The Caucus-Race

In chapter three, “A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale”, that there was a Caucus-Race that the Dodo suggested.

Could the Caucus-Race be a simple image of how repetitive children are?

First, the animals ruin the mouse’s story about the Normans coming to England, and thus they decide to play a game. This is common for children to lose interest in a lesson or when working and want to go off and play a game. The need to run around around in a circle at random is a common action for kids to play. The animals are now all tired, and so want to know who won.

How is a child expected to know who won?

So therefore, all the animals win, but like all children, they want prizes. One of them says that Alice should give out the prizes, and so they all put pressure on Alice until she gives all of them prizes. This is how all children think, that they should receive prizes from others, but that they should not be the ones to hand out the prizes from there own pockets. Another why of how children think is the need for everyone should have prizes, while if there was a true winner, they would think that only they should get a prize, because they worked for it. While this is fair for all the children, the child will then typically think that is how the world works, giving them a real shock when they get into a high level competition.  Then Afterwards, the animals all gather up and listen to the mouse’s story. This is the children all relaxing and listening to another’s story. Then everything breaks apart and the children go to where ever they want to go, although the creatures go away because Alice talked about how Dinah is so good at killing animals and birds.