Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass Alice Quotes

Alice

Quote 58

Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close to the little glass table. "Now, I'll manage better this time," she said to herself, and began by taking the little golden key, and unlocking the door that led into the garden. Then she set to work nibbling at the mushroom (she had kept a piece of it in her pocket) till she was about a foot high: then she walked down the little passage: and then – she found herself at last in the beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds and the cool fountains. (Wonderland 7.102)

Alice's escape from the hall into the garden is the result of a lot of trial and error, not to mention being in the right place, with the right things, at the right time. She's lucky enough to get a second chance at effecting her escape, and this time she's not going to squander it.

Alice

Quote 59

"You shan't be beheaded!" said Alice, and she put them into a large flower-pot that stood near. The three soldiers wandered about for a minute or two, looking for them, and then quietly marched off after the others. (Wonderland 8.27)

Sometimes confinement can be protective, as in this scene, where Alice saves three foolish soldiers-turned-gardeners from what seems to be certain execution by hiding them in a flowerpot. Maybe Alice's own feeling of being trapped as she grows larger (or perhaps older) is also unfair; perhaps the restrictions she feels are also for her own good.

Alice

Quote 60

"Here!" cried Alice, quite forgetting in the flurry of the moment how large she had grown in the last few minutes, and she jumped up in such a hurry that she tipped over the jury-box with the edge of her skirt, upsetting all the jurymen on to the heads of the crowd below, and there they lay sprawling about, reminding her very much of a globe of gold-fish she had accidentally upset the week before.

"Oh, I beg your pardon!" she exclaimed in a tone of great dismay, and began picking them up again as quickly as she could, for the accident of the gold-fish kept running in her head, and she had a vague sort of idea that they must be collected at once and put back into the jury-box, or they would die. (Wonderland 12.1-2)

Just as the goldfish have to stay in their bowl to live, people are so attached to their circumstances, customs, and forms that their entire lives seem threatened when the social order is momentarily broken – even if it's just in a wacky Wonderland way.