The books > some questions, observations etc-aiw

[downtherabbithole]

Hello fine people!
So I wrote a storey inspired by wonderland and it's got me to thinking about some things; I apologise if they have already been addressed in the forum and I haven't bothered looking all the way back-don't be too mad at me
1) how come Pat and Bill seem to be the only ones with names? everything else is just what they are ,like dormouse and dodo etc.
2)as the rabbit mistakes alice for his serving girl mary anne , that must mean she is human (or he has very poor eyesight), do we think that she along with the non-speaking dog, are from our world?
3) alice falls down a rabbit hole which leads onto the hall of doors, which you might logically assume to be the rabbits home, but he has his own house doesn't he? how come he doesn't live down that hole that they fall into?
4)as she falls DOWN a hole and it was alice's adventures underground, how is it a world that has daylight? it doesn't strike me as being an under ground world...
thank you for any replies I may get

[The Queen of Hearts]

1. My thought is that they're referred to by proper names because it's the White Rabbit calling his servants. As far as the others go their names are always preceded by "the" (ie. the Mock Turtle, the Dormouse, etc..), so they may have names, but we're just seeing it from the narrator's perspective not those who live in Wonderland.

2. Rabbits don't see very well right in front of them, they're far sighted.

3. Storage space? Transportation hub? Just because you have a hall of doors doesn't mean it has to be part of a house.

4. There's a thread that talks about the Antipathies that kind of relates to this: viewtopic.php?t=1465

All in all though, you have to remember that the story is a dream, which means not everything is or needs to make sense.

[downtherabbithole]

Hello. Thanks for your reply
Yeah I know, ordinarily I would just take it as a dream (and then she dreams up the looking glass stuff? wish my dreams were that kick ass!) but writing a wonderland inspired fic has made me look into it too much lol.
Your answer to the name thing never occurred to me so thanks.
Soo it's not wonderland it's aussie land? that is just weird. Don't a lot of people say if you dig a deep hole you will dig to china? yep, right under the noses of the country that banned it, talking animals are plotting to take over.

[Treacle]

Pat and Bill are stock stage characters, Pat being Irish, and Bill the comic working class Everyman who gets bossed around and ever less respect to the end of the stories. I heard or read somewhere that housemaids were called "Mary Ann", so that makes her a stock character as well. In that sense even the characters with names are no more personal than the ones without. That includes Alice, of whom the reader is told little. We are told she is a little girl who has straight hair, wears black shoes, and is called "Alice".

I guess that's why people feel welcome to make the Alice books into plays and movies. Lewis Carroll encouraged Alice plays: some of the 1896 changes to the text of AAiW were made to accommodate an Alice play.

[Guest]

1) It's to my knowledge that Alice is never introduced really to the characters in Wonderland. She never once asked a name of them so its quite possible that we go off from what Alice knows them to be. The Cheshire cat directs Alice to the March Hare and the Hatter so that's what we know them to be. I think we only know they're names because we were in the right place to hear them said. It's very unlikely that the Duchess and Cook don't have names but as they didn't really talk to each other, but talk to Alice they're just referred to by their title.

2)He never comes out and says that Mary Ann is his maid Alice thinks that what he mistakes her for. For all we know he could just be calling Alice by what he thinks her name is.

3) It could just be a passage tunnel. Like rodents rabbits as far as i know, make complicated tunnel systems to trick predators.

4) Perhaps the passageway was only underground and maybe she ended up somewhere else on the world. Maybe New Zealand or Australia?

[Beautiful Soup]

1) There is evidence in the text that 'White Rabbit' is actually the White Rabbit's name

As she said this, she came upon a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright brass plate with the name `W. RABBIT’ engraved upon it.

From this, it might be reasonable to assume that the Dormouse's name is actually 'Dormouse', the Caterpillar's name is actually 'Caterpillar' etc...

[Jess]

1) There is evidence in the text that 'White Rabbit' is actually the White Rabbit's name

As she said this, she came upon a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright brass plate with the name `W. RABBIT’ engraved upon it.

His name could be William... Wilfred... *goes off to browse Behind The Name website*

Ahah! Wyatt Rabbit! Would fit with Hatta and Haigha.

Alternately, Warren. Just for pun.

[Beautiful Soup]

1) There is evidence in the text that 'White Rabbit' is actually the White Rabbit's name

As she said this, she came upon a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright brass plate with the name `W. RABBIT’ engraved upon it.

His name could be William... Wilfred... *goes off to browse Behind The Name website*

Ahah! Wyatt Rabbit! Would fit with Hatta and Haigha.

Alternately, Warren. Just for pun.

Wyatt and Warren are wonderful! But I maintain that the evidence points to White