Alice in Wonderland For the CSET

mouse’s printed story. The pun is playful, and Alice’s fascination with the animal’s tale makes for a charming moment: the charm of her wandering attention, the shape of the printed words, and the rhyme scheme mask some of the darkness of the mouse’s story. He is talking about being cornered by a dog and forced to go on trial. The dog (whose name is Fury) wanted to be prosecutor, judge, and jury; he also wanted to condemn the mouse to death. We never hear the end of the story, as the Mouse, realizing that Alice is paying less than total attention to the meaning of his words, runs off in a huff.

An example of foreshadowing is when Alice peers into the tiny door. She realizes that she cannot even fit her head through the opening, and even if she could, her head “would be of very little use without my shoulders”. She is referring, unknowingly, to her own decapitation. At the end of the book, the Queen of Hearts will try her best to separate Alice’s head from her shoulders.

There are many puns used throughout the story. An example of a pun is in the third chapter with the mouse and the word “dry”:

“They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the bank—the birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable. The first question of course was, how to get dry again: they had a consultation about this, and after a few minutes it seemed quite natural to Alice to find herself talking familiarly with them, as if she had known them all her life. Indeed, she had quite a long argument with the Lory, who at last turned sulky, and would only say, ‘I am older than you, and must know better’; and this Alice would not allow without knowing how old it was, and, as the Lory positively refused to tell its age, there was no more to be said. At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of authority among them, called out, ‘Sit down, all of you, and listen to me! I’ll soon make you dry enough!’ They all sat down at once, in a large ring, with the Mouse in the middle. Alice kept her eyes anxiously fixed on it, for she felt sure she would catch a bad cold if she did not get dry very soon. ‘Ahem!’ said the Mouse with an important air, ‘are you all ready? This is the driest thing I know. Silence all round, if you please! “William the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured by the pope, was soon submitted to by the English, who wanted