The genius of Carroll is that he offers no solution. There is no moral. There is no hero’s journey. There is only the girl who keeps walking, keeps eating the mushroom, keeps asking “Why?” even when why is a forbidden question.
What happens is Wonderland. The Mad Hatter’s tea party is the emotional core of the book. It is perpetual 6:00 PM—time has been frozen because the Hatter “murdered time” (literally, in the original text, he sang a song that offended Time). As a result, they are stuck in an endless, pointless ritual of moving around the table, washing cups that never get dirty, and asking riddles with no answers. alice aux pays des merveilles
And perhaps that is the deepest truth of all. Growing up is not about learning the rules. It is about learning to live without them. It is about saying, eventually, like Alice: “You’re nothing but a pack of cards.” The genius of Carroll is that he offers no solution
When Alice finally confronts the Queen at the end of the trial, she does something extraordinary. The Queen screams “Sentence first—verdict afterwards.” And Alice, who has grown throughout the story, shouts back: “Who cares for you? You’re nothing but a pack of cards!” There is only the girl who keeps walking,