Misconceptions about characters Although Tweedledum, Tweedledee, Humpty Dumpty and the Jabberwock are often thought to be characters in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, they actually only appear in the sequel, Through the Looking-Glass. They are, however, often included in film versions, which are usually simply called "Alice in Wonderland," causing the confusion. The Queen of Hearts is commonly mistaken for the Red Queen who appears in the story's sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, but shares none of her characteristics other than being a queen. The Queen of Hearts is part of the deck of card imagery which is present in the first book while the Red Queen is representative of a red chess piece as chess is the theme present in the sequel. Many adaptations have mixed the characters, causing much confusion. Character allusions The members of the boating party that first heard Carroll's tale all show up in Chapter 3 ("A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale") in one form or another. There is, of course, Alice Liddell herself, while Carroll, or Charles Dodgson, is caricatured as the Dodo. Carroll is known as the Dodo because Dodgson stuttered when he spoke, thus if he spoke his last name it would be Do-Do-Dodgson. The Duck refers to Canon Duckworth, the Lory to Lorina Liddell, and the Eaglet to Edith Liddell (the sisters of Alice). Bill the Lizard may be a play on the name of Benjamin Disraeli. One of Tenniel's illustrations in Through the Looking-Glass depicts the character referred to as the "Man in White Paper" (whom Alice meets as a fellow passenger riding on the train with her), as a caricature of Disraeli, wearing a paper hat. The illustrations of the Lion and the Unicorn also bear a striking resemblance to Tenniel's Punch illustrations of Gladstone and Disraeli. The Hatter is most likely a reference to Theophilus Carter, a furniture dealer known in Oxford for his unorthodox inventions. Tenniel apparently drew the Hatter to resemble Carter, on a suggestion of Carroll's. The Dormouse tells a story about three little sisters named Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie. These are the Liddell sisters: Elsie is L.C. (Lorina Charlotte), Tillie is Edith (her family nickname is Matilda), and Lacie is an anagram of Alice. The Mock Turtle speaks of a Drawling-master, "an old conger eel," that used to come once a week to teach "Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils." This is a reference to the art critic John Ruskin, who came once a week to the Liddell house to teach the children drawing, sketching, and painting in oils. (The children did, in fact, learn well; Alice Liddell, for one, produced a number of skilled watercolours.) The Mock Turtle also sings "Beautiful Soup." This is a parody of a song called "Star of the Evening, Beautiful Star," which was performed as a trio by Lorina, Alice and Edith Liddell for Lewis Carroll in the Liddell home during the same summer in which he first told the story of Alice's Adventures Under Ground.[11] Contents Poems and songs * "All in the golden afternoon..." —the prefatory verse, an original poem by Carroll that recalls the rowing expedition on which he first told the story of Alice's adventures underground * "How Doth the Little Crocodile" — a parody of Isaac Watts' nursery rhyme, "Against Idleness And Mischief" * "The Mouse's Tale" —an example of concrete poetry * "You Are Old, Father William" — a parody of Robert Southey's "The Old Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them" * The Duchess' lullaby, "Speak roughly to your little boy..." — a parody of David Bates' "Speak Gently" * "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat" — a parody of "Twinkle twinkle little star" * The Lobster Quadrille — a parody of Mary Botham Howitt's "The Spider and the Fly" * "'Tis the Voice of the Lobster" — a parody of "The Sluggard" * "Beautiful Soup" — a parody of James M. Sayles' "Star of the Evening, Beautiful Star" * "The Queen of Hearts..." — an actual nursery rhyme * "They told me you had been to her..." — the White Rabbit's evidence Tenniel's illustrations John Tenniel's illustrations of Alice do not portray the real Alice Liddell, who had dark hair and a short fringe. There is a persistent legend that Carroll sent Tenniel a photograph of Mary Hilton Babcock, another child-friend, but no evidence for this has yet come to light, and whether Tenniel actually used Babcock as his model is open to dispute. [edit] Famous lines and expressions The term "Wonderland," from the title, has entered the language and refers to a marvellous imaginary place, or else a real-world place that one perceives to have dream-like qualities. It challenges and takes on real-life matters. It, like much of the Alice work, is widely referred to in popular culture. Illustration of Alice with the White Rabbit by Arthur Rackham "Down the Rabbit-Hole," the Chapter 1 title, has become a popular term for going on an adventure into the unknown. In drug culture, "going down the rabbit hole" is a metaphor for taking hallucinogenic drugs, as Carroll's novel appears similar in form to a drug trip. In Chapter 6, the Cheshire Cat's disappearance prompts Alice to say one of her most memorable lines: "...a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!" In Chapter 7, the Hatter gives his famous riddle without an answer: "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" Although Carroll intended the riddle to have no solution, in a new preface to the 1896 edition of Alice, he proposes several answers: "Because it can produce a few notes, though… they are very flat; and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!" (Note the spelling of "never" as "nevar"—turning it into "raven" when inverted. This spelling, however, was "corrected" in later editions to "never" and Carroll's pun was lost.) Puzzle expert Sam Loyd offered the following solutions: * Because the notes for which they are noted are not noted for being musical notes * Poe wrote on both * They both have inky quills ("inkwells") * Bills and tales ("tails") are among their characteristics * Because they both stand on their legs, conceal their steels ("steals"), and ought to be made to shut up Many other answers are listed in The Annotated Alice. In Frank Beddor's novel Seeing Redd, the main antagonist, Queen Redd (a megalomaniac parody of the Queen of Hearts) meets Lewis Carroll and declares that the answer to the riddle is "Because I say so." Carroll is too terrified to contradict her. Arguably the most famous quote is used when the Queen of Hearts screams "Off with her head!" at Alice (and everyone else she feels slightly annoyed with). Possibly Carroll here was echoing a scene in Shakespeare's Richard III (III, iv, 76) where Richard demands the execution of Lord Hastings, crying "Off with his head!" When Alice is growing taller after eating the cake labelled "Eat me" she says, "curiouser and curiouser," a famous line that is still used today to describe an event with extraordinary wonder. The Cheshire Cat confirms to Alice "We're all mad here," a line that has been repeated for years as a result. Symbolism in the text References to mathematics Since Carroll was a mathematician at Christ Church, it has been suggested[12] that there are many references and mathematical concepts in both this story and also in Through the Looking-Glass; examples include: * In chapter 1, "Down the Rabbit-Hole," in the midst of shrinking, Alice waxes philosophic concerning what final size she will end up as, perhaps "going out altogether, like a candle."; this pondering reflects the concept of a limit. * In chapter 2, "The Pool of Tears," Alice tries to perform multiplication but produces some odd results: "Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is—oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate!" This explores the representation of numbers using different bases and positional numeral systems (4 x 5 = 12 in base 18 notation; 4 x 6 = 13 in base 21 notation. 4 x 7 could be 14 in base 24 notation, following the sequence). * In chapter 5, "Advice from a Caterpillar," the Pigeon asserts that little girls are some kind of serpent, for both little girls and serpents eat eggs. This general concept of abstraction occurs widely in many fields of science; an example in mathematics of employing this reasoning would be in the substitution of variables. * In chapter 7, "A Mad Tea-Party," the March Hare, the Mad Hatter, and the Dormouse give several examples in which the semantic value of a sentence A is not the same value of the converse of A (for example, "Why, you might just as well say that 'I see what I eat' is the same thing as 'I eat what I see'!"); in logic and mathematics, this is discussing an inverse relationship. * Also in chapter 7, Alice ponders what it means when the changing of seats around the circular table places them back at the beginning. This is an observation of addition on a ring of the integers modulo N. * The Cheshire cat fades until it disappears entirely, leaving only its wide grin, suspended in the air, leading Alice to marvel and note that she has seen a cat without a grin, but never a grin without a cat. Deep abstraction of concepts (non-Euclidean geometry, abstract algebra, the beginnings of mathematical logic...) was taking over mathematics at the time Dodgson was writing. Dodgson's delineation of the relationship between cat and grin can be taken to represent the very concept of mathematics and number itself. For example, instead of considering two or three apples, one may easily consider the concept of 'apple,' upon which the concepts of 'two' and 'three' may seem to depend. However, a far more sophisticated jump is to consider the concepts of 'two' and 'three' by themselves, just like a grin, originally seemingly dependent on the cat, separated conceptually from its physical object. References to the French language It has been suggested by several people, including Martin Gardner and Selwyn Goodacre,[12] that Dodgson had an interest in the French language, choosing to make references and puns about it in the story. It is most likely that these are references to French lessons which would have been a common feature of a Victorian middle-class girl's upbringing. For example, in the second chapter, Alice posits that the mouse may be French and chooses to speak the first sentence of her French lesson-book to it: "Où est ma chatte?" ("Where is my cat?"). In Henri Bué's French translation, Alice posits that the mouse may be Italian and speaks Italian to it. References to classical languages In the second chapter, Alice initially addresses the mouse as "O Mouse," based on her vague memory of the noun declensions in her brother's textbook: "A mouse (nominative)— of a mouse (genitive)— to a mouse (dative)— a mouse (accusative)— O mouse! (vocative)." This corresponds to the traditional order that was established by Byzantine grammarians (and is still in standard use, except in the United Kingdom and some countries in Western Europe) for the five cases of Classical Greek; because of the absence of the ablative case, which Greek does not have but is found in Latin, the reference is apparently not to the latter as some have supposed. Historical references In the eighth chapter, three cards are painting the roses on a rose tree red, because they had accidentally planted a white-rose tree which the Queen of Hearts hates. Red roses symbolised the English House of Lancaster, while white roses were the symbol for their rival House of York. Therefore, this scene may contain a hidden allusion to the Wars of the Roses.[13]