Chapter 12: Alice’s Evidence
Summary:
Despite her growth, Alice stands up and urges that jurors should be changed, so the King orders so. She is asked about what she knows and replies that she knows nothing. Then, the King announces that anyone who is one mile high should leave the court and Alice is so, but she refuses to oblige him. The White Rabbit offers another piece of evidence which is a letter from the knave. The King considers the letter as a guilt sign because it is not in Knave’s handwriting and does not carry a signature. However, Alice protests and says that they must read the verses in the letter first. The White Rabbit reads the verses and Alice and the King analyze the lines until they find out that the tart is returned. Then, an argument happens between the Queen and Alice regarding the verdict, so the Queen orders to execute Alice who is giant and not scared of them. She fights the cards and suddenly wakes up and sees her sister in front of her. It was a dream that she tells her sister about at the end.
Analysis:
In this chapter, Alice becomes independent and she can say “no” to the orders that are asked by the strange creature in the wonderland. What makes her say no is not that she belongs to humans and the others don`t belong to them but because the orders, especially the King`s orders, are weird and arbitrary that don`t have meanings if they are done. One of these arbitrary orders is when the king says that anyone who is more than one mile-high should leave the court; although, at that time they are discussing who steals the tarts and there is no significance behind obeying this order which makes Alice refuses to do so. The reader can notice that how Alice struggles from the beginning to understand the wonderland and the strange events that happen in it but this chapter and the previous one reveal to Alice that the wonderland depends on illogic and arbitrariness; that is why her brain couldn`t understand many events. All of that events are a dream and once Alice wakes up, she tells her sister about it. Her sister sleeps and dreams of all that Alice says but her dream focuses on nostalgia for childhood while Alice`s dream focuses on difficulties that a child might face when she moves from childhood to adolescence.
