The Queen of Hearts
November 20, 2009This is a blog over the Queen of Hearts’ fiery temper.
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As we can see from the Queen in the first chapter that we meet her in the garden we see that she blows a fit over anything that displeases her. Alice narrowly avoids execution because the King said that she was just a child. Then the queen orders the beheading of the unfortunate gardeners because of their mistake in planting a white rose tree instead of a red rose tree. The rose tree problem just just goes to show how the Queen gets angry about small matters. Then during the croquet game she orders executions left and right over players missing or going before their turns, or if they beat the Queen. Then there was the Cheshire Cat, and without a backward glance, the Queen gave the order to execute because she was asked to do it. Then during the court session, the Queen was silent for a long time until the Dourmouse spoke and blew up.
Until that one moment, she let the King make the threats. Then one of the oddest things occurred to me. It came to me that this angry, execution happy Queen is the Queen of Hearts. The word hearts makes us think of love and happiness, but the Queen is just the opposite.
Why would Carroll have made the queens attitude to be the opposite of the card type that he choose for her? Prehaps he was trying to show how a woman would sometimes be if placed in a place of power.
But other than making her personality be the opposite of her playing card and the Wonderland that the Queen holds domain over, what other reasons could the Queens playing card being that of a heart be hidden in the story? In the margins Carroll wrote that the Queen was supposed to be a blind and aimless fury, which describes the Queen perfectly. Could the Queen be simliy a funny part for children with an angry Queen, or did the Queen have a darker purpose, or both?
Christian Long
Katherine H.
Melissa H
Rivu D.
Alex E.
Sylvia A.
Nice one, I didn’t catch that. I think it’s Carroll doing what he did best, making puns and silly jokes that turn out to be valid lessons and morals. The Queen of Hearts being very heartless is like when you call the big guy on the football team Little John, or the small kid, Big Guy. It’s all for a bit of laughter. I’m sure although I didn’t see the connection between the queen’s personality and her suit little kids reading the book did and they found it quite a bit of fun.
I dont believe Carroll made the queen of hearts the queen of hearts to show how a woman would react with power. I believe that the queen of hearts was just a coquensidence. Like you said when you hear hear you think of love or romance. but I believe Carroll was forced to make the queen Queen of hearts becasue in many popular card games hearts are very powerful cards.
“Why would Carroll have made the queens attitude to be the opposite of the card type that he choose for her?”
This is a very interesting question you proposed. The Queen does act the opposite than one would think she would act. Of course in Wonderland it seems that everything is opposite no matter what the situation is. Carroll could be trying to show how a woman would sometimes be if placed in a place of power. Although Queen Elizabeth had this type of power and used it wisely.
Who knows?
Perhaps the Queen is a sister figure to Alice as the Duchess could be the mother figure of Alice. I think you would find my “The “Hero’s Journey” of Alice (part 2)” rather interesting. You can check it out here http://aliceproject12.wordpress.com/category/the-heros-journey-of-alice/ if you want to.
I’m going to pick on these lines:”Why would Carroll have made the queens attitude to be the opposite of the card type that he choose for her? Prehaps he was trying to show how woman would sometimes be if placed in a place of power.”
I see what you are thinking here. Your argument that the Queen of Hearts isn’t exactly so hearty is very viable and sound. I have said before and will say many more times that I believe this entire story is a book filled with lessons to be learned. Of course, every story has a moral hidden in itself some where but this book has a great deal of things to be learned. In past encounters with loony characters, Alice has had to adapt herself quickly in order to avoid danger, regardless of what she knows/assumes about the character during first impression. The Queen’s scene is no different. “The Queen of Hearts” sounds so dainty and attractive. I believe this scenario is a lesson to be learned, in that people aren’t what one may think they are. Don’t judge books by their covers, ect. We’ve all heard it before. Your entire blog was very well written and I agreed with majority of your arguments.
Your statement above, however, I do not agree with. At first glance the statement appeared rather sexist but I then read on and found I was incorrect to judge. I found intentions behind what you are saying and I cleared the fog I had created. I don’t see the correlation you make between the name, the power and what “[Carroll was trying to show,”. Perhaps you can enlighten me though. I think that the royal family was given the suit of hearts so the young reader could learn irony by knowing that murder and hearts don’t very well coalesce.
Ha I never thought about her suit being a heart even though she is very…heartless. It would make sense that Carroll made her suit the opposite of character because that doesn’t make sense and we’re talking about Wonderland, where nothing makes sense. But then why did he make the gardeners all spades? The soldiers clubs? In the annotations on page 81 of Annotated Alice, it is pointed out that Carroll cleverly linked the character of the cards to the suit. So why didn’t he do the same with the Queen? I don’t know.
I believe that The Queen was meant to be seen as the opposite of her card, because that’s the kind of place wonderland is, a place where our rules don’t exist and things are different than that of the real world. The Heart which we see as loving and caring does not exist in the world of wonderland, it is the angry crazy lady that is The Queen. It also seems like the Queen does not have a darker purpose and is meant to serve as entertainment to children. An Angry lady screaming off with his or her head is somewhat comedic to children, because they know she’s not serious and no one actually gets killed. It could be possible that she has a darker purpose besides being a comedic figure for children, but I doubt it.