Carroll’s Consistency

Alice continues to be introduced to peculiar fact after peculiar fact. Each one warping her former world a bit more. With Carroll being consistent in his illogical logic, everything Alice has known is at risk of being twisted, turned, molded into the ‘Wonderland normal’. Her size is at constant fluctuation, animals are in the position of humans, there are questions without answers and answers without questions.

Carroll’s consistency has made it easier for the reader to continue the story without a double take. It causes us as readers to be in Wonderland, it won’t be a surprise when pots, pans, and even noses are flying through the air right? Wrong; talking rabbits, body-morphing cakes and potions, and mock turtles are never going to be completely normal to people of any common intellect or sense. We are all ‘mad’ in the fashion that we each have our own peculiar personalities that shape ourselves. There isn’t really a definition for mad is there? Only that it is what we as individuals see as deranged, insane and/or unwise.

Carroll plays with the idea of what each individual reading the story will create through past experiences and previous knowledge, all with no restrictions in Wonderland. The fact that his ‘logic’ creates a pattern exemplifies Wonderland’s potential to become a reality not only for Alice, but the reader. Personally, as a child I was confused by the Disney movie, Alice in Wonderland, but now that I have read the book with more knowledge and experience I can pick up the subtle humor and lessons within the story. By noticing Carroll’s pattern of illogical logic, one can realize how easily someone can be tranced with repetition.

mad- adjective

1. mentally disturbed; deranged; insane; demented. 2. enraged; greatly provoked or irritated; angry. 3. (of animals) a. abnormally furious; ferocious b. affected with rabies; rabid 4. extremely foolish or unwise; imprudent; irrational 5. wildly excited or confused: frantic 6. overcome by desire, eagerness, enthusiasm, etc.; excessively or uncontrollably fond; infatuated 7. wildly gay or merry; enjoyably hilarious 8. (of wind, storms, etc.) furious in violence

–noun 9. an angry or ill-tempered period, mood, or spell: The last time he had a mad on, it lasted for days.

–verb (used with object) 10. Archaic. to make mad.

–verb (used without object) 11. Archaic. to be, become, or act mad.

—Idioms 13. mad as a hatter, completely insane.