Alice in Wonderland XII -- chapter 9: MORALITY LESSO/ENS

In such a reading as this of Alice in Wonderland, it's clear that a great deal of the reader is inscribed on/to the subtext.  I mentioned before that it's not always important what the author intended (if indeed he/she intended a subtext at all) at the writing of the text, but that an interpretation needs to temper itself at least somewhat against who the author is, and not go directly and flagrantly astray.  That said, I think there's a great deal we can learn--or guess, really--about Carroll as a person and how he viewed Alice, himself, and his relationship with her via these books.  I think it's important to remember that this first of two was written for Alice's entertainment and pleasure (more on the second when we get there).  If we assume he was successful, we can also learn a lot about Alice, whom Carroll likely knew better than most anyone else, as well as a--though likely at least partially skewed--perspective on what Alice thought of Carroll, or how Carroll hoped/wanted Alice to see him.

1. Alice assumes that a person's temperament is at least somehow connected to what they eat or are exposed to (nurture over nature).  This being the case, it makes sense perhaps that the baby boy was so ill-tempered, augmented of course by the ill temper of the others in the kitchen with him, affected as they all were surely by the airborne pepper.  It's only upon leaving the source of "hotness" that he calms and turns into a pig.  Maybe boys are simply polar creatures: hot-tempered or piggish.  So what happens when they're fed candy?
2. "When I'm a Duchess...."
3. Does the finding of morals in everything separate children from adults, or join or distance Carroll from Alice?  Does he moralize his tale or leave it to the reader to find the automatically intrinsic morals?  (Carroll said in his "The New Belfry of Christ Church Oxford," "Everything has a moral if you choose to look for it.  In Wordsworth a good half of every poem is devoted to the Moral: in Byron, a smaller portion: in Tupper, the whole.")
4. The making of the world go round is most commonly done in literature and song by Love.  So what of Minding One's Own Business (and might there be a riddle in the connection between it and Love amounting to "much the same thing")?
5. "Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves."  Sense and Sound is Carroll's own development.
6. Once again, from a child's perspective, adults are all mad; their words are gibberish, their morals bologna, and their motives an utter conflux of misappropriations.  I love the literal realization of this here in the scene Alice shares with the Duchess.  By combination of this and a nightly observation of my family's house cat, Jesse (who feels it her duty to, in turn, accompany my children, in turn--the first until she falls asleep, at which point she offers a perfunctory lick to the face, and then moves to the second), the evident sanity of the Cheshire Cat has come to make a little more sense.  Adults often have a hard time with cats, because cats are independent, disobedient, haughty, etcetera--seemingly insane, really (I like my cat for this very reason: I don't have do anything but feed it!).  However, kids love cats.  Kids get cats.  At least my kids do.  I did when I was a kid.  There's nothing mysterious or insane about cats from a child's perspective.
7. The Gryphon is the emblem of Oxford's Trinity College.  It is also the mythical guardian of ancient goldmines and is meant as a symbol of utmost vigilance.  Finally, medievally it was a common symbol of the union between God and man (how so, I'm not really sure, but there you go).

New thought (new to me, anyway): The griffin pulls a chariot carrying Beatrice in Dante's Purgatorio, and the final lines of Paradiso run thusly (Longfellow translation): "Here vigor failed the lofty fantasy: / But now was turning my desire and will, / Even as a wheel that equally is moved, // The Love which moves the sun and the other stars."  This final line follows the same pattern as the Duchess' "Oh, 'tis love, 'tis love, that makes the world go round!"  Now that I'm looking, there are striking parallels between The Divine Comedy and the Alice books.  There are tours, guides, episodes underground, fits, bizarreries, torments, ecstasies, and so on.  Especially, there is a female character highly idealized by the author.  Thoughts?

Alice in Wonderland XI -- chapter 8: CALVINBALL or CROQUET?

The BIG QUESTION of chapter 8:  Yes, Alice enters a garden, and at the end of chapter 7 she even identifies it as the garden; but is this indeed the garden which she spied first through the little door?

I humbly acknowledge that these questions are asked remarkably inefficiently but declaim irresponsibly that I intend not to change them.

1. More (see question 2 on "The Great Ugly") on the importance of appearances here, as three cards--gardeners--frantically paint mistakenly-planted white roses red.  Is this a parallel case to that of the previous post?
2. Disregarding Tenniel's illustration, what does it mean to "be-head" a non-face-card (impertinent question)? 
3. What would be the difference between Alice laying on her face (contrary to what may be minimally proper) like the cards?  What are the cards--gardeners--attempting to do, really, by prostrating themselves?  This introduces an interesting issue (and this also ties into the next question): what is going on with the utter lack of variety when their backs are turned: "she could not tell whether they were gardeners, or soldiers, or courtiers, or three of her own children."
4. The general community of Wonderland is very diverse, and I've never thought of it as one inclusive group until now, perhaps fittingly, having just finished Jane Eyre.  Describe this community in terms of how it fits within the format of a typical Victorian region and/or countryside.  Which type of people perhaps have more substance than others, and what commentary is Carroll making?  (Grammatical aside (trick question, subject to grammatical subjectivity): is there a way to rewrite "what commentary is Carroll making" without splitting the infinitive, "is making," and without going into the dangerous waters of The Passive?)
5. Interesting choice of words: "How should I know?  It's no business of mine," which, of course, comes across as rude; couldn't she have simply referred (*another ridiculous verbal split*) to the impossibility of distinguishing them in such a state.
6. Apart from the primary argument at hand (in chapter, in book, in "series"), are the Alice books inappropriate for children?  Gardner humorously offers: "'I pictured to myself the Queen of Hearts,' Carroll wrote in his article 'Alice on the Stage,' 'as a sort of embodiment of ungovernable passion--a blind and aimless Fury.'  Her constant orders for beheadings are shocking to those modern critics of children's literature who feel that juvenile fiction should be free of all violence and especially violence with Freudian undertones.  Even the Oz books of L. Frank Baum, so singularly free of the horrors to be found in Grimm and Andersen, contain many scenes of decapitation.  As far as I know, there have been no empirical studies of how children react to such scenes and what harm if any is done to their psyche.  My guess is that the normal child finds it all very amusing and is not damaged in the least, but that books like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz should not be allowed to circulate indiscriminately among adults who are undergoing analysis."
7. Is there any way for the King of Hearts to be other than timid in the face of his spouse?  (Poor man!)
8. What is Carroll doing to/with/by Alice when he writes her as contradicting, and effectively so, the Queen? Consider also that the Queen shifts from ordering the offing of her head to inviting her to play Croquet.
9. "The Knave did so, very carefully, with one foot."  I expect there's a fair level of bigotry between the four suits of cards in the deck.
10. "Their heads are gone, if it please your Majesty!"
11. How do you suppose W. Rabbit feels now that Alice has been invited to play?
12. Is it such a "great wonder," as Alice believes, that there are any members of the deck of cards yet alive?
13. Notice the King's lack of ability--or authority--in the removal of the cat and his subsequent deferment to his wife.
14. What of the court's petition to Alice to solve their problem?

by Bill Waterson: Calvinball

Alice in Wonderland VIV -- chapter 6: THE GREAT UGLY

"The Ugly Duchess," by Quentin Matsys

Perhaps because this chapter is so rife with dissectable material, perhaps because I've worked on it in three sessions, two of which were scattered with questions from confused and working students, these questions are not entirely in order of their book-ed correlates, but in the order they occurred to me.  My apologies; may the beauty (and that beauty so grounded in its Ugly) make up for my shortcomings.

1. The general lampooning of adults is targeted more specifically in this chapter at the upper class: from the treatment, by Carroll, of the invitation (how pretentious is a letter this big, at least compared to the size of those who handle it, and especially if size is ever an indicator import, or at least self-righteousness, and regarding a game a croquet, no matter whom it's with?) to the wigs getting tangled (what the heck is the importance of such things and such clothes except to boast of the owner's--the owner of the servants whose clothes the servants wear--money, to the fact that the footmen, so lowly!, are mere animals, compared to their "human" owners.  Of course, if Carroll esteems animals generally more highly than human adults, this cants it all left--or right ... or off-center.  Oh, and then once the message is delivered, the poor remaining footman is good for absolutely nothing but sitting around looking stupid!
2. However, and despite his stupid sitting, the Frog isn't stupid: "There's no sort of use in knocking, and that for two reasons.  First, because I'm on the same side of the door as you are: secondly, because they're making such a noise inside, no one could possible hear you."  However, if this Frog is so bent on appearance, which all formalities are pretty much all about in the first place, why did he bow regally to the fish, but not introduce Alice to its master?  Is this a slight against Alice, or indication of "needing to maintain appearances" bound to be reported to Queen, or something else?
3. The frog footman: "For instance, if you were inside, you might knock, and I could let you out, you know."  Another symptom of "automatic writing?"
4. What is meant by the footman's off-hand remark, "Are you to get in at all?  That's the first question, you know."  It's answer, I think, is also telling of Carroll's position here, and, to a degree, an interesting and potential point on an issue predestination (all kinds of ramifications there, especially considering the time and space of the setting!).
5. We will spend more time with the Cheshire Cat later.  A couple notes in the interim: with the exception of the court scene at the end where many characters temporarily return, the Cheshire Cat is alone in its repeated appearances; consider elements of the moon, and the cat's resemblance to the moon, and the moon's supposed influence on the sanity of those under it.
6. The treatment of the baby seems entirely contrary to anything Carroll would have believed in regarding children.  Thoughts?
7. The treatment and change of the baby is the most grotesque of the events in Wonderland (at least on this first of Alice's two trips here).  What would have happened to the baby had it staying with the Duchess?  Would it have still changed into a pig?  Why all the pepper?  Why all the hurling of every potential implement in the kitchen?  How do--if they do--all fit together?
8. In Sylvie and Bruno, Carroll evinces a distaste for boys (a distaste he did not bury in life) and compared one particularly fat, ugly boy, Uggug by name, to a prize pig.  Consider Alice's statement (and, as we're in Wonderland, Alice is of course channeling, at least to a degree, Carroll himself): "...if one only knew how to change them--" speaking of children who "might do very well as pigs."  
9. I can't quite articulate it yet, and I know there's a risk in writing before I've organized my still nascent thoughts on it:  There seems a potential connection between the letter and the pig.  Thoughts?
10. Further, what of the Ugly in this chapter?
11. "You must be [mad]," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."  More importantly: "And how do you know that you're mad?"
12. Two final, fun observations (neither of them my own):  First, I've always wondered about--and been annoyed by--the format of Tenniel's illustration of Alice looking up at the Cat in this chapter.  The missing rectangle seems so out of standard when held up to all the rest of the illustration--he doesn't accommodate text with picture shape; however, when held up against, or immediately atop of, the illustration of the cat mid-appearance on the next page it makes perfect sense. I've finally learned the intent: Carroll enjoyed the opportunity to fold the paper of the prior back to reveal the drawing of the latter (the cat, despite Alice's walking ahead, is in the same tree) to the children around him and observe Alice's complete lack of fear.  Second, "a smile without a cat" is perhaps the most subtle of Carroll's mathematical allusions, as it is an altogether apt description of pure mathematics.  (Thanks Selwyn Goodacre for the first, and Martin Gardner and Bertrand Russell for the second.)

Speak Gently

by David Bates

Speak gently! -- It is better far
To rule by love, than fear --
Speak gently -- let not harsh words mar
The good we might do here!

Speak gently! -- Love doth whisper low
The vows that true hearts bind;
And gently Friendship's accents flow;
Affection's voice is kind.

Speak gently to the little child!
Its love be sure to gain;
Teach it in accents soft and mild: --
It may not long remain.

Speak gently to the young, for they
Will have enough to bear --
Pass through this life as best they may,
'T is full of anxious care!

Speak gently to the aged one,
Grieve not the care-worn heart;
The sands of life are nearly run,
Let such in peace depart!

Speak gently, kindly, to the poor;
Let no harsh tone be heard;
They have enough they must endure,
Without an unkind word!

Speak gently to the erring -- know,
They may have toiled in vain;
Perchance unkindness made them so;
Oh, win them back again!

Speak gently! -- He who gave his life
To bend man's stubborn will,
When elements were in fierce strife,
Said to them, 'Peace, be still.'

Speak gently! -- 't is a little thing
Dropped in the heart's deep well;
The good, the joy, which it may bring,
Eternity shall tell.