Which Way?

I just recently adopted a kitten, so I couldn’t resist writing something related to cats.

The Cheshire Cat is perhaps one of the most well known and loved characters in Wonderland. The Cheshire Cat is perhaps the character most fit to act as a guide for Alice, simply because he offers her helpful insight into the workings of Wonderland. That might be due to the fact that out of all the characters, he can relate to the world from which she came the most.

The Cheshire Cat says, “A dog’s not mad. You grant that?’ `I suppose so,’ replies Alice. “Well, then,’ the Cat went on, `you see, a dog growls when it’s angry, and wags its tail when it’s pleased. Now I growl when I’m pleased, and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad.”

His explanation of madness is very interesting indeed. This is wonderland where anything can be flipped inside out. It would not be weird for a cat to growl when pleased and wag its tail when angry. Is it not peculiar that the Cat thinks his behavior is unusual in a place where that kind of flipped behavior would be considered normal? Following that thought it is safe to assume that the Cheshire Cat can understand logical reasoning as Alice can. Successfully making him one of the few characters that can relate to Alice.

The advice he offers her can also be applied to a logical world, whereas most of the other characters offer rules that make no sense. For instance he states Alice will get somewhere if only she walks “long enough”. This piece of advice is true to the general ways of life. We never know where we are headed in life, but if we are persistent enough eventually we will get a result. The Cheshire Cat then points Alice in two directions, one to the Hatter, one to the March Hare. He goes on to state that whichever way she chooses will lead her to the same destination, madness. Therefore in Wonderland there is only one direction she can head towards, the madness connecting them all.
Lastly would like your opinion concerning an issue:

Which Cat Is Cuter?(poll)

View Full Size Image
Advertisement

Leave a comment

No comments yet.

Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

  • Welcome to the “Alice Project”

    What happens when a group of insightful 10th grade students explore Alice's journey into Wonderland?