The Mad Hatter | Alice in Wonderland Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Johnny Depp (2010) The Hatter (Hatta in Through the Looking-Glass , more commonly known as The Mad Hatter, and Tarrant Hightopp in the 2010 movie ), is a fictional character from Lewis Carroll 's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There . As Alice and the March Hare are the only other individuals to appear in both books, he can be considered a principal character. Although he is never referenced as 'The Mad Hatter' in either of Carroll's books, the Hatter is portrayed as 'mad' and hence has become known as such. Johnny Depp portrayed the Mad Hatter in the 2010 movie . In the movie, he is known for his Futterwacken which is a dance of immense joy. Contents [ show ] Origin of the Phrase The phrase "as mad as a hatter" refers to the 19th century usage of a mercury-based compound in the making of fine hats.

Due to long-term exposure, hatters would often develop symptoms of mercury posioning, such as tremors or mood-swings, that would make them appear "mad" to others. [1] Description The Mad Hatter as seen in Disney's Alice in Wonderland (1951) The Mad Hatter is voiced by Ed Wynn in Disney's 1951 film. He is first seen when Alice wonders off in the forest and the Cheshire Cat tells her to visit them for directions back home. Alice visits but in the middle of a very odd Tea Party with the March Hare , The Mad Hatter and the Dormouse . The Mad Hatter and March Hare are singing A Very Merry Unbirthday but is interrupted when Alice starts to clap. First The Mad Hatter and March Hare are upset because Alice was not asked to join but become pleased when Alice explains to them that she enjoyed their singing and they welcome her to join. As Alice tries to explain The Mad Hatter and March Hare try to change the subject. Soon the party is once again interrupted by the White Rabbit . Alice tries to converse with him but Mad Hatter and March Hare drive him away. He is later seen at the court scene.

The Mad Hatter is known as a witness along with the March Hare and Dormouse. The Mad Hatter apeared in Disney Parks and Disney's House of Mouse. An early draft of the film bequeathed him with a more grotesque design. He would have also been more malovlent, as he would attempt to kill Alice with a large pair of scissors. Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland Tim Burton 's Mad Hatter, named Tarrant Hightopp, first met Alice when she was a young child at the age of seven. They became friends quickly, even enjoying tea together. Alice forgot these memories while she was away from Underland, but at the age of nineteen, Alice falls down the rabbit hole again. She has no recollection of Tarrant when she rediscovers his tea table of friends and joins them in their rebellion against the Red Queen . Tarrant quickly tries to help Alice, especially when the Red Queen 's minions come to him looking for her. He gives Alice a potion that shrinks her, then hides her in a teapot and pretends that he's never seen her, even after being choked by the Red Queen's Knave of Hearts , Stayne.

After Stayne leaves, Tarrant takes Alice on a journey to Marmoreal and explains the Red Queen's reign of terror over Underland on the way. Soon, the Red Queen's minions pick up Alice's scent and start chasing them. With no other options, and the enemy approaching, Tarrant puts Alice atop his hat and flings it across a river to the opposite side (saving her from the Red Knights), but then draws attention to himself and gets captured in the process. He is taken away as Alice watches on. The Mad Hatter during the Frabjous Day war with The Red Queen. Stayne tries to toture him for information on Alice's location but his insanity protects him from the torture methods. There aren't many mentions of tortures Stayne usede, but hair pulling or something like that might have been used. Hatter wasn't seemingly bruised or anything after the torture. When Alice arrives in Crims , Tarrant is brought into the throne room, and decides to distract the Red Queen from executing him by hatting her. During his time as her prisoner, he makes many hats for her to try on. However, when the Queen tries them on, she hates all of them.

After Alice is discovered and escapes, Tarrant is ordered to be executed. However, at the execution, he and the Cheshire Cat work together to help him escape-the cat disguises himself as Tarrant using shapeshifting abilities and his hat, thus leaving Tarrant free. After the ruse is discovered, Tarrant angers the Red Queen by turning her people against her, then retreats to Marmoreal. There, the White Queen decides that they must have a champion to destroy the Jabberwock . When Alice, the prophesized slayer of the beast, she doesn't step up, Tarrant is the first to say that he will do it. Alice, however, is the only one that can defeat the Jabberwock, and no one else can take the position. Alice shockingly arrives and is ready for battle against the foul beast. They march towards battle. The Red Queen quickly sends forth her champion, and so Alice steps forward as well. The battle between the two begins. However, Tarrant quickly interferes with Alice's battle with the Jabberwock by pricking its tail with his sword when it threw Alice down rather forcefully. There is noticable fury in his eyes.

This starts a war between the Red Queen and the White Queen 's armies. Stayne draws his sword, and he and Tarrant quickly engage in a sword fight. Not long after, Tarrant disarms Stayne and knocks him to the ground, raising his sword above his head, and ready to impale Stayne. At this point it is recognizable that he is in a state of madness because his eyes are yellow. Tarrant nearly kills the Knave, but is stopped when he notices Alice slay the Jabberwock . He then throws the sword aside, disgusted. After the battle, and victory, Tarrant celebrates with his famous dance, the Futterwhacken. Alice chooses to leave Wonderland later, to the sadness of Tarrant. He bids her farewell, and she leaves. Tarrant's origins involve him with the Hightopp Clan, which was destroyed by the Jabberwock, sent by the Red Queen during a visit by the White Queen to their village on the "Horevendush Day". Though the White Queen was safely spirited away, the Vorpal Sword (as well as her crown) was lost in the confusion.

Tarrant is the only member of his clan left- everybody and everything else was killed or burned to the ground. Tarrant only escaped the destruction because he led the White queen's panicked horse away from the intial attack. He returns after to find the village burnt to the ground, a shocked look on his face he bends down to pick up his trademark hat. When we next see his face it is clear from the half smile that his sanity has shattered. A scene of Tarrant's past can be seen-the Jabberwock blowing fire down on the clan, when he and Alice are traveling and they pass through the remains of his home, causing him to briefly flash back to the destruction. The destruction of his clan broke something in Tarrant's mind - causing him to become detatched from reality and also develop a slight split personality - even Hatter's wardrobe and Hatter's skin changed to a darker mood after Horvendush day. When he becomes upset, his eyes change from green to a golden yellow. The skin around his eyes also turns black and he begins speaking in a noticeable Scottish brogue. Also, because of the mood (ring) colors, his clothes' colors sometimes change to darker themes.

Tarrant can become very violent during heis utter rage scenes; often someone needs to snaps him out of it or he can become dangerous. Mallymkun the Dormouse snaps him out of it the first time by shouting, "Hatter!!" when he is about to attack the Chesire Cat who he hates for disappearing during the attack on his clan. Alice later snaps him out of one of his episodes when he is imprisoned at the Red Queen's castle making hats. Tarrant himself is vagely aware of his personality problem telling Alice that he has to get out of the Red Queen's castle saying it's getting harder for him to think clearly there. It is implied he has a crush on Alice, although Johnny Depp, who portray the Hatter, said in a Facebook feaurette (also found on youtube) that Tarrant and Alice "complete each other as a brother and sister would. He is very protective of her and she is very protective of him." In a draft by Linda Woolverton, there was a romance between the Hatter and Alice that included two kisses.

However, in spite of the fact that Woolverton had written the Hatter's character with Johnny Depp in mind, once the actor was actually cast the script was rewritten to exlcude the romance and the character rewritten to suit Depp (Disney's Alice in Wonderland: A Visual Companion, p. 35-38). Unfortunately for true Alice fans, Burton and Depp's Mad Hatter was completely different from the one in the books. The 2010 film portrays him as a tortured action hero while in the books he was an eccentric man and an antagonist to Alice. Looking Glass Wars In the Looking Glass Wars, by Frank Beddor, the Mad Hatter is portrayed as Hatter Madigan , the leader of the Queen's personal guard, his hat being his main weapon. The top hat has blades in it that could cut through card soldiers like butter. Mini Series In 2009, Hatter was portrayed by Andrew Lee Potts in the re-imagined version Alice. In this version, Hatter runs the tea shop where people in Wonderland get the emotions that are extracted from captive humans. Hatter is part of the rebellion against the Queen of Hearts, and is somewhat hard to decipher at first.

He turns out to be a "good guy" in the end, as well as a romantic interest of the re-done Alice. Hatter is known for having a "Sledgehammer" left hook witch is noted to be extremely strong; Dodo is continuously weary of it during their encounter. Towards the end of the series, Hatter is seen killing Mad March by breaking the fake rabbit head on his body with the help of his "sledgehammer". Video Games The Hatter makes an appearance as an enemy in American McGee's Alice . In the otome game Heart no Kuni no Alice , he appears as Blood Dupre , the mafia boss of the Hatter family and one of the characters who fall in love with Alice . He appears in the DS game A Witch's Tale as a guy named Mad Hatter who suddenly appears before Liddell, a witch-in-training who attends a magic academy. In Kingdom Hearts , the Mad Hatter, along with the March Hare, make a very minor appearance in Wonderland : they are part of a picture in the Tea Party Garden. When approached, a message appears, saying "A very merry unbirthday. Sit to get your present," and Sora and company will have to sit on the correct chairs.

The expressions of the Mad Hatter and March Hare change with the outcome; if Heartless appear in the area, they become shocked; if Sora manages to get all the presents, they initially smile, but put on a sad face when the message "That's all the presents" appears. In Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland game , the Mad Hatter has a special ability, Perspective, in which he can visualize pictures into reality by lining up certain angles, he also can connect bridges or ropes in the same way. In the game, he hates the Cheshire Cat because he leaves when his village was attacked by the Jabberwocky instead of helping him fight. But later he needs Chessur's help after Alice convinces him to ask the Cat for help. His character is also slightly different than in the movie as the Hatter in the game often swings the Vorpal Sword around in a grandiose manner whenever he has the sword in hand, especially in the presence of the White Queen. He is the one to return to Vorpal Sword to the White Queen, rather than Alice.

It is also interesting that the Hatter is the one to send Alice home, not by way of Jabberwocky blood, but by tricking her into drinking a potion that he calls "Futterwacken potion" after asking her to dance. Anime The Hatter appears in one episode of the anime Card Captor Sakura. He was really similar to Sakura's brother Touya Kinomoto. In CLAMP's Miyuki-chan in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter counterpart is a hatted woman who takes the tea in the top of a flower with The March Hare and The Mouse, she posseses a magical pipe that can shoot a beam to transport people, as she did with Miyuki. The character Xerxes Break from the anime Pandora Hearts seems to be based off of the Hatter. This can be drawn from his "mad" behavior and the fact his nickname is "Hatter". In addition, Break's chain is also based off of the Hatter: the "Mad Hatter" chain takes the appearance of a large top hat with an equally large red eye underneath it.

Break, just as the Hatter, has eaten plates in front of the protagonist, both Break and The Mad Hatter began new lives under a pseudonym (Kevin Legnard to "Xerxes Break" and The Mad Hatter to "Hatta"), and Break has a friendship with the character meant to represent The March Hare, whom is The Mad Hatter's best friend. He also appears in the anime adaption by Nippon Animation Fushigi no Kuni no Alice . In the anime Project ARMS , one of the Keith series ARMS weapon was code named the Mad Hatter. Other Appearances The Mad Hatter Steve Buscemi plays The Mad Hatter in a skit on Saturday Night Live. In the manga series Heart no Kuni no Alice he appears there as more of a normal human with the March Hare. In the manga, Are You Alice?, the Mad Hatter is a character that protects a young man named "Alice." In the manga, Angel Sanctuary, Belial, a fallen angel and the Satan of Pride, is also called Mad Hatter One of the villains from the Batman franchise is a deranged man who thinks he is the Mad Hatter.

There is a robot known as the Mad Hatterbot in Futurama who resembles the Mad Hatter, who shouts out "CHANGE PLACES!" which all robots who near him obey. Real People Wayne Borean, aka The Mad Hatter, writer of the Through the Looking Glass blog at MadHatter.Ca . Jacob David McKinley, aka Tha Madd Hatter. Rapper from Long Beach, California. Music by Tha Madd Hatter Memorable Quotes Chapter 7 Chapter 7 Bookmark this page Manage My Reading List Summary Linguistic assaults are very much a part of the "polite bantering" in Wonderland. Often, traumatic and verbal violence seems just about to erupt all the time, breaking through the thin veneer of civilized behavior, but it rarely does. Alice reaches the March Hare's house in time for an outdoor tea-party. The tea-party turns out to be a very mad tea-party. In attendance are Alice, the March Hare, the Mad Hatter, and a Dormouse. All are indeed mad, except (perhaps) Alice and the sleepy Dormouse (who is only mad when he is awake). Alice has arrived just in time for tea, which is served at six o'clock.

But it is always six o'clock, with no time to wash the dishes; thus, it is always tea time. In fact, the significant feature about this tea-party is that time has been frozen still. The idea of real, moving, passing time is non-existent. The absense of time means that the Mad Tea-Party is trapped in a space without time. The world isn't turning, hands aren't moving around the clock, and the only "rotating" exists around the tea-party table. When the four have finished tea (although Alice gets none), they move to the next place-setting around the table. Dirty dishes accumulate, and there doesn't seem to be any substantive food. No one even seems to be taking tea. The Mad Hatter tells Alice that the Queen has accused him of murdering his friend Time; ever since the Mad Hatter and Time had a falling out, it has always been six o'clock. It's always tea time, and they have no time to wash the dishes between time for tea. Alice typically does her best to cling to her own code of behavior (as always); she is still determined to "educate" the creatures to the rules of Victorian social etiquette.

They protest her joining the party with cries of "No room! No room!" But Alice ignores them (she is larger now), and she sits down. The insanity of it all begins immediately when the March Hare offers her wine that doesn't exist. Alice complains, of course, about this lack of civility in offering her some nonexistent wine. The March Hare counters that she was very rude to invite herself to their party. Her rules of etiquette completely fail her here. These creatures once again turn upside down all her principles of decorum. "Your hair wants cutting," the Mad Hatter interrupts her at one point. "You should learn not to make personal remarks," Alice says. "It's very rude." Later, she violates her advice and impolitely interrupts the Mad Hatter. "Nobody asked your opinion," she says. "Who's making personal remarks now?" retorts the Mad Hatter. Alice has been deflated and demoralized. The last above-ground rules of how to act and what to say seem to dissolve before her eyes. She cannot understand why they are acting this way! Thus, the tea-party continues with endless cups of tea and a conversation of absolutely meaningless nonsense.

Suddenly, the Mad Hatter asks Alice: "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" At first glance, the riddle makes no sense as a logical question. And even the answer that Carroll provides elsewhere (the raven produces a few notes, all very flat, and it is never put the wrong end front) is nonsense. Presumably there should always be answers to any questions; at least, there were answers above-ground. The Mad Tea-Party conversation repeats this miscommunication pattern like all the other absurd conversations that Alice has had with Wonderland creatures in previous chapters. She delightfully explains: "I'm glad they've begun asking riddles — I believe I can guess that." "Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?" asks the March Hare. "Exactly so," says Alice. "Then you should say what you mean," says the Hare. Alice's confidence is shaken: "I do," she says, "at least — at least I mean what I say — that's the same thing you know." But here, of course, Alice is speaking in the context of time's absence. There is no time.

This is, even in Wonderland, "another world." "Why," says the Hare, "you might just as well say that 'I see what I eat' is the same thing as 'I eat what I see!"' This is reverse logic — exactly right for Wonderland, but, of course, not correct above-ground. Alice cannot make the creatures understand this, however, and finally she sighs. "I think you might do something better with time . . . than wasting it in asking riddles that have no answers." To this, the Hatter replies: "If you knew Time as well as I do . . . you wouldn't talk about wasting it. It's him." Time is thus suddenly personified and becomes the source of much punning and comic relief. Alice participates in this nonsense in all seriousness, saying that she has to "beat time" when she learns music, even though she has "perhaps" never spoken to "him." "Ah! That accounts for it," says the Mad Hatter.

"He won't stand beating!" Then the Mad Hatter launches into a satirical parody of another, famous children's verse: "Twinkle, twinkle little bat!" The bat is not the shining star of the Victorian poem, but a repulsive and morbid symbol of the ugly course of events about to begin. The Mad Hatter explains that his fight with Time and accusation of murder happened the last time that he was reciting that verse. So the disaster with Time is closely related to the Mad Hatter's distortion of the nursery rhyme. Filling his version with bats and flying tea-trays, the Mad Hatter's rhyme increases the comic personification of Time. The Mad Hatter has animated the inanimate star as a bat and has made an inanimate object live. The Mad Tea-Party is filled with atrocious puns in conversation. The pun is determined by the coincidence of two words that sound so alike that relevant information is muddled. And here the play on words is a way of freeing meaning from conventional definition. The Dormouse, for instance, tells a story about three sisters who lived in a treacle well and were learning to "draw" treacle (molasses). Alice asks: "But I don't understand.

Where did they draw treacle from?" "You can draw water out of a water-well," says the Mad Hatter, "so I should think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well." "But they were in the well," says Alice (very logically). "Of course they were," says the Dormouse. "Well in." The Dormouse's illogic continues to frustrate Alice. Playing on words that begin with the letter M, the Dormouse describes the sisters as drawing "all manner of things — everything that begins with an M such as mousetraps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness — you know you say things are 'much of a muchness' — did you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness!" Alice stammers, and the Hatter cries, "Then you shouldn't talk." With that rude remark, Alice storms away in disgust. She has still not succeeded in getting any closer to the reality she seeks. At the tea-party, she has not even received any tea or food. Her serving has been only a bitter course of verbal abuse and semantic teasing. Muchness indeed!

The creatures are self-centered, argumentative and rude; they have violated all of the conventions of conversation that Alice has been taught to practice. All of these creatures in Wonderland have compounded the pain of Alice's psychological loss of place and time with their nonsense and cruel teasing. As she leaves the table, Alice notices the other two attempting to drown the Dormouse in the teapot. His ritualistic death is, at least, a seemingly logical consequence of the Mad Hatter's ominous verse and Alice's departure. The Dormouse should have been hibernating instead of attending parties and telling anecdotes; dunking him seems to be sort of a realistic — if an absurd — way of forcing him back to "slumber." This will be, however, if they are successful, more than just a "slumber"; it will be death, "much of a muchness." The Dormouse's fate serves as an appropriate conclusion to this chapter, for Alice enters another door and finds herself once again in the hallway with the glass table and the small doorway that leads to the beautiful garden. To try and reinforce the notion that Wonderland must have a hidden order, Alice first unlocks the door, and she then reduces her size by nibbling on a piece of the mushroom.

She has finally learned a lesson from her initial, frightening experience in Wonderland: She has been eating, drinking, and changing sizes, without thinking first. The hidden math behind Alice in Wonderland March 2010 The Hidden Math Behind Alice in Wonderland Like James Cameron's recent blockbuster movie Avatar, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, released this month, is in 3D. Also like Avatar, I suspect audiences will be uniformly thrilled with the visual spectacle, yet be divided when it comes to the story. Millions loved Cameron's tale, but personally I (and apparently many others) thought that, although it had all the plot ingredients to have been good, it ended up annoyingly adolescent and cloyingly banal. As for Alice? Well, I'll let you make up your own mind. For mathematicians, the real story is not so much whether Burton's movie will be a hit, rather it's not often that a mathematical allegory makes it to Hollywood blockbuster status in the first place! So I can't let the release of Alice go unnoticed in the mathematical literature - to whit Devlin's Angle.

For, as readers of MAA Online will doubtless know, Lewis Carroll was the pen name of the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a mathematician at Christ Church College, Oxford, and most mathematicians are probably aware that elements of the Alice story were inspired by mathematics. (At least, that is the entirely reasonable assumption everyone makes; Dodgson himself provided no commentary to that effect.) Before I go any further, I should note that the new Alice movie is not based on Lewis Carroll's original book. (Actually, the memories of the Alice story we all have from our childhood are based on two books, Alice in Wonderland and the later Alice Through the Looking Glass.) Rather, Burton takes as his inspiration a computer game called American McGee's Alice. In the film, an adult Alice, now a disturbed young woman mourning the death of her parents, returns to the land we are familiar with from Carroll's original tale, a strange place where animals talk, the Cheshire Cat has a grin, and the Queen of Hearts is wicked. (Or was it the Red Queen?

Carroll's two books had different queens that over the years tend to merge in our memories.) Though others had looked for political and social allusions in the Alice books, most notably Martin Gardner, whose The Annotated Alice was published in 1960, followed by a sequel More Annotated Alice in 1990, perhaps the first scholar to look in depth for possible mathematical inspirations for Alice was Helena Pycior of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, who in 1984 linked the trial of the Knave of Hearts with a Victorian book on algebra. Now Melanie Bayley, of the University of Oxford in England, has taken the analysis a lot further. She described her findings (well, since we are in the realm of literary interpretation here, I'd better say "her theory") in an article titled Alice's adventures in algebra: Wonderland solved , published in New Scientist, 16 December 2009. Before I relate what Bayley has to say, let me summarize the history of Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

In 1862, Dodgson, together with the Reverend Robinson Duckworth, rowed in a boat up the River Thames with three young girls, Lorina Charlotte Liddell, aged 13, Alice Pleasance Liddell, aged 10, and Edith Mary Liddell, aged 8, the daughters of Henry George Liddell, the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University and Dean of Christ Church College, as well as headmaster of the nearby, private, Westminster School. The journey started at Folly Bridge near Oxford and ended five miles away in the village of Godstow. As they rowed, Dodgson made up and told the girls a story about a bored little girl named Alice who goes looking for an adventure. The three girls loved it, and Alice Liddell asked Dodgson to write it down for her. Two years later he did just that, and on 26 November 1864 he gave Alice the handwritten manuscript of what he then called "Alice's Adventures Under Ground," illustrated by his own drawings. Most of the story was based on situations and buildings in Oxford and at Christ Church.

For example, the "Rabbit Hole" down which Alice descends to begin her adventure symbolized the actual stairs in the back of the college's main hall. A year later, Dodgson - now masquerading as Lewis Carroll - published a greatly expanded version under the title "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," with illustrations drawn by John Tenniel. It is in the new material he added, which includes the Cheshire Cat, the trial, the Duchess's baby, and the Mad Hatter's tea party, that we find allusions to mathematics. (Tweedledum, Tweedledee, Humpty Dumpty and the Jabberwock appear in the sequel, Alice Through the Looking-Glass.) The book rapidly became a bestseller, it has never been out of print since it first appeared, and it has been translated into well over 100 languages. So what does Bayley tell us about the mathematical ideas that Dodgson took inspiration from? Now we get to the math part First, we have to remind ourselves of what was going on in mathematics in the latter half of the nineteenth century, when Dodgson wrote his story. It was a turbulent period for mathematicians, with the subject rapidly becoming more abstract.

The discoveries of non-Euclidean geometries, the development of abstract (symbolic) algebra that was not tied to arithmetic or geometry, and the growing acceptance - or at least use - of "imaginary numbers" were just some of the developments that shook the discipline to its core. By all accounts, Dodgson held a very traditionalist view of mathematics, rooted in the axiomatic approach of Euclid's Elements. (He was not a research mathematician, rather he tutored the subject.) Bayley describes him as a "stubbornly conservative mathematician," who was dismayed by what he saw as the declining standards of rigor. The new material Dodgson added to the Alice story for publication, she says, was a wicked satire on those new developments. Perhaps the most obvious example is the Cheshire Cat, which disappears leaving only its grin, an obvious reference - critical in Dodgson's case - to increasing abstraction in the discipline. For a more focused example, take the chapter "Advice from a caterpillar." Alice has fallen down the rabbit hole and eaten a cake that has shrunk her to a height of just 3 inches.

The Caterpillar enters, smoking a hookah pipe, and shows Alice a mushroom that can restore her to her proper size. But one side of the mushroom stretches her neck, while another shrinks her torso, so she must eat exactly the right balance to regain her proper size and proportions. Bayley believes this expresses Dodgson's view of the absurdity of symbolic algebra. The first clue, she says, may be the pipe. The word "hookah" is of Arabic origin, like "algebra". More to the point, the original Arabic term for algebra, widely known and used in the mathematical community in Dodgson's time, was al jebr e al mokabala or "restoration and reduction" - which exactly describes Alice's experience. Restoration was what brought Alice to the mushroom: she was looking for something to eat or drink to "grow to my right size again," and reduction was what actually happened when she ate some: she shrank so rapidly that her chin hit her foot. Bayley suggests that the overall madness of Wonderland reflects Dodgson's views on the dangers of this new symbolic algebra. Alice has moved from a rational world to a land where even numbers behave erratically.

In the hallway, she tries to remember her multiplication tables, but they have slipped out of the base-10 number system she is used to. In the caterpillar scene, Alice's height fluctuates between 9 feet and 3 inches. Alice, bound by conventional arithmetic where a quantity such as size should be constant, finds this troubling: "Being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing," she complains. "It isn't," replies the Caterpillar, who lives in this absurd world. The Caterpillar's warning, at the end of this scene, is perhaps one of the most telling clues to Dodgson's conservative mathematics, Bayley suggests. "Keep your temper," he announces. Alice presumes he's telling her not to get angry, but although he has been abrupt he has not been particularly irritable at this point, so it's a somewhat puzzling thing to say. But the word "temper" has another meaning of "the proportion in which qualities are mingled." So the Caterpillar could well be telling Alice to keep her body in proportion - no matter what her size.

This may be another reflection of Dodgson's love of Euclidean geometry, where absolute magnitude doesn't matter: what's important is the ratio of one length to another. To survive in Wonderland, Alice must act like a Euclidean geometer, keeping her ratios constant, even if her size changes. Of course, she doesn't. She swallows a piece of mushroom and her neck grows like a serpent with predictably chaotic results - until she balances her shape with a piece from the other side of the mushroom. This is an important precursor to the next chapter, "Pig and pepper", where Dodgson parodies another type of geometry. By this point, Alice has returned to her proper size and shape, but she shrinks herself down to enter a small house. There she finds the Duchess in her kitchen nursing her baby, while her Cook adds too much pepper to the soup, making everyone sneeze except the Cheshire Cat. But when the Duchess gives the baby to Alice, it turns into a pig.

According to Bayley, the target of this scene is projective geometry, a subject that involved concepts that Dodgson would have found ridiculous, particularly the "principle of continuity." Jean-Victor Poncelet, the French mathematician who set out the principle, described it as follows: "Let a figure be conceived to undergo a certain continuous variation, and let some general property concerning it be granted as true, so long as the variation is confined within certain limits; then the same property will belong to all the successive states of the figure." When Poncelet talked of "figures", he meant geometric figures, of course, but Dodgson playfully subjects Poncelet's description to strict logical analysis and takes it to its most extreme conclusion. He turns a baby into a pig through the principle of continuity. Importantly, the baby retains most of its original features, as any object going through a continuous transformation must. His limbs are still held out like a starfish, and he has a queer shape, turned-up nose and small eyes. Alice only realizes he has changed when his sneezes turn to grunts.

The baby's discomfort with the whole process, and the Duchess's unconcealed violence, signpost Dodgson's virulent mistrust of "modern" projective geometry, Bayley says. Everyone in the pig and pepper scene is bad at doing their job. The Duchess is a bad aristocrat and an appallingly bad mother; the Cook is a bad cook who lets the kitchen fill with smoke, over-seasons the soup and eventually throws out her fire irons, pots and plates. Alice, angry now at the strange turn of events, leaves the Duchess's house and wanders into the Mad Hatter's tea party. This, Bayley surmises, explores the work of the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton, who died in 1865, just after Alice was published. Hamilton's discovery of quaternions in 1843 was hailed as an important milestone in abstract algebra, since they allowed rotations to be calculated algebraically. Just as complex numbers work with two terms, quaternions belong to a number system based on four terms. Hamilton spent years working with three terms - one for each dimension of space - but could only make them rotate in a plane.

When he added the fourth, he got the three-dimensional rotation he was looking for, but he had trouble conceptualizing what this extra term meant. Like most Victorians, he assumed this term had to mean something, so in the preface to his Lectures on Quaternions of 1853 he added a footnote: "It seemed (and still seems) to me natural to connect this extra-spatial unit with the conception of time." As Bayley points out, the parallels between Hamilton's mathematics and the Mad Hatter's tea party are uncanny. Alice is now at a table with three strange characters: the Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse. The character Time, who has fallen out with the Hatter, is absent, and out of pique he won't let the Hatter move the clocks past six. Reading this scene with Hamilton's ideas in mind, the members of the Hatter's tea party represent three terms of a quaternion, in which the all-important fourth term, time, is missing. Without Time, we are told, the characters are stuck at the tea table, constantly moving round to find clean cups and saucers.

Their movement around the table is reminiscent of Hamilton's early attempts to calculate motion, which was limited to rotatations in a plane before he added time to the mix. Even when Alice joins the party, she can't stop the Hatter, the Hare and the Dormouse shuffling round the table, because she's not an extra-spatial unit like Time. The Hatter's nonsensical riddle in this scene - "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" - may more specifically target the theory of pure time. In the realm of pure time, Hamilton claimed, cause and effect are no longer linked, and the madness of the Hatter's unanswerable question may reflect this. Alice's ensuing attempt to solve the riddle pokes fun at another aspect of quaternions that Dodgson would have found absurd: their multiplication is non-commutative. Alice's answers are equally non-commutative. When the Hare tells her to "say what she means", she replies that she does, "at least I mean what I say - that's the same thing". "Not the same thing a bit!" says the Hatter.

"Why, you might just as well say that 'I see what I eat' is the same thing as 'I eat what I see'!" When the scene ends, the Hatter and the Hare are trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot. This could be their route to freedom. If they could only lose him, they could exist independently, as a complex number with two terms. Still mad, according to Dodgson, but free from an endless rotation around the table. The sting in the tale Even if you accept Bayley's suggestions - and obviously I am inclined to do so, at least overall, otherwise I would not have written about her work - you might think the mathematical inspirations for some of the scenes we read in Alice are nothing more than an interesting footnote. Think again, says Bayley. Without those mathematical undercurrents, it is highly unlikely that Dodgson's book(s) would have achieved lasting, international stardom. His original nursery tale, written for the ten-year-old Alice Liddell, she says, would have been unlikely to attract much attention. Dodgson was most witty when he was poking fun at something, Bayley explains, and then only when the subject matter got him truly riled.

He wrote two uproariously funny pamphlets, fashioned in the style of mathematical proofs, which ridiculed changes at the University of Oxford. In comparison, other stories he wrote besides the Alice books were dull and moralistic. "I would venture that without Dodgson's fierce satire aimed at his colleagues," Bayley claims, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland would never have become famous, and Lewis Carroll would not be remembered as the unrivalled master of nonsense fiction." Put that in your hookah and smoke it. Devlin's Angle is updated at the beginning of each month. Find more columns here . Alice in Wonderland - Chapter 7 CHAPTER 7 A Mad Tea-Party There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head. 'Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,' thought Alice; 'only, as it's asleep, I suppose it doesn't mind.' The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: 'No room!

No room!' they cried out when they saw Alice coming. 'There's plenty of room!' said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table. 'Have some wine,' the March Hare said in an encouraging tone. Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. 'I don't see any wine,' she remarked. 'There isn't any,' said the March Hare. 'Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it,' said Alice angrily. 'It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being invited,' said the March Hare. 'I didn't know it was your table,' said Alice; 'it's laid for a great many more than three.' 'Your hair wants cutting,' said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech. 'You should learn not to make personal remarks,' Alice said with some severity; 'it's very rude.' The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, 'Why is a raven like a writing-desk?' 'Come, we shall have some fun now!' thought Alice.

'I'm glad they've begun asking riddles.I believe I can guess that,' she added aloud. 'Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?' said the March Hare. 'Exactly so,' said Alice. 'Then you should say what you mean,' the March Hare went on. 'I do,' Alice hastily replied; 'at leastat least I mean what I saythat's the same thing, you know.' 'Not the same thing a bit!' said the Hatter.

'You might just as well say that "I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat what I see"!' 'You might just as well say,' added the March Hare, 'that "I like what I get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!' 'You might just as well say,' added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, 'that "I breathe when I sleep" is the same thing as "I sleep when I breathe"!' 'It is the same thing with you,' said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn't much. The Hatter was the first to break the silence. 'What day of the month is it?' he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, and holding it to his ear. Alice considered a little, and then said 'The fourth.' 'Two days wrong!' sighed the Hatter.

'I told you butter wouldn't suit the works!' he added looking angrily at the March Hare. 'It was the best butter,' the March Hare meekly replied. 'Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,' the Hatter grumbled: 'you shouldn't have put it in with the bread-knife.' The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily: then he dipped it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again: but he could think of nothing better to say than his first remark, 'It was the best butter, you know.' Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity. 'What a funny watch!' she remarked. 'It tells the day of the month, and doesn't tell what o'clock it is!' 'Why should it?' muttered the Hatter. 'Does your watch tell you what year it is?' 'Of course not,' Alice replied very readily: 'but that's because it stays the same year for such a long time together.' 'Which is just the case with mine,' said the Hatter. Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter's remark seemed to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English.

'I don't quite understand you,' she said, as politely as she could. 'The Dormouse is asleep again,' said the Hatter, and he poured a little hot tea upon its nose. The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without opening its eyes, 'Of course, of course; just what I was going to remark myself.' 'Have you guessed the riddle yet?' the Hatter said, turning to Alice again. 'No, I give it up,' Alice replied: 'what's the answer?' 'I haven't the slightest idea,' said the Hatter. 'Nor I,' said the March Hare. Alice sighed wearily. 'I think you might do something better with the time,' she said, 'than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.' 'If you knew Time as well as I do,' said the Hatter, 'you wouldn't talk about wasting it. It's him.' 'I don't know what you mean,' said Alice. 'Of course you don't!' the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously.

'I dare say you never even spoke to Time!' 'Perhaps not,' Alice cautiously replied: 'but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.' 'Ah! that accounts for it,' said the Hatter. 'He won't stand beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he'd do almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o'clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons: you'd only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!' ('I only wish it was,' the March Hare said to itself in a whisper.) 'That would be grand, certainly,' said Alice thoughtfully: 'but then--I shouldn't be hungry for it, you know.' 'Not at first, perhaps,' said the Hatter: 'but you could keep it to half-past one as long as you liked.' 'Is that the way you manage?' Alice asked. The Hatter shook his head mournfully. 'Not I!' he replied.

'We quarrelled last Marchjust before he went mad, you know' (pointing with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) 'it was at the great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing "Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you're at!" You know the song, perhaps?' 'I've heard something like it,' said Alice. 'It goes on, you know,' the Hatter continued, 'in this way: "Up above the world you fly, Like a tea-tray in the sky. Twinkle, twinkle"' Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep 'Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle' and went on so long that they had to pinch it to make it stop. 'Well, I'd hardly finished the first verse,' said the Hatter, 'when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, "He's murdering the time! Off with his head!"' 'How dreadfully savage!' exclaimed Alice. 'And ever since that,' the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, 'he won't do a thing I ask!

It's always six o'clock now.' A bright idea came into Alice's head. 'Is that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?' she asked. 'Yes, that's it,' said the Hatter with a sigh: 'it's always tea-time, and we've no time to wash the things between whiles.' 'Then you keep moving round, I suppose?' said Alice. 'Exactly so,' said the Hatter: 'as the things get used up.' 'But what happens when you come to the beginning again?' Alice ventured to ask. 'Suppose we change the subject,' the March Hare interrupted, yawning. 'I'm getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story.' 'I'm afraid I don't know one,' said Alice, rather alarmed at the proposal. 'Then the Dormouse shall!' they both cried. 'Wake up, Dormouse!' And they pinched it on both sides at once. The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. 'I wasn't asleep,' he said in a hoarse, feeble voice: 'I heard every word you fellows were saying.' 'Tell us a story!' said the March Hare. 'Yes, please do!' pleaded Alice.

'And be quick about it,' added the Hatter, 'or you'll be asleep again before it's done.' 'Once upon a time there were three little sisters,' the Dormouse began in a great hurry; 'and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well' 'What did they live on?' said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking. 'They lived on treacle,' said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two. 'They couldn't have done that, you know,' Alice gently remarked; 'they'd have been ill.' 'So they were,' said the Dormouse; 'very ill.' Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways of living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went on: 'But why did they live at the bottom of a well?' 'Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

'I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, 'so I can't take more.' 'You mean you can't take less,' said the Hatter: 'it's very easy to take more than nothing.' 'Nobody asked your opinion,' said Alice. 'Who's making personal remarks now?' the Hatter asked triumphantly. Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself to some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and repeated her question. 'Why did they live at the bottom of a well?' The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and then said, 'It was a treacle-well.' 'There's no such thing!' Alice was beginning very angrily, but the Hatter and the March Hare went 'Sh! sh!' and the Dormouse sulkily remarked, 'If you can't be civil, you'd better finish the story for yourself.' 'No, please go on!' Alice said very humbly; 'I won't interrupt again. I dare say there may be one.' 'One, indeed!' said the Dormouse indignantly. However, he consented to go on.

'And so these three little sistersthey were learning to draw, you know' 'What did they draw?' said Alice, quite forgetting her promise. 'Treacle,' said the Dormouse, without considering at all this time. 'I want a clean cup,' interrupted the Hatter: 'let's all move one place on.' He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him: the March Hare moved into the Dormouse's place, and Alice rather unwillingly took the place of the March Hare. The Hatter was the only one who got any advantage from the change: and Alice was a good deal worse off than before, as the March Hare had just upset the milk-jug into his plate. Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very cautiously: 'But I don't understand. Where did they draw the treacle from?' 'You can draw water out of a water-well,' said the Hatter; 'so I should think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-welleh, stupid?' 'But they were in the well,' Alice said to the Dormouse, not choosing to notice this last remark.

'Of course they were', said the Dormouse; 'well in.' This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the Dormouse go on for some time without interrupting it. 'They were learning to draw,' the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; 'and they drew all manner of thingseverything that begins with an M' 'Why with an M?' said Alice. 'Why not?' said the March Hare. Alice was silent. The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a little shriek, and went on: 'that begins with an M, such as mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness you know you say things are "much of a muchness"did you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness?' 'Really, now you ask me,' said Alice, very much confused, 'I don't think' 'Then you shouldn't talk,' said the Hatter.

This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her: the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot. 'At any rate I'll never go there again!' said Alice as she picked her way through the wood. 'It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!' Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees had a door leading right into it. 'That's very curious!' she thought. 'But everything's curious today. I think I may as well go in at once.' And in she went. Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close to the little glass table. 'Now, I'll manage better this time,' she said to herself, and began by taking the little golden key, and unlocking the door that led into the garden.

Then she went to work nibbling at the mushroom (she had kept a piece of it in her pocket) till she was about a foot high: then she walked down the little passage: and thenshe found herself at last in the beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds and the cool fountains. The Dormouse | Alice in Wonderland Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia The Dormouse is a character in "A Mad Tea-Party", Chapter VII from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. History Edit The Dormouse sat between the March Hare and the Hatter. They were using him, while he slept, as a cushion when Alice arrives at the start of the chapter. The Dormouse is always falling asleep during the scene, waking up every so often, for example to say: He also tells a story about three young girls who live in a treacle well, live on treacle, and draw pictures of things beginning with M, such as mousetraps, memory and muchness. The March Hare and the Hatter put the Dormouse's head in a teapot. Illustration by John Tenniel.

He later appears, equally sleepy, at the Knave of Hearts' trial and voices resentment at Alice for growing, and his last interaction with any character is his being "suppressed" (amongst other things) by the Queen for shouting out that tarts are made of treacle. Other Appearances Edit The Dormouse appears in the new Alice in Wonderland movie named Mallymkun. It appears as a she rather than a he. 'Mally' has a secret love for the Mad Hatter (which may be the reason why she gives Alice such a sassy attitude). In fact, the Hatter gave her the weapon she uses, a pin. In the Frabjous Day battle she throws her pin into the eye of the Jubjub Bird. She was voiced by Barbara Windsor. In addition, there is a Chain based off of the Dormouse in the anime Pandora Hearts. It is in a legal contract with Vincent Nightray, and takes the appearance of a large mouse with a wind up key in its side, and a large chain like tail that winds around its contractor. In addition it causes Vincent to fall asleep if he lets his guard down.

In the otome game "Clover no Kuni no Alice", he appears as Pierce Villiers, a human form of the Dormouse and one of the characters who fall in love with Alice. He has a fondness for cheese and is quite cowardly. Takashi "Mori" Morinozuka plays the Dormouse in Ouran High School Host Club In CLAMP's Miyuki-chan in Wonderland, the Dormouse is portrayed by a blond long-haired young woman, who, despite not having a single line (she just giggles), has quite a obscene scene when she sneaks into Miyuki's skirt, causing her to flee. In American McGee's Alice The Dormouse, referred to as "Dormy", appears as a victim of the Mad Hatter's cruel cybernetic experiments alongside the March Hare. They are placed near a machine that converts demented children into the Hatter's clockwork automaton henchmen. He is shown to still be drowsy, as a result of the Hatter drugging him. An artistic representation of the clockwork Dormouse appears in the credits upon completion of the game. In Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland game, she attacks using her pin-like sword.

She has no ability, but has more combat skills than the other characters. She can sweep her enemies and make them fall off. Then she can use her Finishing Move by jump and pierce her enemies down. Memorable Quotes Edit Twinkle twinkle, little bat / How I wonder what you're at? / Up above the world you fly / Like a tea tray in the sky. -Alice in Wonderland (1951) You might just as well say that "I breathe when I sleep" is the same thing as "I sleep when I breathe"! -Alice's Adventures in Wonderland "No it's not!, McTwisp brought us the wrong Alice!"- Alice in Wonderland(2010) "Run......Alice!"- Alice in Wonderland (2010) "Alice!" from Alice in Wonderland (2010 trailer) 2010 film Edit Unlike the sleepy character in the book, this Dormouse is an action-oriented swordswoman similar to the character Reepicheep from the Chronicles of Narnia. She is voiced by Barbara Windsor . She does not believe that Alice is the Alice that they are looking for and stabs her toe with her sword to prove she is not dreaming.

When Alice is attacked by the beast the Dormouse stabs it's eye out. She appears in several pivotal scenes throughout the movie, including the tea party with The March Hare and The Mad Hatter , where she is seen waking up in a tea pot (a nod to her novel counterpart). According to the official Alice in Wonderland guide, Mallymkun is secretly in love with the Hatter. Disney Version Edit The character also appears in Disney's Alice in Wonderland. Like in the book, he is sleepy and lazy, but unlike in the book, he sings Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat instead of his story about mouse sisters to entertain the tea-party participants. He panics at the mention of the word "cat", much like The Mouse from the book and needs to have jam spread on his nose in order to calm down. The Disney version of the character also appears in House of Mouseand Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse. Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland version Edit In Tim Burton's 2010 Alice in Wonderland film, the Dormouse is named Mallymkun.

Unlike the sleepy character in the book, this Dormouse is an action-oriented swordswoman similar to the character Reepicheep from The Chronicles of Narnia. She is voiced by Barbara Windsor.She is seen the first time with the group Alice first meets in Wonderland, and saving Alice from the Bandersnatch by plucking out its eye. She is seen a second time at the March Hare's tea party having tea with the March Hare and the Hatter. She is seen a third time rescuing the Hatter from the Red Queen. She is seen a fourth time at the end, fighting the Red Queen's forces. In other media Edit The Dormouse is played by Arte Johnson in the 1985 television film Alice in Wonderland. When he initially shows lack of movement at the mad tea party, Alice mistakes him for a stuffed animal. The Dormouse then quickly objects to Alice's statements. The Dormouse appears in the live-action TV series Adventures in Wonderland, and is voiced by John Lovelady. He isn't sleepy, and is often seen popping out of his tea pot or other things. In one episode, he is the announcer of a sprinting event.

The Dormouse appears in Dreamchild performed by Karen Prell and voiced by Julie Walters. Pandora Hearts in the anime and manga series Dormouse is a chain that puts people to sleep and Vincent Nightray is it's contractor. The Dormouse makes an appearance in American McGee's Alice, where he and the March Hare are held captive as the Mad Hatter's experiments. He is tied to a dissectiontable and continues to fall asleep from the Hatter's medicines. The Dormouse also appears in the 2011 game Alice: Madness Returns, where he captures a part of the Mad Hatter as revenge for the events in American McGee's. The Dormouse appears again in Alice: Madness Returns. This time, it is the Hatter who is the victim of the March Hare and the Dormouse. In the SyFy TV Miniseries Alice, the Dormouse is a sidekick of the Hatter. Mallymkun appears in the video game adaption of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland as a playable character. The Dormouse appears as a member of the Mad T Party band at Disneyland's California Adventure Park.

In the Mad T Party he is interpreted as a male rather than 2010 film's female Mallymkun, whom he is based on. He plays lead guitar and often scurries around with the March Hare on stage.[4] Gallery SparkNotes: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Chapter 7: A Mad Tea Party Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll Chapter 7: A Mad Tea Party → Chapter 6: Pig and Pepper Chapter 8: The Queen’s Croquet Ground Summary Alice approaches a large table set under the tree outside the March Hare’s house and comes across the Mad Hatter and the March Hare taking tea. They rest their elbows on a sleeping Dormouse who sits between them. They tell Alice that there is no room for her at the table, but Alice sits anyway. The March Hare offers Alice wine, but there is none. Alice tells the March Hare that his conduct is uncivil, to which he rejoins that it was uncivil of her to sit down without being invited.

The Mad Hatter enters the conversation, opining that Alice’s hair “wants cutting.” Alice admonishes his rudeness, but he ignores her scolding and responds with a riddle: “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” Alice attempts to answer the riddle, which begins a big argument about semantics. After their argument, the tea party sits in silence until the Mad Hatter asks the March Hare the time. When he discovers that the March Hare’s watch, which measures the day of the month, is broken, the Mad Hatter becomes angry. He blames the March Hare for getting crumbs on the watch when the March Hare was spreading butter on it. The March Hare sullenly dips the watch in his tea, dejectedly remarking that “It was the best butter.” Alice gives up on the riddle and becomes angry with the Mad Hatter when she discovers that he doesn’t know the answer either. She tells him he should not waste time asking riddles that have no answers.

The Mad Hatter calmly explains that Time is a “him,” not an “it.” He goes on to recount how Time has been upset ever since the Queen of Hearts said the Mad Hatter was “murdering time” while he performed a song badly. Since then, Time has stayed fixed at six o’clock, which means that they exist in perpetual tea-time. Bored with this line of conversation, the March Hare states that he would like to hear a story, so they wake up the Dormouse. The Dormouse tells a story about three sisters who live in a treacle-well, eating and drawing treacle. Confused by the story, Alice interjects with so many questions that the Dormouse becomes insulted. Alice continues to ask questions until the Mad Hatter insults her and she storms off in disgust. As she walks, she looks back at the Mad Hatter and the March Hare as they attempt to stuff the Dormouse into a teapot. In the wood, Alice encounters a tree with a door in it. She enters the door and finds herself back in the great hall.

Alice goes back to the table with the key and uses the mushroom to grow to a size that she can reach the key, then to shrink back to the size that she can fit through the door. She goes through the door and at last arrives at the passageway to the garden. Analysis When Alice discovers that Time is a person and not merely an abstract concept, she realizes that not only are social conventions inverted, but the very ordering principles of the universe are turned upside down. Not even time is reliable, as Alice learns that Time is not an abstract “it” but a specific “him.” An unruly, subjective personality replaces the indifferent mechanical precision associated with the concept of time. Time can punish those who have offended it, and Time has in fact punished the Mad Hatter by stopping still at six o’clock, trapping the Mad Hatter and March Hare in a perpetual teatime. The Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse must carry out an endless string of pointless conversations, which may reflect a child’s perception of what an actual English teatime was really like. Alice must adjust her own perceptions of time, since the Mad Hatter’s watch indicates that days are rushing by.

However, the party has not moved past the month of March, the month during which the March Hare goes mad. Though the tea party challenges Alice’s understanding of the fundamental concept of time, the Mad Hatter’s answerless riddle reaffirms Wonderland’s unusual sense of order. The riddle seems to have no answer and exists solely to perpetuate confusion and disorder. Some readers have suggested that the riddle does in fact have an answer: Edgar Allen Poe “wrote on” both the subject of a Raven and “wrote on” a physical writing desk. In Wonderland, chaos is the ruling principle, but a strange sense of order still exists. Though riddles need not have answers, language must retain some kind of logic. The Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse point out to Alice that saying what she means and meaning what she says are not the same thing. Alice has said that she cannot take “more” tea because she has not had any yet.

However, as the Mad Hatter points out, Alice can indeed take “more” tea even though she has not had any, since “it’s very easy to take more than nothing.” The language games at the tea party underscore the inconsistency of Wonderland, but also imply that the ordering principles that govern Alice’s world are just as arbitrary.

Question: In her "Adventures in Wonderland", where did Alice first meet the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse?
Answer: A tea party