|
DAVINCI - MONA LISA - PAGE 9
A novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics
lecturer, at University of Oxford, published on December 27,
1871. It was a sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
published in 1865.
Through the looking glass is what you see reflected in a mirror.
Most of story happens on a chessboard and conveys a feeling of
rational order to the reader. Alice's movement across the chessboard from pawn to queen symbolizes her
growth from child to adult and her quest to be Queen.
|
Through the Looking Glass |
Tower of Babel |
- And what Alice found there.
- She was looking for a sense
of belonging and expected a rule-based society like the
hierarchial Victorian society she lived in.
|
Looking-Glass House |
Snow kissing windowpane |
- Alice,
age 7, who was very well mannered, was sitting in parlor in the
'Looking-glass House.'
- It was a cold snowy winter night.
- There was a blazing fire in the fireplace and the
room was very cozy and warm.
- She could hear the
snowflakes tapping on the windowpanes and they sounded
like someone lightly kissing the glass.
I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again. (Lewis Carroll,
Alice) |
Snowdrop the kitten |
- Alice was playing with a white kitten she called
Snowdrop, and a black kitten named Kitty.
- The white kitten had its face washed by the old
black cat, Dinah, for the last quarter of an hour.
- Alice
was curled up in the corner of an easy chair talking to
herself and half asleep while the kitten played with a ball of
yarn she was trying to wind up.
One thing was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do with it: — it was the black kitten's fault entirely. (Lewis Carroll,
Alice) |
Mirror |
- There was a
beautiful mirror over the fireplace that caught Alice's eye.
- The mirror was so mysterious, she found herself
daydreaming about what the world would be like on the other side of
the mirror's reflection.
- Alice has an active imagination but seeks order in the world around her
because that's what she's used to.
- Despite her stiff
Victorian upbringing, her favorite sentence opener was
'let's pretend.'
Alice in the mirror |
-
Alice was playing a imaginary game of chess with Kitty.
- "Let's pretend that you're the Red Queen, Kitty! Do you know, I think if you sat up and folded your arms, you'd look exactly like her. Now do try, there's a dear!"
- When the kitten wouldn't cooperate, Alice began to fully
imagine a Looking-Glass House behind the mirror.
- Alice climbed up to the mantelpiece and
was looking through the mirror trying to envision the
drawing room in her imaginary house.
- She imagined the
mirror turned into gauze and then began to melt away, just like a bright silvery mist.
- She poked her finger
at the mirror and was surprised to find, she could step
through to the other side.
In another moment Alice was through the glass, and had jumped lightly down into the Looking-glass room... (Lewis Carroll) |
Roaring fireplace |
- The very first thing
Alice did was to look whether there was a fire in the fireplace.
- She was pleased to find that there was a roaring fire, blazing away as brightly as the one she had left behind.
So I shall be as warm here as I was in the old room," thought Alice: "warmer, in fact, because there'll be no one here to scold me away from the fire. Oh, what fun it'll be, when they see me through the glass in here, and can't get at me! (Lewis Carroll,
Alice) |
View of Looking-glass room |
-
Alice suddenly discovered she was in a reflected version of
the world, everything was reversed.
- The pictures on the
wall seemed more alive and the face of the clock grinned
at her.
- Alice is puzzled at the fantastic dream world that had
risen from her own imagination.
- She tries her best to
understand the unusual situations she encounters in
the bizarre Looking-glass world.
It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then. (Lewis Carroll,
Alice) |
White King |
- Alice always treats others with kindness and courtesy.
- She
noticed that the room was not very tidy, and there were
chessmen down on the hearth walking about, two and two!
- First she saw the Red King and Red Queen and she whispered
so she didn't frighten them.
- Next she encountered the White King,
who is the main character on the board, and the White Queen who had
both come to life and were sitting on the edge of a shovel,
although they were still small enough to hold.
White Queen tends to pawn Lily |
- There were two castle chessmen walking arm in arm, and Alice
didn't feel like they could hear her, or even knew she was
there, like she was invisible.
- White Queen's
daughter, baby pawn, Lily, started screaming herself into
a fit, and the Queen was out of breath after a rapid
journey through the air to reach the baby.
- Alice
picked up the White King and put him on the table and
dusted all the fireplace ashes off him.
- She was
startled by the look of horror on his face and realized he
couldn't see or hear her.
"The horror of that moment," the King went on, "I shall never never forget!"
"You will, though," the Queen said, "if you don't make a memorandum of it." (Lewis Carroll,
White King and Queen) |
Alice writing arm |
-
The White King picked up a huge memorandum book and pencil and
started writing with it.
- The pencil was so much
larger than him, Alice grabbed hold and began writing for him.
- This
left the poor King so frustrated, he thought he needed a
thinner pencil since he couldn't seem to manage it.
-
He told the White Queen that the
pencil was writing things he didn't intend to write.
- Alice
had written 'The White Knight is sliding down the poker. He
balances very badly.'
Hard to read |
- Alice found a book in the room named Jabberwocky
but the print was reversed so she had to hold it up to the
mirror to read it.
- "It seems very pretty," she said when she had finished it, "but it's rather hard to understand!"
- She knew it filled her head with ideas, but she didn't
understand them.
Alice looking at chessboard in a dream |
-
Alice found the nonsense verse as puzzling as the strange land she has
stepped into, which is later revealed as a dreamscape.
- The entire poem is filled with nonsensical language,
made-up words which Carroll called 'nonce' words that didn't
have any particular meaning.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe. (Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky) |
Weasel words |
-
Weasel words are words or statements that are intentionally ambiguous or misleading.
- It's a puffed up way of making something sound more
important than it is.
- 11 Weasel Words to Avoid in Conversation at All Costs.
Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!" (Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky) |
Jabberwock mouth moving |
- It was a nonsense poem written by
Lewis Carroll about the killing of a creature named the
Jabberwock.
- Jabberwocky is nonsense language which is
made up and doesn't mean anything; the same reason that English was
invented (confusing babel).
- Alice jumped up and knew she had to
visit the rest of the house before it was time to go back
through the mirror.
She was out of the room in a moment, and ran down stairs——or, at least, it wasn't exactly running, but a new invention for getting down stairs quickly and easily, as Alice said to herself. She just kept the tips of her fingers on the hand-rail, and floated gently down without even touching the stairs with her feet; then she floated on through the hall. (Lewis Carroll,
Alice) |
|
The Garden of Live Flowers |
Friendly flower garden |
- Alice left the room and what had been a cold winter
night before she stepped into the mirror, was instead, a
sunny spring garden.
- She decided if she walked to the
top of a hill, she could see things better, but the path
had tight curves like a corkscrew and she decided to try
another way.
- She kept trying and running into sharp
corners, and always ended up back at the house again.
- Alice
tried again and finally ran into a flower bed with a border of
daisies with a willow tree in the middle.
- All the flowers started talking
to her.
Tiger lily |
- Alice talked to the Tiger-lily and then she talked to
the white daisies and they turned pink when she told them
she'd pick them if they wouldn't talk to her.
- She asked all the flowers how they could talk to her, when
she'd been in so many gardens and none of the flowers
ever talked.
- The Tiger-lily told Alice to put her hand
down in the soil, and when she did, Alice discovered it was very hard.
- "In most gardens," the Tiger-lily said, "they make the beds too soft—so that the flowers are always asleep."
-
The flowery chatter continued on; "It's my opinion that you never think at all," the Rose said in a rather severe tone.
- "I never saw anybody that looked stupider," a Violet
said, so suddenly, that Alice quite jumped; for it hadn't
spoken before but she chose to ignore.
"O Tiger-lily," said Alice, addressing herself to one that was waving gracefully about in the wind, "I wish you could talk!"
"We can talk," said the Tiger-lily: "when there's anybody worth talking to." (Lewis Carroll,
Alice) |
Under the tree |
- The Rose told Alice there was another flower in the
garden that could move about like her, and Alice was
excited thinking there was another girl there.
- "Well, she has the same awkward shape as you," the Rose said, "but she's redder——and her petals are shorter, I think."
- Alice
discovered that it was the Red Queen and she thought "She's grown a good deal!"
- When Alice first found her in the ashes, she had been only three inches high
and now she was, half a head taller than Alice.
- The Red Queen shook her head, "You may call it nonsense if you like," she said, "but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!"
Speak in French when you can't think of the English for a thing—turn out your toes when you walk—and remember who you are. (Lewis
Carroll) |
Red Queen breathtaking speeds |
- When Alice met the Red
Queen, she heard her voice and looked over and she was
sitting under a tree.
- Alice was dismayed
because they both were in the same place and hadn't moved.
- The Red Queen demonstrated to Alice how she could run at
breathtaking speeds and she offered advice to Alice when she
noticed her running intensely, but not actually moving
forward.
Now, here, you see,” says the Red Queen, “it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that! (Lewis Carroll,
Red Queen) |
Geometric landscape |
- Alice is shown by the Red Queen how the entire landscape
is laid out in squares like a chessboard, a grid system.
- The Red
Queen offered to make Alice a queen if she could move all the way to the eighth rank
(row) in a chess match.
- Alice begins the game as one
of the White Queen's pawns in the second rank.
Alice in the train |
- Alice began her journey across the chessboard by
hopping aboard a train that skipped over the third row
directly into the fourth rank.
- She was acting on the rule that pawns can advance two spaces on their first move
so she took full advantage.
- Astral dreaming.
Well, that square belongs to Tweedledum and Tweedledee——the Fifth is mostly water——the Sixth belongs to Humpty Dumpty——But you make no remark?" (Lewis Carroll,
Red Queen) |
|
Looking-Glass Insects |
Spring tree in a forest |
- Alice was studying the geography and found herself in a forest where a Gnat taught her about the looking glass insects,
unique creatures that were part bug, part material object.
- She
thought she saw some regular bees, however, this was anything but a regular bee: in fact, it was an elephant
which led Alice to wonder just how big the flowers must be.
- "Something like cottages with the roofs taken off, and stalks put to them and what quantities of honey they must make!"
she thought.
"I think I'll go down the other way," she said after a pause: "and perhaps I may visit the elephants later on. Besides, I do so want to get into the Third Square!" (Lewis Carroll,
Alice) |
Alice riding the train |
-
So with this excuse she ran down the hill and jumped over the first of the six little brooks.
- Still riding the train, the Guard put his head in the window
and asked for tickets and in a moments time, all the chessmen,
who were human-sized, held out their tickets.
- "Now then!
Show your ticket, child!" the Guard went on, looking angrily
at Alice; everyone on the train started to grumble at her.
-
"I'm afraid I haven't got one," Alice said in a frightened tone: "there wasn't a ticket-office where I came from."
- The Guard told her not to make excuses and the chorus of
voices from all the riders on the train continued on.
Alice thought to herself, "Then there's no use in speaking." The voices didn't join in this time, as she hadn't spoken, but, to her great surprise, they all thought in chorus (I hope you understand what thinking in chorus means——for I must confess that I don't), "Better say nothing at all. Language is worth a thousand pounds a word!" (Lewis Carroll,
Alice) |
Guard looking at Alice |
- All this time the Guard was looking at her, first through a telescope, then through a microscope, and then through an opera-glass.
- At last he said, "You're travelling the wrong way," and shut up the window and went away.
- A gentleman sitting next to Alice, who was dressed in white
paper, said she was so young a child, but at least she should
know which way she's going, even if she didn't know her own
name.
- A Goat, that was sitting next to the gentleman in white, shut his eyes and said in a loud voice, "She ought to know her way to the ticket-office, even if she doesn't know her alphabet!"
- There was a Beetle sitting next the Goat (it was a very queer carriage-full of passengers altogether);
the gentleman advised her to take a return-ticket everytime
the train stops.
"Indeed I shan't!" Alice said rather impatiently. "I don't belong to this railway journey at all——I was in a wood just now——and I wish I could get back there!" (Lewis Carroll,
Alice) |
Hybrid fly |
-
The Horse, who had put his head out of the window, quietly drew it in and said, "It's only a brook we have to jump over."
- It certainly was a very large Gnat: "about the size of a chicken," Alice thought. Still, she couldn't feel nervous with it, after they had been talking together so long.
- The
Gnat asked what kind of insects did Alice 'rejoice
in' and she told him she didn't rejoice in any of them, because
she was afraid of insects, but she knew some of their names.
- Then
the Gnat wanted to know what was the reason for insects having
names if they didn't answer to them; so Alice told the Gnat
the names are useful to the people who name them.
- He
speculated what it would be like if there were no names,
others would have to say "come here."
- Alice saw a rocking horse fly
that lived on sap and sawdust, before it flew away.
All right," said the Gnat: "half way up that bush, you'll see a Rocking-horse-fly, if you look. It's made entirely of wood, and gets about by swinging itself from branch to branch." (Lewis Carroll,
Gnat) |
Mushroom |
- Alice received advice from a Caterpillar sitting on
a mushroom.
- He was going within himself checking out the
other side with an opium pipe.
- Looking glass means being or involving the opposite of what is normal or expected
and is a modifier noun.
- The Caterpillar was in serious
thought because normally he didn't get much time for
reflection.
Wood where things have no name |
- Alice saw a Butterfly, a Dragon-fly, and a
Bread-and-butter-fly
whose wings were thin slices of bread-and-butter, its body
was a crust, and its head was a lump of sugar.
- The Gnat
told her the fly lived on weak tea and cream and if it
couldn't find any, it died, which happened all the time.
- Continuing her journey, Alice crossed the "wood where things have no names"
which frightened her, but she decided to go on to the Eighth
Square.
- Once there, she forgot all nouns, including her own name,
a proper noun.
Frightened Fawn in the wood |
-
Just then a Fawn came wandering by: it looked at Alice with its large gentle eyes, but didn't seem at all frightened.
- "Here then! Here then!" Alice said, as she held out her hand and tried to stroke it; but it only started back a little, and then stood looking at her again.
- With the help of the Fawn who had also forgotten his identity,
Alice made it to the other side, where they both remembered everything,
including their names.
Alice thought, but nothing came of it. "Please, would you tell me what you call yourself?" she said timidly. "I think that might help a little." (Lewis Carroll,
Alice) |
Fawn quick escape |
- So they walked on together through the wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the soft neck of the Fawn, till they came out into another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, and shook itself free from Alice's arms.
- Realizing that he is a fawn, and she is a human, and that fawns are afraid of humans,
the fawn ran off.
"I'm a Fawn!" it cried out in a voice of delight, "and, dear me! you're a human child!" A sudden look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment it had darted away at full speed. (Lewis Carroll,
Fawn) |
|
Tweedledum and Tweedledee |
Tweedledum |
Tweedledee |
- Alice continued on and met the twin brothers Tweedledum and Tweedledee, who she
recognized from the nursery rhyme.
- There were
finger-posts on the way, pointing out Tweedledum and
Tweedledee's house, and she realized they lived together.
-
She wandered along, still hoping to get to the Eighth Square.
- They were standing under a tree, each with an arm round the
other's neck, and Alice knew which was which in a moment,
because one of them had 'DUM' embroidered on his collar, and
the other 'DEE.'
- "I suppose they've each got 'TWEEDLE' round at the back of the collar," she said to herself.
- The one with DUM told her if she thought they were waxworks,
then she should pay to see them.
- "Contrariwise," continued
DEE, "if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle;
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle. (Lewis Carroll,
Alice) |
King cabbage |
- Alice asked both Tweedledum and Tweedledee they way
out of the wood, but the little fat men just looked at each
other and grinned.
-
She did not like shaking hands with either of them first, for fear of hurting the other one's feelings; so, as the best way out of the difficulty, she took hold of both hands at once: the next moment they were dancing round in a ring.
- The two brothers began reciting The Walrus and the Carpenter.
"The time has come", the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing wax —
Of cabbages — and Kings —
And why the Sea is boiling hot —
And whether pigs have wings."
|
Beached Walrus |
- Alice told the twins that she liked the Walrus best,
because he was a little sorry for the oysters they were
eating, unlike the Carpenter who ate too many.
- Then
Tweedledum pointed out the Carpenter took more than she knew
by hiding them in his handkerchief.
- So Alice changed her
mind about the Walrus and said he was mean; but was puzzled by
Tweedledum's comment and thought both the Walrus and the
Carpenter were unpleasant characters.
"But he ate as many as he could get," said Tweedledum. (Lewis Carroll,
Tweedledum) |
Red King sleeping under a tree |
- After reciting the poem, the twins drew Alice's
attention to the Red King who was sleeping under a nearby tree
making loud roaring noises that scared Alice.
- It turned
out it was the sound of his snores.
- "Come and look at him!" the brothers cried, and they each took one of Alice's hands, and led her up to where the King was sleeping.
- He had a tall red night-cap on, with a tassel, and he was lying crumpled up into a sort of untidy heap, and snoring loud.
- "He's dreaming now," said Tweedledee; "and what do you think he's dreaming about?"
- The twins intrigue
Alice with idle philosophical
talk trying to convince her that she is nothing more than an imaginary figure in
the Red King's dreams.
- The twins told her she was in his
dreams so therefore wasn't here and she would go out with a
"bang!" like a candle if the King was to wake.
Imaginary figure in a dream |
- Alice
cried indignantly "I shouldn't, besides if I'm only a sort of
thing in his dream, what are you?"
- "Not you!" Tweedledee retorted contemptuously. "You'd be nowhere. Why, you're only a sort of thing in his dream!"
- "Ditto" said Tweedledum.
"Ditto, ditto!" cried Tweedledee.
- They shouted it so loud it made Alice
afraid they would wake up the King.
- "You won't make yourself a bit realler by crying," Tweedledee remarked: "there's nothing to cry about."
"I know they're talking nonsense," Alice thought to herself: "and it's foolish to cry about it." So she brushed away her tears, and went on as cheerfully as she could. (Lewis Carroll,
Alice) |
Yellow-eyed
in fright |
- Tweedledum spread a large umbrella over himself and his brother, and looked up into it.
- Alice thought the brothers were acting selfish so she
started to tell them goodnight.
- Tweedledee suddenly
sprang out from underneath his umbrella and grabbed Alice's
arm.
- "Do you see that?" he said, in a voice choking with passion, and his eyes grew large and yellow all in a moment, as he pointed with a trembling finger at a small white thing lying under the tree.
- Alice told him it was only an old broken rattle, not a
rattlesnake.
- That upset Tweedledum because it wasn't an
old rattle, he just bought it the day before.
- Tweedledee
was busy folding up the umbrella, with himself inside it.
But he couldn't quite succeed, and it ended in his rolling over, bundled up in the umbrella, with only his head out: and there he lay, opening and shutting his mouth and his large eyes——"looking more like a fish than anything else," Alice thought. (Lewis Carroll,
Alice) |
Enormous crow |
-
Alice said afterwards she had never seen such a fuss made about anything in all her life
and the way those two bustled about.
- She noticed the quantity of things they put on, and the trouble they gave her in tying strings and fastening buttons.
- "Really they'll be more like bundles of old clothes than anything else, by the time they're ready!" she said to herself.
- The twin brothers begin dressing for battle, only to be frightened away by an enormous crow,
which is sonething the nursery rhyme about them
predicted.
- Alice hid in the wood and stopped under a large tree. "It can never get at me here," she thought.
"You know," he added very gravely, "it's one of the most serious things that can possibly happen to one in a battle — to get one's head cut off."
(Lewis Carroll,
Tweedledum) |
|
Wool and Water |
White Queen in her shawl |
- Alice caught a wool shawl that belonged to the
White Queen, who is absent-minded but
somehow seems to remember future events before they even
occur.
- Alice helped her put her shawl back on.
- The White Queen only looked at her in a helpless frightened sort of way, and kept repeating something in a whisper to herself that sounded like "Bread-and-butter, bread-and-butter."
- Alice knew if any conversation were to take place, she would
need to direct it.
- She smiled and said, "If your Majesty will only tell me the right way to begin, I'll do it as well as I can."
- The Queen was having trouble dressing herself so Alice
helped her pin her shawl on straight.
White Queen
jam |
- "I'm sure I'll take you with pleasure!" the White Queen said. "Twopence a week, and jam every other day."
- Alice laughed and told her she didn't want her to hire her
and she didn't care for jam.
- "It must come sometimes to "jam to-day,"' Alice objected.
-
"No, it can't," said the Queen. "It's jam every other day: to-day isn't any other day, you know."
"You couldn't have it if you did want it," the Queen said. "The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday — but never jam to-day." (Lewis Carroll,
Alice) |
Living life backwards |
- The White Queen told Alice she remembered things
that happened the week after next.
- For instance, she went
on and told Alice about the King's Messenger who was in prison
being punished, and his trial didn't even start until next
week.
- A brooch on her shawl came undone and pricked her
finger which drew blood so she started screaming.
- Alice told her she was terribly confused and the White Queen
told that was the effect of living backwards.
- Alice said
her mind only worked one way and she never remembered things
before they happened.
"It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards," the Queen remarked. (Lewis Carroll,
White Queen) |
White Queen wringing hand |
-
By this time it was getting light. "The crow must have flown away, I think," said Alice: "I'm so glad it's gone. I thought it was the night coming on."
- Oh, don't go on like that!" cried the poor Queen, wringing her hands in despair. "Consider what a great girl you are. Consider what a long way you've come to-day. Consider what o'clock it is. Consider anything, only don't cry!"
- Alice could not help laughing at this, even though was
crying.
- She asked the White Queen if considering things
kept you from crying, and the Queen told her that's the way its
done.
- "I can't believe that!" said Alice.
"nobody can do two things at once, you know."
"I'm just one hundred and one, five months and a day." (Lewis Carroll,
White Queen) |
White Queen shawl |
-
"Can't you?" the Queen said in a pitying tone. "Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes."
- Alice laughed and told her there's no use trying,
because she couldn't believe impossible things.
-
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
- The brooch came undone, and there goes the shawl again.
- Alice said "I hope your finger is better now?" and the Queen
said 'Oh, much better" and her voice raised to a squeak.
Sheep |
- She looked at the Queen, who seemed to have suddenly wrapped herself up in wool.
- They both advance to the chessboard's fifth rank by crossing over a brook together, but
in a moment's time, the Queen transformed into a talking Sheep
with spectacles in a small shop.
-
"What is it you want to buy?" the Sheep said at last, looking up for a moment from her knitting.
- "You may look in front of you, and on both sides, if you like," said the Sheep; "but you can't look all round you——unless you've got eyes at the back of your head."
"Things flow about so here!" she said at last in a plaintive tone, after she had spent a minute or so in vainly pursuing a large bright thing, that looked sometimes like a doll and sometimes like a work-box, and was always in the shelf next above the one she was looking at. (Lewis Carroll,
Alice) |
Feather waves |
- The Sheep was knitting with 14 pairs of needles at a
time.
-
"How can she knit with so many?" the puzzled child thought to herself. "She gets more and more like a porcupine every minute!"
- Alice took a pair of needles and suddenly they turned into
oars.
- "Feather! Feather!" the Sheep cried again, taking more needles.
- Frustrated, Alice struggled to handle the oars of
the small rowboat that was gliding betwen the banks,
while at the same time, the Sheep was annoying her by shouting about "crabs and feathers."
- They hadn't gone much farther before the blade of one of the oars
stuck fast in the water and wouldn't come out again.
- It swept her straight off the seat, and down among the heap
of rushes, however, she wasn't a bit hurt.
- "Are there many crabs here?" said Alice;
"Crabs, and all sorts of things," said the Sheep: "plenty of choice, which one
do you want to buy?"
Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? (Lewis Carroll,
Alice) |
Sheep in her dark shop |
- Alice found herself back in the little dark shop and
she bought an egg instead, but it was cheaper to buy two,
except
she had to eat both, so Alice only bought one.
- The Sheep took her money and put it in a box
but told Alice she had to get the egg out of the shelve
herself because she never put things into peoples hands.
- And so saying, she went off to the other end of the shop, and set the egg upright on a shelf.
"The egg seems to get further away the more I walk towards it. Let me see, is this a chair? Why, it's got branches, I declare! How very odd to find trees growing here! And actually here's a little brook! Well, this is the very queerest shop I ever saw!" (Lewis Carroll,
Alice) |
|
Humpty Dumpty |
Fell off the wall |
- However, the egg only got larger and larger, and
more and more human: when she had come within a few yards of
it, she saw that it had eyes and a nose and mouth; and when
she had come close to it, she saw clearly that it was Humpty
Dumpty.
- This happened after she crossed another brook into the sixth rank,
and he
was celebrating his unbirthday.
- Humpty was wearing a
beautiful cravat that the White King gave to him for his
unbirthday and Alice admired it but thought it was a belt.
- Humpty Dumpty was sitting with his legs crossed, like a Turk, on the top of a
very narrow high wall.
- "I said you looked like an egg, Sir," Alice gently explained. "And some eggs are very pretty, you know," she added, hoping to turn her remark into a sort of compliment.
"Some people," said Humpty Dumpty, looking away
from her as usual, "have no more sense than a baby!"
(Lewis Carroll, Humpty Dumpty) |
Humpty Dumpty falls |
- Alice didn't know what to think so she stood and
quietly repeated the Humpty Dumpty poem to herself.
-
"Don't stand chattering to yourself like that," Humpty Dumpty said, looking at her for the first time, "but tell me your name and your business."
- Alice told him her name
and he let her know it was a stupid name and asked her "What
does it mean?"
- So Alice asked him if a name must mean
something, and Humpty Dumpty told her yes, "my name means the shape I am, and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost."
- Alice let him know that one can't help getting older and
Humpty told her "One can't, perhaps," said Humpty Dumpty, "But two can. With proper assistance, you might have left off at seven."
- Alice told Humpty Question that the question is, whether you can make
words mean so many different things and Humpty Dumpty told her "the question is, which is to be master, that's all."
"When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less." (Lewis Carroll,
Humpty Dumpty) |
Humpty Dumpty broken |
- Humpty Dumpty provided his own translation of
the strange terms in "Jabberwocky" and in the process, he
introduced Alice to the concept of portmanteau words.
- "Why do you sit out here all alone?" said Alice, not
wishing to begin an argument and told him he would be safer
sitting on the ground.
- Humpty told her that even if he
did fall off the wall, the king promised to send him all the
King's men and horses.
- He didn't know how Alice knew this
and asked if she was listening at doors and she told him it
was in a book.
- "Ah, well! They may write such things in a book," Humpty Dumpty said in a calmer tone. "That's what you call a History of England."
- Humpty Dumpty recited all his poems and told Alice,
"Goodbye."
- "Good-bye, till we meet again!" she
said as cheerfully as she could but he was very argumentative
and told her she looked like every other human so he would
never recognize her again.
- Soon after, he fell
off the wall and shook the entire forest.
"What tremendously easy riddles you ask!" Humpty Dumpty growled out. "Of course I don't think so! Why, if ever I did fall off——which there's no chance of——but if I did——' Here he pursed up his lips, and looked so solemn and grand that Alice could hardly help laughing. (Lewis Carroll,
Humpty Dumpty) |
King's men |
- "All the king's horses and all the king's men" came
to Humpty Dumpty's assistance.
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall Humpty Dumpty had a great fall All the king's horses and all the king's men Couldn't put Humpty together again. (Lewis Carroll) |
|
The Lion and the Unicorn |
White King with the Lion and Unicorn |
-
The next moment soldiers came running through the wood, at first in twos and threes, then ten or twenty together, and at last in such crowds that they seemed to fill the whole forest.
- Alice got behind a tree, for fear of being run over, and watched them go by.
- They were strange little soldiers and kept tripping over
themselves and ended up in a big heap.
- Then came the horses
and because they had four feet, these managed rather better than the foot-soldiers: but even they stumbled now and then; and it seemed to be a regular rule that, whenever a horse stumbled, the rider fell off instantly.
- The
King's men were accompanied by the White King
himself, along with the Lion and the Unicorn, who proceeded to act out a nursery rhyme by fighting with each other.
-
English as a lingua franca (ELF).
- The excited King wanted
to know if Alice had met any of the soldiers.
- "Yes, I did," said Alice: "several thousand, I should think."
March Hare (Haigha) |
- The March Hare (Haigha) and Hatter (Hatta) appeared
on the chessboard using the identity of "Anglo-Saxon
messengers."
- White King mentioned that his
Anglo-Saxon attitudes were only evident when the Hare was
happy.
- A
hare with straw on his head; a common way to depict madness in Victorian times.
- Alice said "I beg your pardon" and the Hare told her it
wasn't polite to beg.
- "Would you—be good enough," Alice panted out, after running a little further, "to stop a minute—just to get—one's breath again?"
"You alarm me!" said the King. "I feel faint — Give me a ham sandwich!""I'm good enough," the King said, 'only I'm not strong enough. You see, a minute goes by so fearfully quick. You might as well try to stop a Bandersnatch!"
(Lewis Carroll,
White King) |
CERN Alice |
- White King turned around abruptly and spotted
Alice and asked in disgust
"What—is—this?"
- Haigha stepped up and introduced
Alice; "This is a child!"
- Coming in front of Alice to introduce her, and spreading out both his hands towards her in an Anglo-Saxon attitude. "We only found it to-day. It's as large as life, and twice as natural!"
- Down the Rabbit Hole at the World's Largest Particle Collider.
- Archangel Gabriel; one of the holy angels, who is over Paradise and the serpents and the Cherubim.
- "Why, the Lion and the Unicorn, of course," said the King;
"Fighting for the crown?" so Alice repeated the Lion and the Unicorn poem.
The lion and the unicorn
Were fighting for the crown.
The lion beat the unicorn
All about the town.
Some gave them white bread,
And some gave them brown;
Some gave them plum-cake,
And drummed them out of town. (Anonymous)
|
Salty Unicorn |
-
Alice had no more breath for talking, so they trotted on in silence, till they came in sight of a great crowd, in the middle of which the Lion and Unicorn were fighting.
- They were in such a cloud of dust, that at first Alice could not make out which was which: but she soon managed to distinguish the Unicorn by his horn.
- "I always thought they were fabulous monsters!" said the Unicorn. "Is it alive?"
"It can talk," said Haigha, solemnly.
- The Unicorn looked dreamily at Alice, and said "Talk, child."
Alice could not help her lips curling up into a smile as she began: "Do you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too! I never saw one alive before!"
"Well, now that we have seen each other," said the Unicorn, "if you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you. Is that a bargain?"
(Lewis Carroll,
Alice and the Unicorn) |
Hatter (Hatta) |
- "Look, look!" Alice cried, pointing eagerly. "There's the White Queen running across the country! She came flying out of the wood over yonder——How fast those Queens can run!"
- The Hatter was in trouble with the law once again;
just like he was in the story of Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland.
- He was, however, not necessarily guilty, as the White Queen explained that subjects were often punished before they commit a crime, rather than after, and sometimes they did not even commit one at all.
- "Were you happy in prison, dear child?" said Haigha and
Hatta looked round once more, and this time a tear or two trickled down his cheek: but not a word would he say.
Watcher |
- Hatter was abused by the watchers who charged him for
victimless crimes, and then made him empty out his pockets so
they could steal from him.
- Once they got him on their
'list' they all snickered because they found him such an easy
target and they poked at him often.
Alice had just time to see the Lion and the Unicorn rise to their feet, with angry looks at being interrupted in their feast, before she dropped to her knees, and put her hands over her ears, vainly trying to shut out the dreadful uproar.
"If that doesn't 'drum them out of town,'" she thought to herself, "nothing ever will!" (Lewis Carroll,
Alice) |
Monster cake |
- "Come, fetch out the plum-cake, old man!" the Unicorn went on, turning from her to the King. "None of your brown bread for me!"
- Haigha took a large cake out of the bag, and gave it to Alice to hold, while he got out a dish and carving-knife.
- The Lion looked at Alice wearily. "Are you animal——or vegetable——or mineral?" he said, yawning at every other word.
- "It's a fabulous monster!" the Unicorn cried out, before Alice could reply.
- "What a time the Monster is, cutting up that cake!"
- Alice seated herself on the bank of a little brook, with the great dish on her knees;
she was sawing away diligently with the knife.
- By then,
she was was used to being called "the Monster."
Alice
told the Lion it was very provoking and told him "I've cut
several slices already, but they always join on again!"
-
"I say, this isn't fair!" cried the Unicorn, as Alice sat with the knife in her hand, very much puzzled how to begin. "The Monster has given the Lion twice as much as me!"
"You don't know how to manage Looking-glass cakes," the Unicorn remarked. "Hand it round first, and cut it afterwards." (Lewis Carroll,
Unicorn) |
Missing child |
- Drumming up business for the police state by turning
all your baby boomer children into automatic criminals for
their entire childhood and causing their parents to be
neurotic.
- Then you find out the same creeps running the
ads, are the same creeps who hauled the 'drugs' in and passed
them out to children.
- Then they 'fixed' the problem for
the neurotic parents by arresting their children and banning
an herb.
- Which they then made billions of dollars off of.
"Parents, do you know where your children are?" (Public
'service' announcement for parents on American television from the late 1960s through the late 1980s.)
|
White Pawn |
- Once leaving the Lion and Unicorn to their fight, Alice reached the seventh
row by crossing another brook into the forested region of the Red Knight, who wanted to capture the "white pawn"
(Alice).
- At this moment her thoughts were interrupted by a loud shouting of "Ahoy! Ahoy! Check!" and
the Red Knight, dressed in crimson armor, came galloping down upon her, brandishing a great club.
- Just as he reached her, the horse stopped suddenly: "You're my prisoner!" the Knight cried, as he tumbled off his horse.
|
It's My Own Invention |
White Knight fell off his horse
in the brook |
- Thankfully, the White Knight came to her rescue.
- Escorting her through the forest towards the final brook crossing, the
White Knight recited a poem that he wrote.
-- He kept
felling off his horse.
"I'll tell thee everything I can;
There's little to relate.
I saw an aged aged man,
A-sitting on a gate.
'Who are you, aged man?'
I said.
'And how is it you live?'
And his answer trickled through my head
Like water through a sieve.
(Lewis Carroll, White Knight) |
Sunlight dazzled
|
- Years later, Alice was able to recall his mild blue eyes and
kindly smile.
- The setting sun gleaming through his hair,
and shining on his armor and on in horse in a blaze of light
that quite dazzled her.
- She could hear melancholy music
playing in her half-dream.
- Suddenly Alice heard the sharp
voice of the Red Queen who said "speak when you're spoken
to."
"But if everybody obeyed that rule," said Alice, who was always ready for a little argument, "and if you only spoke when you were spoken to, and the other person always waited for you to begin, you see nobody would ever say anything, so that—"
(Lewis Carroll, Red Queen) |
Crispy Red Queen |
- It's too late to correct it," said the Red Queen: "when you've once said a thing, that fixes it, and you must take the consequences."
- The Red Queen knew she was shy so she introduced Alice
to a leg of mutton and once introduced, the mutton stood up in
his dish and made a little bow to Alice, and she returned the
bow.
- Alice didn't know whether she should feel amused or
scared by the mutton.
Mutton or
Pudding dish |
- "What impertinence!" said the Pudding. "I wonder how you'd like it, if I were to cut a slice out of you, you creature!"
- Alice didn't say anything she was so in shock by Pudding's
suety voice, she just gasped.
"Make a remark," said the Red Queen: "It's ridiculous to leave all conversation to the pudding!"
(Lewis Carroll, Red Queen) |
|
Queen Alice |
Alice crowned
confused |
- Alice bid farewell to the White Knight, and stepped across the last brook,
where she was automatically crowned queen, with the crown materializing
abruptly on her head.
White Queen |
- Alice soon found herself in the company of both the White
Queen and Red Queen, who confused Alice by using word play to
stop her attempts at logical discussion.
- Both invited one another to a party to be hosted by Alice; which Alice herself had no prior knowledge.
Party confetti |
- Next, Alice arrived at her own party and seated
herself.
|
Shaking |
Shake it harder |
- The party quickly turned very chaotic and Alice grabbed
the Red Queen, because she believed she was responsible for
all the day's nonsense, and began shaking her.
The Red Queen's hypothesis is a hypothesis in evolutionary biology proposed in 1973, that species must constantly adapt, evolve, and proliferate in order to survive while pitted against ever-evolving opposing species. (Wikipedia) |
|
Waking |
Alice in her armchair |
- Alice awakened from her dream in her armchair to
find herself holding Kitty, who she decided must have been the Red Queen all along,
and that Snowdrop was the White Queen.
- Alice had once made the remark
about kittens that, whatever you say to them, they always purr.
"If they would only purr for "yes" and mew for "no," or any rule of that sort" she had said, "so that one could keep up a conversation! But how can you talk with a person if they always say the same thing?" (Lewis Carroll, Alice) |
|
Which Dreamed It? |
Kali Fornia Dreaming |
- She then
remembered the speculation of the Tweedle brothers, that everything may have been a dream of the Red King, and that Alice might herself be no more than a figment of his imagination.
- Where things are not as they should be.
Ever drifting down the stream —
Lingering in the golden gleam —
Life, what is it but a dream?
(Lewis Carroll, Alice) |
Moral of the myth!
- Virtual reality (alternate universe is something
Carroll wrote about).
- Lion and the Unicorn and the nonsensical power
games where King Henry is Humpty Dumpty.
- Play on words, especially in English where so
many words have several meanings and can be nouns,
verbs or different parts of speech; or words that sound the same as another word,
but have a totally different meaning and spelling.
- Words taken from the perspective of what your
mind sees (waves that look like feathers) instead of
what your eyes see.
- Life is a riddle and everything connects.
- The biggest lesson for Alice is to look at life
as something freeflowing instead of in her rigid and
Victorian point of view, just like in the story where
everything turns into an irrational dream that could
be an analogy of moving through life from the 3D to
5D, raising frequency. Unexpected things happen.
|
Mona crone
|
Mona mother |
Mona naturallook |
Signed by Leonardo DaVinci |
|
|
