Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Chapters 4 through 6 comprise the second phase of Alice’s journey in Wonderland. Just as the White Rabbit led her down the rabbit hole, prompting the first phase of her journey, he sends her on an errand that prompts her to meet new characters and tests her wits. Each situation Alice encounters forces her to use her own judgment since she can no longer rely on the book knowledge she has learned in school; the nonsensical nature of the chapters’ events means that Alice will have no prior experience for handling such situations. Her constantly changing sizes add to her confusion, as each time she must reacclimate to a new perspective.

The greatest challenge to Alice’s self-awareness comes when the Caterpillar asks her “Who are you?” One of the novel’s key themes is the nature of self: What makes us who we are and at what point, depending on how much we have changed, do we become new versions of ourselves—or become someone else completely? Alice does not have an answer for the Caterpillar, but she likens her changes to the process it will undergo when it transforms into a chrysalis and then into a butterfly.

The Caterpillar scoffs at the thought that such changes matter, but Alice’s transformations have caused her to become disoriented. The poem that the Caterpillar asks her to recite touches on this theme. In the poem, old Father William can perform feats such as standing on his head, turning somersaults, and balancing an eel on the end of his nose (61-65). His son is confused because he believes only a young man should be able to do those things.

The poem is a metaphor for defying expectations; no one’s age or other characteristics define who they are. It is up to the individual to create their own identity.

“Madness” is another theme that surfaces in these chapters. While “madness” was (and still is) stigmatizing slang for mental illness, the novel uses the concept chiefly to signify illogic or absurdity. Carrol’s use of the concept, even as an element of craft, retains some stigmatizing effect; nevertheless, this theme of “madness” undergirds the novel’s philosophical architecture, as Wonderland’s “madness” is its brazen subversion of normal logic. At the end of Chapter 6, the Cheshire Cat tells Alice that everyone in Wonderland is “mad,” including her. When Alice protests, the Cat replies that if she were not “mad,” she would not have come there (86). This type of deductive reasoning is called a syllogism, a statement in which a conclusion is drawn from two given premises. In this case, the premises are that, first, everyone in Wonderland is “mad”; and second, Alice has come to Wonderland and is therefore also “mad.”

From one point of view, the logic is sound: Alice is in Wonderland, i.e., has become part of the “everyone” who resides there; everyone in Wonderland is “mad”; therefore, Alice is “mad” too. However, the Cat may not be reliable, because by its own admission, it is “mad” too. As a mathematician, Carroll was familiar with different types of logic and their fallacies. Having the creatures of Wonderland draw false conclusions and making Alice question her ability to reason force the reader to question both Alice’s and the narrative’s reliability.