Complete Alice in Wonderland - L. Carroll [43]
Chapter III
“I Must Know Better,” “Hold Your Tongue”: These two lines are probably parodies of an episode in the novel Holiday House, where one Mrs. Crabtree says to the uppity young Master Harry, “Give me no more of your nonsense, Master Harry! I was in the world long before you were born, and must know best; so hold your tongue.”
A Most Serious Mouse: Unlike most of the creatures of Wonderland, the Mouse has an exceedingly low tolerance of nonsense. His self-respect and indignation arise from his education, which he is quick to lord over Alice and the others. We are tempted to draw direct parallels to one or more of Carroll’s Oxfordian associates, who admired Carroll’s success in writing “children’s stories,” but may have been quite unable to enjoy the fun in the stories themselves!
“The Driest Thing I Know”: The Mouse is quoting from A Short Course of History, by Havilland Le Mesurier Chepmell. Carroll’s mockery of boring lesson books (first Latin, then French, now English) continues merrily apace!
Edith the Eaglet: The Eaglet is a caricature of Alice’s younger sister, Edith. As we can see, the Eaglet does not suffer the pomposity of authority figures. She is more than willing to snub those who are putting on adult airs. In heraldry, the eagle stands for courage and action, a watchful bird who is quick to challenge.
“Speak English!”: Here we can tell quite a bit about how Edith Liddell may have reacted to Carroll’s too-fancy language when it came to storytelling!
A Caucus-Race: This incident is a parody of politics. In a political race, rivals run against one another for election. In a caucus, political allies gather together to discuss, negotiate and strategize. A caucus-race, then, is a political race in which allies bustle about and compete against one another for no real reason at all.
The Formatting of the Mouse’s Tale: Due to the limitations of the Kindle and adjustable text sizing, the tail-shaped formatting of the poem can unfortunately not be perfectly reproduced here. This change represents one of the few compromises I have been forced to make in creating the complete electronic Alice.
A Long and Sad Tale: In the original version, Mouse’s friends were squashed and killed by hungry animals. Carroll must have thought this version was too dark for public consumption, and so we have the Mouse’s tale here as a conflict between Mouse and an imperious dog Fury, with the threat of death but not the actual act. We will see that this poem’s mockery of the court system foreshadows the trial that serves as the climax to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and also the scene of the Barrister’s dream in The Hunting of the Snark.
The Mysterious Fury: Although it is not made clear in the poem, Fury was the name of a terrier owned by one of Carroll’s friends. The name is also appropriate when we consider the Erinyes, or furies, of Greek mythology. Those furies were demonic spirits of justice and divine retribution who haunted the dreaming ghosts of the netherworld. When we consider the underground nature of Wonderland itself, the allusion is quite a clever one!
She Had Got to the Fifth Bend: Alice is visualizing the Mouse’s poem in tail form, bending back and forth. The Mouse, of course, is simply furious because he realizes that Alice has been going off with her own daydreaming, and has forgotten (yet again!) to be sympathetic to his fears.
The Old Crabs: Later, when the Mock Turtle is regaling Alice with tales of the Underwater School, we will learn that this school has a classics master who is an old Crab as well: a caricature of the author of a famous Greek lexicon, Alice’s father Henry Liddell. the female old Crab is pedantic and chiding of her daughter, and may represent Alice’s society-climbing mother, Mrs. Lorina Liddell. Carroll may be taking jabs at those stuffy parents who sometimes forbade him from taking the Liddell sisters boating on the River Isis!
Chapter IV
“As Sure as Ferrets Are Ferrets”: The Rabbit here is hinting at the hunting instinct