in the company of the Liddell children. Except for the long summer holiday break, a week seldom went by without Carroll enjoying walks, picnics or boat rides with them.

  Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court. (As that is rather a hard word, I will just explain to you how it was done. They had a large canvas bag, which tied up at the mouth with strings: into this they slipped the guinea-pig, head first, and then sat upon it.)

  “I’m glad I’ve seen that done,” thought Alice. “I’ve so often read in the newspapers, at the end of trials, ‘There was some attempt at applause, which was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court,’ and I never understood what it meant till now.”

  “If that’s all you know about it, you may stand down,” continued the King.

  “I can’t go no lower,” said the Hatter: “I’m on the floor, as it is.”

  “Then you may sit down,” the King replied.

  Here the other guinea-pig cheered, and was suppressed.

  On June 25, 1863—almost a year after the boat trip that inspired the book—Dodgson and a party of ten, including the dean and Mrs. Liddell with their daughters and several others, went on a cheerful boating expedition to Nuneham. The adults returned home separately, while Dodgson, unchaperoned, returned the three girls himself by train and carriage. He marked the event in his diary as one of his most joyful days with the children. It was to prove to be the last.

  Two days later, on Saturday,
June 27, Dodgson begins his diary: “Wrote to Mrs. Liddell urging her either”—the word either is crossed out—“to send the children to be photographed.” The children were not sent. Instead, Dodgson was summoned to the Deanery.

  The entries for the rest of that day and all of Sunday and Monday are missing: they were cut out. By the next entry, Tuesday, June 30, it was all over. Dodgson tersely reports that the Liddells had left Oxford for their summer home in Wales: “The Deanery party left for Llandudno.” Pointedly, there are no farewell notes or fond goodbyes as there had been on other occasions.

  “Come, that finished the guinea-pigs!” thought Alice. “Now we shall get on better.”

  “I’d rather finish my tea,” said the Hatter, with an anxious look at the Queen, who was reading the list of singers.

  “You may go,” said the King, and the Hatter hurriedly left the court, without even waiting to put his shoes on.

  “—and just take his head off outside,” the Queen added to one of the officers; but the Hatter was out of sight before the officer could get to the door.

  “Call the next witness!” said the King.

  The next witness was the Duchess’s cook. She carried the pepper-box in her hand, and Alice guessed who it was, even before she got into the court, by the way the people near the door began sneezing all at once.

  “Give your evidence,” said the King.

  “Shan’t,” said the cook.