Complete Alice in Wonderland - L. Carroll [103]
“Seven and a Half, Exactly”: It is six months to the day after Alice’s seventh birthday, when she adventured in Wonderland.
“Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast”: This part of the conversation is interesting, because of Alice’s declaration that she can’t believe in impossible things. In other words, she sincerely believes in everything that is happening to her, in both Wonderland and Looking-Glass Land. It is this conviction that makes her the only young girl who is capable of exploring these realms of unreality and getting back out again. The White Queen, meanwhile, believes impossible things every day. And well she might, as the sovereign of a land filled with impossibilities! Impossibility is all she has ever known.
She Crossed the Little Brook: As we have seen twice before, whenever Alice jumps over a Looking-Glass Brook, some strange shift in perspective always occurs. The first time was when she vanished and appeared on the train; the second was when the train leaped and she vanished off of it again. Now, since the White Queen leapt first (and Alice followed), the transformation happens to the Queen, and Alice is carried along.
The Sheep: In entering Looking-Glass Land, Alice has probably fallen asleep in her favorite arm-chair, back in the Deanery’s drawing-room. Sheep (of the counted variety) have long been associated with pleasant dreams. Also, Alice goes on a journey up the river of dreams, which is certainly the River Isis near where she fell asleep (to the bleating of sheep again!) and fell into Wonderland. As in all the best dreams, Alice goes quietly along with the lovely insanity that is now enfolding her.
The Old Sheep Shop: This store, as illustrated, was an actual candy shop which Alice frequented while living in Oxford. These days, it remains as a souvenir shop selling Alice keepsakes and other mementoes. For those who wish to visit, it is located at 83 Saint Aldgate’s Street. Enjoy!
The Empty Shelves: Alice is experiencing the effects of a mirage, or a trick of light in the corner of the eye. Peripheral vision shows there is something there, but looking directly shows nothing at all. Carroll is also alluding to the untouchable, fog-like nature of desired things in beautiful dreams.
How Can She Knit With So Many?: The White Queen, as the Sheep, is casually showing her supreme mastery of the world of illusion and dream. Handing the knitting-needles to Alice turns them into oars, perhaps because Alice is “apprenticed” to the idea of dream-shifting and finds herself in one of her happiest places on earth: the River Isis, where Lewis Carroll first told her the dream-stories of Wonderland.
“Feather!”: A “feather” is a skilled type of oar stroke that gives greater control. The Sheep is showing Alice how to master the world of dream. When recollecting a river jaunt with Carroll down to Nuneham, Alice Liddell once commented (in part) as follows: “When we had learned enough to manage the oars, we were allowed to take our turn at them, while the two men watched and instructed us. I can remember what hard work it was rowing upstream from Nuneham, but this was nothing if we thought we were learning and getting on. It was a proud day when we could ‘feather our oars’ properly.”
Catching a Crab: A “crab” is a bad stroke of the oar, which causes the water to pull the oar down sloppily. In dream-parlance, this indicates Alice’s lack of control on the river of dreams, although she is learning to “feather” more as she goes.
The Scented Rushes: The rushes are Carroll’s symbol for those most beautiful dreams which cannot be attained. (We wonder if Carroll’s own scented rushes were dreams of a life spent with Alice Liddell.) As an odd parallel, the netherworld paradise of the ancient Egyptians was known as the Field of Rushes, a place of lovely, cool water and banks of scented plants, beyond which laid desires.
The Shop of Curiosities: Once Alice has proven that she can begin to master the river of dreams, the Sheep returns