This means, of course, that his watch is telling exactly the right time as it would be if it were on time. At the Tea Party, the Mad Hatter explains that his watch is ‘exactly two days slow’. Of course, as they are already at full pace, this makes no sense whatsoever. When Alice enquires how they might go about actually getting somewhere else, the Red Queen explains that they’d have to run twice as fast. When Alice asks where they are running to, the Red Queen scolds Alice, and explains that they are running merely to stay in the same place. A memorable scene in Through the Looking-Glass depicts Alice and the Red Queen running as fast as they can. The very laws of physics are upside down. It is not just language that is played around with. The strange sounds of these new words take the reader back to a time when every sound was something new and bizarre. The novel features a famous poem, The Jabberwocky, which features dozens of made-up words, as in the immortal line ‘and the mome raths outgrabe’. Humpty Dumpty has other views on words, telling Alice that ‘they’ve a temper, some of them-particularly verbs, they’re the proudest-adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs’. ‘When I use a word’, announces Humpty Dumpty, ‘it means just what I choose it to’. The characters regularly show no respect for the basic rules of language. Many examples from the books show Lewis Carroll’s ability to create a sense of the uncanny. In English, this is a genre that rose to prominence in Victorian England, where literature and books were beginning to take on an ever-greater importance in the childhood experience of growing up.

Nonsense literature presents language and situations which are not normal. Written by Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland is a classic in a children’s literary genre known as ‘nonsense’. The story of a young girl falling down a rabbit-hole and entering a strange, surreal world where nothing quite makes sense captures that childhood state when rules are not yet known and the imagination is as powerful as reality. It has been made into an iconic Disney film, as well as a recent Tim Burton release and countless other adaptations. Secondary Plus English course (12-17 years)Īlice in Wonderland (along with Through the Looking Glass) is one of the most famous children’s books of all time.EnglishScore Tutors for 13- to 17-year-olds.

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