Chasing a White Rabbit leads Alice into a fantastical world where logic dissolves. She fluctuates wildly in size, encounters rude and eccentric inhabitants, and survives a terrifying royal trial, ultimately realizing the absurdity of the fantasy is nothing more than a pack of cards.
Alice sat idly by the riverbank, growing drowsy and bored by her sister’s book, which lacked pictures or conversation. While considering the effort of making a daisy-chain, she was startled by a White Rabbit with pink eyes. The animal checked a pocket watch and exclaimed that it was late, sparking Alice’s burning curiosity. She chased the Rabbit across a field and watched it disappear down a large rabbit-hole. Without considering how she might escape, Alice plunged in after it.
Her fall was slow and dreamlike, giving her ample time to observe the well’s walls, which were lined with cupboards and bookshelves. She took down an empty jar of orange marmalade and returned it to a shelf. As she descended, she ruminated on her bravery regarding falling, recited geographical lessons, and wondered if she would pass through the earth to the other side. Eventually, she began to doze off, thinking of her cat Dinah and whether cats eat bats. Just as she started dreaming of asking Dinah this question, she landed softly on a heap of sticks and dry leaves.
Alice spotted the White Rabbit again and hurried down a passage, but lost it in a long, low hall lit by hanging lamps. She found herself surrounded by locked doors. On a glass table, she discovered a tiny golden key. Although it did not fit any of the main doors, it unlocked a small curtain behind which lay a little door about fifteen inches high. Through this door, she saw a beautiful garden of bright flowers and cool fountains, but she was too large to enter.
Alice returned to the table and found a bottle marked “DRINK ME.” After checking that it was not poison, she drank it and shrunk to ten inches high. However, she realized she had left the key on the table and was now too small to reach it. Overcome by frustration, she sat down and cried. Her tears were interrupted when she discovered a small cake marked “EAT ME” under the table. Hoping it would make her grow large enough to reach the key or small enough to creep under the door, she ate the cake.
Alice grew rapidly until she was more than nine feet tall, her neck stretching like a telescope while her feet seemed to vanish in the distance. She took the little golden key and rushed to the garden door, but she was now too large to pass through. Despairing, she sat down and cried gallons of tears until a large pool, four inches deep, surrounded her.
The White Rabbit returned, dressed splendidly and muttering anxiously about the Duchess. Alice desperately asked for help, but the Rabbit dropped his gloves and fan in fright and scurried away. Alice picked up the fan and gloves to cool herself, and as she fanned herself, she began to shrink. While shrinking, she questioned her identity, fearing she had turned into a different child named Mabel because she could no longer recite her multiplication tables or geography lessons correctly. She realized the fan was causing her to shrink and dropped it just in time to avoid vanishing completely.
Now tiny, she ran with all speed back to the little door, but alas, it was locked and the golden key lay on the glass table far out of reach. Things seemed worse than ever, for she had never been so small. Suddenly, she slipped and fell into the pool of tears she cried when she was large. As she swam about, she encountered a Mouse. She attempted to converse with it in English and French, but repeatedly offended the rodent by mentioning her cat Dinah and a dog that a farmer says kills rats. The Mouse swam away in anger, but Alice coaxed it back by promising not to speak of cats or dogs.
The pool became crowded with various birds and animals that had fallen in, including a Duck, a Dodo, a Lory, and an Eaglet. The Mouse suggested they swim to shore so he could explain his history. Alice led the way, and the strange party swam together through the water toward the bank.
The dripping wet party gathered on the bank, arguing uncomfortably about how to get dry. The Mouse, assuming a position of authority, began reciting a dry history of William the Conqueror, but the narrative was interrupted by the Lory and the Duck with questions and complaints. When Alice noted that she was still wet, the Dodo interrupted to propose a more energetic remedy: a Caucus-race.
The Dodo marked out a circular course where the participants started and stopped whenever they liked. After running for half an hour, they were dry, and the Dodo abruptly declared the race over. Unable to determine a winner, the Dodo solemnly decreed that everyone had won and demanded prizes. Alice produced a box of comfits from her pocket, distributing one to each animal. The Dodo then insisted Alice receive a prize as well, and she solemnly accepted her own thimble back from the bird.
Once the comfits were eaten, Alice asked the Mouse to tell his history, whispering to avoid mentioning cats and dogs. The Mouse began a tale about a Fury and a mouse, but Alice became distracted by the shape of the Mouse’s tail, confusing the story with the animal’s anatomy. She offered to undo a “knot” in the tale, which the Mouse found insulting. The rodent stormed off in a huff, while the Lory and a Crab offered unsolicited advice on temper.
Wishing her cat Dinah were present to fetch the Mouse, Alice described Dinah’s prowess at catching birds and mice to the Lory. This description caused immediate panic among the avian party. The birds hurriedly dispersed on various pretexts, leaving Alice alone and melancholy. She wept with loneliness until she heard pattering footsteps approaching in the distance.
Alice encountered the White Rabbit again, who was anxiously searching for his lost fan and gloves. Mistaking her for his housemaid, Mary Ann, the Rabbit ordered her to fetch the items immediately. Frightened but compliant, Alice ran to the Rabbit’s house and entered without knocking. She found the fan and gloves in a bedroom, but she also discovered an unlabelled bottle. Hoping to grow large again, she drank it, but the effect was far stronger than anticipated. Her head struck the ceiling, forcing her to kneel, and she continued to expand until she had to lie down with one elbow against the door and one foot up the chimney, completely filling the room.
Trapped and uncomfortable, Alice mused on the absurdity of her situation, wondering if she would ever grow up or learn lessons in such a confined space. The Rabbit soon arrived, but his attempts to enter were blocked by Alice’s enormous elbow. When he tried the window, Alice snatched at him, causing a crash. The animals outside, led by the Rabbit, resorted to sending Bill the Lizard down the chimney. Alice drew her foot up and gave a sharp kick, sending Bill flying back out. The Rabbit then threatened to burn the house down, but Alice retorted that she would set her cat Dinah upon them.
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