Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Chapters 1 - 3
Chapter 1
Alice is sitting on a riverbank with her sister, who is reading an uninteresting book without any pictures or dialogue. While feeling sleepy, Alice sees a white rabbit in a waistcoat, checking its watch while passing her in a hurry. She follows the Rabbit down a long rabbit hole and begins to feel lost. She finds herself in a long hall lined with shelves that hold books, cupboards, and pictures.
Alice picks up a jar labeled 'Orange Marmalade' and, much to her disappointment, finds it empty. She begins to fall when she nears the end of the tunnel, and it feels like a never-ending fall. She believes that she may have reached the earth's center or, at least, Australia or New Zealand. Alice reaches the ground unhurt, gets up, and finds another passage through which the Rabbit is running. She follows the Rabbit and comes across a massive hall filled with locked doors. She finds a key on the top of the table and tries to open the locked doors with the help of it, but the key doesn't fit in any of them. Finally, the key fits into a tiny door behind a curtain, which opens into a lovely garden. Unfortunately, Alice is too large to fit into the door.
Alice searches the hall and finds a bottle labeled, 'DRINK ME.' She makes sure that the liquid isn't poisonous and drinks it. She immediately begins to shrink and ends up small enough for the tiny door but she forgets to carry the key from the table. Her shrunken size prevents her from reaching the key on the now massive table. She finds a little cake under the table labeled 'EAT ME.' She eats the whole cake, but it doesn't immediately affect her.
Chapter 2
Suddenly the cake takes effect, and it makes Alice grow exceptionally tall. She pities her feet and worries about how she'll care for them now that they have gone so far away from her. Frustratedly, Alice looks at the tiny door and starts crying. Her giant tears create a pool in the hall. Suddenly, she sees the Rabbit hurrying through the gallery, worrying about his tardiness for an audience with the waiting Duchess.
Alice calls out to the Rabbit for help. Startled, the Rabbit drops his things as he is running away. Alice worries about losing her identity because of her repeatedly changing size. She attempts to recite her school lessons, multiplication tables, and children's poems but finds herself making serious errors. She thinks of her peers and wonders if she has become any of them, but she fails to come up with an answer. Alice cries yet again when she realizes that she has forgotten a rhyme about the busy bee, and instead recites a poem about the lazy crocodile.
Alice begins to shrink when she uses the kid gloves and the fan that the Rabbit had dropped in his rush to get away. The moment she tosses the fan away, she stops to shrink. Alice becomes so small that she begins to drown in the salty pool of her tears, she regains her composure and spots a mouse swimming nearby. She talks to him in French and offends him by asking if he likes cats. Alice begins to list her cat Dinah's virtues, but the mouse tells her that his family hates cats as they are nasty and vulgar. Now, Alice tries to talk about dogs and offends him again by telling a story about a terrier that hunts rats. The mouse asks her to meet him at the shore so he can share his history of experiences with cats and dogs.
Chapter 3
The wet animals who had fallen into the pool gather and try to dry themselves off. So, the mouse gives a speech on William the Conqueror as he considers it a dry subject. The animals stop him when it fails to work. Alice inquires about a caucus race as suggested by the Dodo, who then marks a circular race track. On the count of three, everybody runs and leaves off whenever they please. Everybody becomes quite dry after half an hour, and the Dodo declares the race to be over. The winner is hard to determine, so Dodo announces winners, and Alice gives away the box of comfits as prizes to all the animals. There aren't enough comfits for everyone and so Alice is given a thimble as a prize which she solemnly accepts.
The mouse begins to tell his story with a character called Fury, who puts a mouse on trial. The mouse leaves in the middle because of Alice's inattentiveness and several interruptions. The animals and Alice try to call him back. Alice misses Dinah and believes that she could bring the mouse back. Lory, Magpie, and the other birds storm off when they hear the story about her bird and mouse-catching cat, Dinah. She misses her beloved pet terribly and wonders if she will ever get to see her again. She hears the voice of approaching footsteps and hopes that the mouse has come back to finish the story.
Analysis
Alice's Adventure in Wonderland begins with a short poem by Lewis Carroll, which explains the genesis of the book. He explains that the story of the book was created during a boat ride with three little girls who asked him for a story. The poem establishes the book as an oral tale for children and believes that the written version of the book belongs with the other mementos of childhood.
These first few chapters establish the key themes of the book and begin developing the unconventional character of Alice. Alice follows a white rabbit down a hole and enters a fantastical world filled with talking animals. During Alice’s fall into Wonderland, she attempts to recite her lessons and repeats nonsensical phrases. In this way, Lewis Carrol criticizes the rote learning structure of the victorian education system. Alice’s repetition and wordplay serve to deconstruct the notion of meaning through phrases like “Do bats eat cats?” and “Do cats eat bats?”
Alice’s character is demonstrated to be unorthodox through her repeated arguments with the animals, and the courage with which she interacts with the strange world of Wonderland. Children in victorian times were expected to be quiet and obedient children, but Alice contradicts nearly all the animals that she encounters. She refuses to accept the instructions of the animal adults and criticizes them when they fail to behave appropriately.
