Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Study Guide

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is the story of a young English schoolgirl, the titular Alice, who wanders into a nonsense realm of logical puzzles and dialogic contrivances while chasing a white rabbit. The convoluted word games and memorable anthropomorphic characters that form the core of the book's cast have given it a lasting popularity among readers of all ages. It touches on subjects ranging from syntax to rhetoric and dialogic logic.

Lists of characters

The following is a list of main characters in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland .

  • Alice
  • Bill the Lizard
  • Pat
  • The Caterpillar
  • The Cheshire Cat
  • The Dodo
  • The Dormouse
  • The Duchess
  • The Duck
  • The Eaglet
  • The Gryphon
  • The Hatter
  • The King of Hearts
  • The Knave of Hearts
  • The Lory
  • The March Hare
  • The Mock Turtle
  • The Mouse
  • The Puppy
  • The Queen of Hearts
  • The White Rabbit

Character allusions

In The Annotated Alice , Martin Gardner provides background information for the characters. The members of the boating party that first heard Carroll's tale show up in Chapter 3 ("A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale"):

  • Alice Liddell (portrayed as the character Alice ) herself is there
  • Carroll is caricatured as the Dodo (Dodgson stuttered when he spoke, and common lore suggests that he sometimes pronounced his last name as Dodo-Dodgson )
  • The Duck refers to Canon Duckworth
  • The Lory and Eaglet refer to Alice Liddell's sisters Lorina and Edith.
  • Bill the Lizard may be a play on the name of British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. One of Tenniel's illustrations in Through the Looking-Glass — the 1871 sequel to Alice — depicts the character referred to as the "Man in White Paper" (whom Alice meets as a fellow passenger riding on the train with her) as a caricature of Disraeli, wearing a paper hat.
  • The illustrations of the Lion and the Unicorn (also in Looking-Glass ) bear a striking resemblance to Tenniel's Punch illustrations of Gladstone and Disraeli.
  • It has been suggested by some writers that The Hatter is a reference to Theophilus Carter, a furniture dealer known in Oxford. Tenniel apparently drew the Hatter to resemble Carter, on a suggestion of Carroll's. However, it is unlikely that Carter was the model for The Hatter, and there is no evidence that Carroll ever invited Tenniel to Oxford for any purpose.
  • The Dormouse tells a story about three little sisters named Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie . These are the Liddell sisters: Elsie is L.C. (Lorina Charlotte), Tillie is Edith (her family nickname is Matilda), and Lacie is an anagram of Alice.
  • The Mock Turtle speaks of a drawling-master, "an old conger eel" , who came once a week to teach "Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils". This is a reference to art critic John Ruskin, who came once a week to the Liddell house to teach the children drawing , sketching , and painting in oils . (The children did, in fact, learn well; Alice Liddell, for one, produced a number of skilful watercolours.)

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