Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 259Justice in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Although Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Won-
derland satirically yet comically critiques logic and
societal institutions such as education throughout
its entirety, the nature of justice is harshly evaluated
in the book’s final chapters. In the concluding seg-
ment, Alice attends the trial of the Knave of Hearts,
who is accused of stealing the Queen of Heart’s
tarts. In keeping with the lopsided logic and the
inherent absurdity of Wonderland, Carroll fashions
a tongue-twister–like parchment scroll pronounce-
ment, which is recited by the White Rabbit at the
outset of the trial:
The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,
All on a summer day:
The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts
And took them quite away!This brief description of the trial is evidence of the
mockery of justice and the penal system that is to
follow in the last two chapters of the book.
The witnesses and attendees at the trial include
many of the characters that Alice encountered ear-
lier in the book, including the Mad Hatter, the Dor-
mouse, the March Hare, and the Duchess’s cook,
to name a few. The first witness is the Mad Hatter.
In his testimony, which he apparently cannot give
without having a cup of tea and buttered bread—
after all, “it’s always teatime” in Wonderland—the
Mad Hatter cannot get his dates right. After being
informed that if he did not remember, he would be
executed, the Hatter is finally excused to go finish
his tea. During this scene, it is not only the fact that
the Mad Hatter has food and drink in the court
that ridicules the sanctity of justice, it is also because
throughout his testimony, several other members of
the court audience chime in when the Mad Hatter is
unable to remember his dates precisely. The King of
Hearts, who serves as both judge and all-too-willing
would-be executioner, does nothing to control the
chaos in the court. In fact, the king, despite his posi-
tion of lofty power, has to be told the procedures
he should be following by the White Rabbit. With
this turn of events, Carroll seems to be criticizing
the notion that many officials held in high standing
are often just figureheads who do not really know
anything about the requirements and dignity that
are expected of that position and are often just gifted
with that status because of birth, nepotism, and the
other arbitrary practices.
The next witness after the Mad Hatter is the
Duchess’s cook, who disappears after admitting that
the tarts are made with pepper. Meanwhile, Alice,
who has been growing once again—this time with-
out the aid of any drink or cake—disrupts the court
with her expanding size. Spying her physical growth,
the King of Hearts invents a new rule on the spot,
that “All persons more than a mile high [must] leave
the court.” Alice stands up to the king and informs
him both that she is not a mile high and that this
rule was just invented because of the circumstances,
illustrating her mental growth as well. Furthermore,
as the White Rabbit introduces the next piece of
evidence, Alice once again demonstrates how the
king’s logic is faulty.
The king wants to condemn the Knave of Hearts
for not signing his name to a set of verses that
the king claims is evidence that he stole the tarts.
Alice, however, contends that as no one can explain
the meaning between the lines of the verse, as she
herself cannot see “an atom of meaning in it,” then
there is no way that the knave could be guilty of
the crime of which he is accused. This episode also
suggests that if the knave cannot be found guilty
of stealing the tarts, the court will try to find him
guilty of something else, lest the king and queen’s
reputation be damaged. Yet Alice once again shows
how she has grown; she proudly points out that the
set of verse ends with “they all returned from him to
you,” and the allegedly stolen tarts have been right
there on the table all along. Despite Alice showing
the jury that the knave is innocent, the Queen of
Hearts insists, “Sentence first—verdict afterwards.”
Exasperated with the “[s]tuff and nonsense” of
Wonderland, Alice logically contends that it is crazy
to sentence someone who should be deemed inno-
cent. Although the Queen of Hearts tells her to hold
her tongue, Alice, now grown to her full size, defies
the orders and lashes out in a fury. In the next scene,
Alice, back in the real world, wakes from a dream,
but her character nevertheless suggests that justice
is perhaps the most worthy cause for which to fight.
Trudi Van Dyke