First Thought? Of Course I Ought! (Ch.3)

Summary: What quirky images/ thoughts pop up in my head as I dive into each chapter of The Annotated Alice? Let’s see how Alice deals with her first “Caucus Race” and her thoughts of the “Long Tale”. (Chapter 3)

(Note:  If you’re interested in these ideas, feel free to check out the previous posts on Ch. 1-2 under one of our categories found in the side bar,”First Thought? Of Course I Ought!”, too, if you want.)

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My first thoughts?

Before even reading this chapter the title already had me puzzleing of what will happen to Alice next. So, like any good student would do *wink*, I looked up “caucus” on www.dictionary.com. This is what I discovered.

Caucus:

–noun

1.	U.S. Politics. a. a meeting of party leaders to select candidates, elect convention delegates, etc.

Well going to my Disney resource, I still had no idea how a caucus race was going to be an event Alice would witness or even be in. If you have seen my Biography, then you would know one of my favorite parts in the Disney movie was the story of the Walrus and the oysters (clams). When I saw that there was going to be a “long tale” I was overly excited that it could be that story. Although I was disappointed when the chapter ended and my oyster story was not mentioned. Nevertheless, throughout this chapter there were many puns and “haha” moments that kept me interested and entertained.

I find it odd that Alice keeps referring to things in Wonderland as “queer”. I could understand if she just entered Wonderland, yet she keeps emphasizing the fact that everything is not what it seems. Although, for me, its just annoying. I can’t help wondering if Carroll is symbolizing the mouse and the other animals as people in the “real” world. I know from the annotations, it says the Mouse represents Miss Prickett the children’s governess, yet could the Mouse be more than that? This is how I see it:

Mouse Other animals

1. High Authority                        1. Subjects to the Mouse

2. Intelligent                              2. Not as Intelligent

3. Easily Offended                        3. Easy to Manipulate

As I look at this basic chart, I could easily say Mouse could represent the nobility and the other animals as peasants. I could also assume the Mouse could represent an adult or the “wise/experienced” one. It all just comes down to your opinion.

At this point, all of the animals are soaking wet, so their dilemma is how to get dry. The Dodo proposes to have a Caucus-race. Of course, a Caucus-race in Wonderland is totally different than in the “real” world. Thus, the animals, including Alice, ran around in a circle for half an hour until they were dry.

Smart huh?

To back up my theory of nobility vs. peasants, the annotations suggest the thimble that is taken away from Alice and then retuned to her could symbolize taxation on the lower class people. Perhaps even the comfits, hard sweetmeats, given to the animals as “prizes” could symbolize the increases of food grown/given to the poor during the Agricultural Revolution.

I believe it was also interesting that the animals could not taste these comfits and they almost choked on them. A coincidence? Is symbolism calling my name? I honestly do not know…

Any ideas?

As for the Tale or aka Tail poem, it really didn’t interest me that much. It felt like this was an add in, coming out as a “Hey! Guess what else I can do other than create a wide known children’s story!”, so really didn’t concern me at all.

Stay tuned for “First thought? Of course I ought!” (Ch. 4)

Image one can be found here. Image two can be found here.

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