prompt:
Chapter: For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, and wondering what
to do next, when suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the
wood--(she considered him to be a footman because he was in livery:
otherwise, judging by his face only, she would have called him a
fish)--and rapped loudly at the door with his knuckles. It was opened
by another footman in livery, with a round face, and large eyes like a
frog; and both footmen, Alice noticed, had powdered hair that curled all
over their heads. She felt very curious to know what it was all about,
and crept a little way out of the wood to listen.

The Fish-Footman began by producing from under his arm a great letter,
nearly as large as himself, and this he handed over to the other,
saying, in a solemn tone, 'For the Duchess. An invitation from the Queen
to play croquet.' The Frog-Footman repeated, in the same solemn tone,
only changing the order of the words a little, 'From the Queen. An
invitation for the Duchess to play croquet.'

Then they both bowed low, and their curls got entangled together.

Alice laughed so much at this, that she had to run back into the
wood for fear of their hearing her; and when she next peeped out the
Fish-Footman was gone, and the other was sitting on the ground near the
door, staring stupidly up into the sky.

Alice went timidly up to the door, and knocked.

'There's no sort of use in knocking,' said the Footman, 'and that for
two reasons. First, because I'm on the same side of the door as you
are; secondly, because they're making such a noise inside, no one could
possibly hear you.' And certainly there was a most extraordinary noise
going on within--a constant howling and sneezing, and every now and then
a great crash, as if a dish or kettle had been broken to pieces.

'Please, then,' said Alice, 'how am I to get in?'

'There might be some sense in your knocking,' the Footman went on
without attending to her, 'if we had the door between us. For instance,
if you were INSIDE, you might knock, and I could let you out, you know.'
He was looking up into the sky all the time he was speaking, and this
Alice thought decidedly uncivil. 'But perhaps he can't help it,' she
said to herself; 'his eyes are so VERY nearly at the top of his head.
But at any rate he might answer questions.--How am I to get in?' she
repeated, aloud.

'I shall sit here,' the Footman remarked, 'till tomorrow--'

At this moment the door of the house opened, and a large plate came
skimming out, straight at the Footman's head: it just grazed his nose,
and broke to pieces against one of the trees behind him.

'--or next day, maybe,' the Footman continued in the same tone, exactly
as if nothing had happened.

'How am I to get in?' asked Alice again, in a louder tone.

'ARE you to get in at all?' said the Footman. 'That's the first
question, you know.'

It was, no doubt: only Alice did not like to be told so. 'It's really
dreadful,' she muttered to herself, 'the way all the creatures argue.
It's enough to drive one crazy!'

The Footman seemed to think this a good opportunity for repeating his
remark, with variations. 'I shall sit here,' he said, 'on and off, for
days and days.'

'But what am I to do?' said Alice.

'Anything you like,' said the Footman, and began whistling.

'Oh, there's no use in talking to him,' said Alice desperately: 'he's
perfectly idiotic!' And she opened the door and went in.

The door led right into a large kitchen, which was full of smoke from
one end to the other: the Duchess was sitting on a three-legged stool in
the middle, nursing a baby; the cook was leaning over the fire, stirring
a large cauldron which seemed to be full of soup.

'There's certainly too much pepper in that soup!' Alice said to herself,
as well as she could for sneezing.

There was certainly too much of it in the air. Even the Duchess
sneezed occasionally; and as for the baby, it was sneezing and howling
alternately without a moment's pause. The only things in the kitchen
that did not sneeze, were the cook, and a large cat which was sitting on
the hearth and grinning from ear to ear.

'Please would you tell me,' said Alice, a little timidly, for she was
not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to speak first, 'why
your cat grins like that?'

'It's a Cheshire cat,' said the Duchess, 'and that's why. Pig!'

She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice quite
jumped; but she saw in another moment that it was addressed to the baby,
and not to her, so she took courage, and went on again:--

'I didn't know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I didn't know
that cats COULD grin.'

'They all can,' said the Duchess; 'and most of 'em do.'

'I don't know of any that do,' Alice said very politely, feeling quite
pleased to have got into a conversation.

'You don't know much,' said the Duchess; 'and that's a fact.'

Alice did not at all like the tone of this remark, and thought it would
be as well to introduce some other subject of conversation. While she
was trying to fix on one, the cook took the cauldron of soup off the
fire, and at once set to work throwing everything within her reach at
the Duchess and the baby--the fire-irons came first; then followed a
shower of saucepans, plates, and dishes. The Duchess took no notice of
them even when they hit her; and the baby was howling so much already,
that it was quite impossible to say whether the blows hurt it or not.

'Oh, PLEASE mind what you're doing!' cried Alice, jumping up and down in
an agony of terror. 'Oh, there goes his PRECIOUS nose'; as an unusually
large saucepan flew close by it, and very nearly carried it off.

'If everybody minded their own business,' the Duchess said in a hoarse
growl, 'the world would go round a deal faster than it does.'

'Which would NOT be an advantage,' said Alice, who felt very glad to get
an opportunity of showing off a little of her knowledge. 'Just think of
what work it would make with the day and night! You see the earth takes
twenty-four hours to turn round on its axis--'

'Talking of axes,' said the Duchess, 'chop off her head!'

Alice glanced rather anxiously at the cook, to see if she meant to take
the hint; but the cook was busily stirring the soup, and seemed not to
be listening, so she went on again: 'Twenty-four hours, I THINK; or is
it twelve? I--'

'Oh, don't bother ME,' said the Duchess; 'I never could abide figures!'
And with that she began nursing her child again, singing a sort of
lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a violent shake at the end of
every line:

   'Speak roughly to your little boy,
    And beat him when he sneezes:
   He only does it to annoy,
    Because he knows it teases.'

         CHORUS.

 (In which the cook and the baby joined):--

       'Wow! wow! wow!'

While the Duchess sang the second verse of the song, she kept tossing
the baby violently up and down, and the poor little thing howled so,
that Alice could hardly hear the words:--

   'I speak severely to my boy,
    I beat him when he sneezes;
   For he can thoroughly enjoy
    The pepper when he pleases!'

         CHORUS.

       'Wow! wow! wow!'

'Here! you may nurse it a bit, if you like!' the Duchess said to Alice,
flinging the baby at her as she spoke. 'I must go and get ready to play
croquet with the Queen,' and she hurried out of the room. The cook threw
a frying-pan after her as she went out, but it just missed her.

Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a queer-shaped
little creature, and held out its arms and legs in all directions, 'just
like a star-fish,' thought Alice. The poor little thing was snorting
like a steam-engine when she caught it, and kept doubling itself up and
straightening itself out again, so that altogether, for the first minute
or two, it was as much as she could do to hold it.

As soon as she had made out the proper way of nursing it, (which was to
twist it up into a sort of knot, and then keep tight hold of its right
ear and left foot, so as to prevent its undoing itself,) she carried
it out into the open air. 'IF I don't take this child away with me,'
thought Alice, 'they're sure to kill it in a day or two: wouldn't it be
murder to leave it behind?' She said the last words out loud, and the
little thing grunted in reply (it had left off sneezing by this time).
'Don't grunt,' said Alice; 'that's not at all a proper way of expressing
yourself.'

The baby grunted again, and Alice looked very anxiously into its face to
see what was the matter with it. There could be no doubt that it had
a VERY turn-up nose, much more like a snout than a real nose; also its
eyes were getting extremely small for a baby: altogether Alice did not
like the look of the thing at all. 'But perhaps it was only sobbing,'
she thought, and looked into its eyes again, to see if there were any
tears.

No, there were no tears. 'If you're going to turn into a pig, my dear,'
said Alice, seriously, 'I'll have nothing more to do with you. Mind
now!' The poor little thing sobbed again (or grunted, it was impossible
to say which), and they went on for some while in silence.

Alice was just beginning to think to herself, 'Now, what am I to do with
this creature when I get it home?' when it grunted again, so violently,
that she looked down into its face in some alarm. This time there could
be NO mistake about it: it was neither more nor less than a pig, and she
felt that it would be quite absurd for her to carry it further.

So she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to see
it trot away quietly into the wood. 'If it had grown up,' she said
to herself, 'it would have made a dreadfully ugly child: but it makes
rather a handsome pig, I think.' And she began thinking over other
children she knew, who might do very well as pigs, and was just saying
to herself, 'if one only knew the right way to change them--' when she
was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a
tree a few yards off.

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she
thought: still it had VERY long claws and a great many teeth, so she
felt that it ought to be treated with respect.

'Cheshire Puss,' she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know
whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider.
'Come, it's pleased so far,' thought Alice, and she went on. 'Would you
tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'

'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.

'I don't much care where--' said Alice.

'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.

'--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.

'Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, 'if you only walk long
enough.'

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question.
'What sort of people live about here?'

'In THAT direction,' the Cat said, waving its right paw round, 'lives
a Hatter: and in THAT direction,' waving the other paw, 'lives a March
Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad.'

'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.

'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here. I'm mad.
You're mad.'

'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.

'You must be,' said the Cat, 'or you wouldn't have come here.'

Alice didn't think that proved it at all; however, she went on 'And how
do you know that you're mad?'

'To begin with,' said the Cat, 'a dog's not mad. You grant that?'

'I suppose so,' said Alice.

'Well, then,' the Cat went on, 'you see, a dog growls when it's angry,
and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and
wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad.'

'I call it purring, not growling,' said Alice.

'Call it what you like,' said the Cat. 'Do you play croquet with the
Queen to-day?'

'I should like it very much,' said Alice, 'but I haven't been invited
yet.'

'You'll see me there,' said the Cat, and vanished.

Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so used to queer
things happening. While she was looking at the place where it had been,
it suddenly appeared again.

'By-the-bye, what became of the baby?' said the Cat. 'I'd nearly
forgotten to ask.'

'It turned into a pig,' Alice quietly said, just as if it had come back
in a natural way.

'I thought it would,' said the Cat, and vanished again.

Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it did not
appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the direction in
which the March Hare was said to live. 'I've seen hatters before,' she
said to herself; 'the March Hare will be much the most interesting, and
perhaps as this is May it won't be raving mad--at least not so mad as
it was in March.' As she said this, she looked up, and there was the Cat
again, sitting on a branch of a tree.

'Did you say pig, or fig?' said the Cat.

'I said pig,' replied Alice; 'and I wish you wouldn't keep appearing and
vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.'

'All right,' said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly,
beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which
remained some time after the rest of it had gone.

'Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin,' thought Alice; 'but a grin
without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!'

She had not gone much farther before she came in sight of the house
of the March Hare: she thought it must be the right house, because the
chimneys were shaped like ears and the roof was thatched with fur. It
was so large a house, that she did not like to go nearer till she had
nibbled some more of the lefthand bit of mushroom, and raised herself to
about two feet high: even then she walked up towards it rather timidly,
saying to herself 'Suppose it should be raving mad after all! I almost
wish I'd gone to see the Hatter instead!'

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The Caterpillar's nasty mood, even if he does seem nonchalant, is a subtle symbol of all the verbal chaos in Wonderland. Yet, here, in Chapter VI, that linguistic nonsense is replaced by random, violent, physical disorder in the action of the story. Alice has come upon a house, just as a Fish-Footman delivers a letter to the Frog-Footman of the house. The letter is an invitation, which the Fish-Footman reads: "For the Duchess. An invitation from the Queen to play croquet." In a marvelous example of Wonderland's semantic, verbal fun, the Frog-Footman reverses the invitation: "From the Queen. An invitation for the Duchess to play croquet." In reality, it should end with "From the Queen." When Alice attempts to enter the house, she finds herself further into the world of nonsense. The Frog-Footman is sitting before the door and is totally uncooperative as she knocks at the door. He replies to her every question in "absurd" reasoning -- as if Alice had suddenly found herself in a Samuel Beckett play. With elegant precision, the Frog-Footman explains that her knocking on the door is useless because he can only answer the door from inside. Again, we see an illustration where the reply to a question is never addressed to the question, but to something else. Alice's knocking on the door is "useless," she is told, because the Frog-Footman, who opens the door from inside the house, is now outside; thus, he can't answer her; and, in any event, the noise from inside the house would prevent the Frog-Footman from hearing her knock even if he were inside. Truly, this is the World of the Absurd. Yet, this kind of confusion is quite normal in Wonderland; all of reality here is viewed, so to speak, on a scale of values which are completely alien to the "normal" Victorian world of Alice. A large plate suddenly comes flying out of the house and barely misses hitting the Frog-Footman's head. The Frog-Footman is totally oblivious to this. And his indifference to chaos is characteristic of Wonderland's creatures and indicates to Alice that there surely must be an underlying order here. Or perhaps it involves only a fatalistic indifference. For the Caterpillar and the Frog-Footman, things have no purpose. "I shall sit here," the Frog-Footman muses, "on and off for days and days." "But what am I to do?" asks Alice. "Anything you like," says the Frog-Footman. The Frog-Footman's reply to Alice's question is idiotic nonsense, and with a child's simplicity, Alice finds the Frog-Footman's values totally illogical. Alice has been brought up to believe that things should be done and that they should be done with a purpose. In her world, there is order and there are schedules and tasks to be accomplished at certain times. Carroll's method in creating the tension between these two worlds is to increase the difference in the values "above-ground" and those of Wonderland. One is, therefore, not entirely correct in relating Wonderland's anarchy and nonsense to the creatures' irrational behavior. Alice, in fact, is making the assumption that there is -- and should be -- an order here; she is trying to make logic from illogic. Wonderland is a world of illogic, and Alice, as a proper little Victorian girl, keeps trying throughout the novel to relate, logically, to these creatures -- who seem like adults and who, therefore, should be logical. The creatures' acceptance of disorder may seem to be a parody of reality to the reader. Yet Wonderland's chaos is not altogether unreal. Our own reality, as a historical one, is impermanent and never without some degree of ambiguity. When we consider what has been accepted as "reality" throughout the ages regarding our world and its place in the Order of Things, we see how flimsy a word "logic" can be. Indeed, Albert Einstein, the father of relativity, was deeply worried that God was "playing dice with the universe." If Alice fails to discover a correlation between her reality above-ground and her dream, it must be because she is "inside" her dream. To put it another way, one might even say that she is trapped in an unadjustable frame of meaning. For her, there is no scale of values except the one which she brings to Wonderland. She has a strong sense of being lost and abandoned; but the creatures know where they belong, and none of them identifies with her plight. Nor are the creatures able to befriend her. Note that Alice meets no other children like herself in Wonderland. And the creatures all speak to her on the inscrutable and mysterious level of adults. Unless they direct her to do something, their utterances are quite beyond her comprehension. In that sense, in Alice's dream, they are echoing memories of the many puzzling things that adults living above-ground have said, things that Alice did not understand. Inside the house, Alice meets the Duchess, who nurses a crying baby. A cook, meanwhile, stirs a cauldron of soup and, indiscriminately, she shakes a pepper mill. The baby is crying, and it is sneezing, it seems, because of all the flying pepper. Next to the cook sits the Cheshire-Cat with his famous smile. The kitchen is in an absolute turmoil. But the Duchess ignores the sneezing, the crying, and the cook throwing pans. Alice watches silently as the Duchess brutally shakes and pounds the baby. The Duchess' rudeness and cruelty is the most extreme thus far in the story; even the cook is provoked to the point of directing her pans at the Duchess. Calmly, the Duchess ignores the others' reactions. "If everybody minded their business," the Duchess says, "the world would go around a deal faster than it does." "Which would not be an advantage," observes Alice. "Talking of axes," says the Duchess, "Chop off her head!" The Duchess is abominable, and the baby bears the worst of her cruelty. While violently throwing the baby around, the Duchess sings a crude and savage lullaby: Speak roughly to your little boy,And beat him when he sneezes:He only does it to annoy,Because he knows it teases. The cook and the baby then recite a chorus to each stanza: Wow! wow! wow! This verse, like the others before it, is another parody of a well-known poem in Carroll's time. Alice is rightly appalled at the lullaby's sentiments and the Duchess' cruelty. Every now and then, the Duchess calls the baby "Pig!" This is proof enough that the Duchess has a barbarous nature. As the Duchess prepares to go play croquet with the Queen, she tosses the baby to Alice. Suddenly, Alice feels maternal and thinks that she must save the baby from the violent Duchess and from the crazy cook. But in the next moment, Alice finds that her sympathy is falsely placed. The baby struggles to get out of her embrace, and before Alice's very eyes, the baby is transformed into a grunting pig. Confident that she was doing the right thing -- despite the metamorphosis that is happening before her very eyes -- Alice still finds her good intentions subverted by Wonderland's absurdities. Finally, she has no choice but to let the pig trot off, but she cannot let it go without a twinge of guilt. She considers it a handsome pig -- but an ugly baby. Implicit in this observation is the assumption that "all things have a silver lining," a very Victorian type of thought. Alice remembers children who "might do well as pigs . . . if one only knew the right way to change them." Alice has a new sense of self-satisfaction and superiority that has been reinforced by the contemptible behavior of the Duchess. She "saved" the pig/baby. Indeed, in the face of the rudeness she has experienced, Alice is finding that she doesn't have to struggle so hard to remain a "lady." All she has to do is not react to the crazy provocation that she meets. But even so, her moral superiority illustrates her painful isolation, and not even the smiling Cheshire-Cat enables her to relax for very long, for despite his wonderfully large smile, the cat has "long claws and a great many teeth." Just after the pig trots away, Alice notices the Cheshire-Cat sitting on a bough in a tree. Whereas the Duchess is unpleasant and threatening, the friendly Cheshire-Cat treats Alice with a measure of respect -- though he is no less maddening in his response to her questions. The Cat is neither didactic nor hostile; still, he is no less inconsistent. If he doesn't snap at her, he still confuses her. Seemingly, he is an honest cat, but Alice cannot make sense of his "honesty." For example, when Alice asks him which way to go, he responds: "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to." As Alice responds that she doesn't care, he replies: "Then it doesn't matter which way you go." He assures her that she will get somewhere if she only walks long enough; she is sure to reach the same destination regardless of the direction that she takes. Unlike the other creatures, the Cheshire-Cat does seem fair. However, he too creates frustration within Alice in exactly the very same illogical ways that adults have so often verbally confused Alice. And, in addition, his constant disappearances and reappearances are terribly distracting. "How do you know I'm mad?" asks Alice. "You must be or you wouldn't have come here," the cat says. Alice then contradicts the cat when he claims to growl. "Call it what you like," he says. Then, in a clairvoyant moment, he casually mentions that he'll see Alice at the Queen's croquet game. At this point, Alice hasn't even been invited to the game, nor has she indicated any intention of going. But like the Frog-Footman, the Cheshire-Cat transfigures reality and anticipates events. He's not surprised that the baby became a pig; he's only uncertain whether Alice said "pig" or "fig." Ultimately, his smile is his most enduring and least confusing aspect. Alice complains that his vanishing and reappearing "so suddenly" make her dizzy. She asks him not to disappear; his response is to "slow down" his disappearance so that he appears to dissolve; in the end, only his grin remains, and then it too disappears. The Cheshire-Cat's smile is the embodiment of Wonderland's riddle; it is as famous and as enigmatic as Mona Lisa's smile. Curiously, it is the Cheshire-Cat who offers Alice a "meaning" to Wonderland's chaos. Alice's curiosity has led her into a mad world, and she has begun to wonder if she herself is mad. She realizes that there is just a possibility that she may be mad! And the fact that Alice is, finally, not surprised at the cat's vanishing does indicate a kind of madness on her part. And after being told that the Mad Hatter and the March Hare are also mad, Alice still insists on meeting them. In her conversation with the cat, Alice tries to come to terms with madness, but it seems that she has no choice in the matter. All roads, as it were, lead to mad people, and she seems to be one of them. The cat's grin undermines her security in anything she hears because the connection between subject and attribute has been severed. "Well," , "I've often seen a cat without a grin . . . but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life." Here is a smile without a face, without any substance -- just a smile. The smile has become a nightmare of perplexity. Yet what the cat told Alice is logical; she can get somewhere by walking long enough in any direction. But it is not the answer to the question which Alice asked. Thus, the cat's responses to her inquiries are scaled to very different values than the values above-ground in Alice's familiar Victorian world. And looked at objectively, the Cheshire-Cat does not really accept Alice as an equal. He patronizes her gullibility as any adult might play with a child. In the end, Alice doesn't learn anything from him. Soon, Alice finds the house of the March Hare. Since it is May, she reasons , the Hare should be "mad" only in March. She nibbles at her mushroom until she becomes taller; increasing her size gives her more self-confidence, but she still has not learned that getting smaller or larger by such means will not enable her to deal with Wonderland any better.


prompt:
Chapter: There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the
March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting
between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a
cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head. 'Very
uncomfortable for the Dormouse,' thought Alice; 'only, as it's asleep, I
suppose it doesn't mind.'

The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at
one corner of it: 'No room! No room!' they cried out when they saw Alice
coming. 'There's PLENTY of room!' said Alice indignantly, and she sat
down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.

'Have some wine,' the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.

Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea.
'I don't see any wine,' she remarked.

'There isn't any,' said the March Hare.

'Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it,' said Alice angrily.

'It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being invited,' said
the March Hare.

'I didn't know it was YOUR table,' said Alice; 'it's laid for a great
many more than three.'

'Your hair wants cutting,' said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice
for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.

'You should learn not to make personal remarks,' Alice said with some
severity; 'it's very rude.'

The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he SAID
was, 'Why is a raven like a writing-desk?'

'Come, we shall have some fun now!' thought Alice. 'I'm glad they've
begun asking riddles.--I believe I can guess that,' she added aloud.

'Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?' said the
March Hare.

'Exactly so,' said Alice.

'Then you should say what you mean,' the March Hare went on.

'I do,' Alice hastily replied; 'at least--at least I mean what I
say--that's the same thing, you know.'

'Not the same thing a bit!' said the Hatter. 'You might just as well say
that "I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat what I see"!'

'You might just as well say,' added the March Hare, 'that "I like what I
get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!'

'You might just as well say,' added the Dormouse, who seemed to be
talking in his sleep, 'that "I breathe when I sleep" is the same thing
as "I sleep when I breathe"!'

'It IS the same thing with you,' said the Hatter, and here the
conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice
thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks,
which wasn't much.

The Hatter was the first to break the silence. 'What day of the month
is it?' he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his
pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then,
and holding it to his ear.

Alice considered a little, and then said 'The fourth.'

'Two days wrong!' sighed the Hatter. 'I told you butter wouldn't suit
the works!' he added looking angrily at the March Hare.

'It was the BEST butter,' the March Hare meekly replied.

'Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,' the Hatter grumbled:
'you shouldn't have put it in with the bread-knife.'

The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily: then he dipped
it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again: but he could think of
nothing better to say than his first remark, 'It was the BEST butter,
you know.'

Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity. 'What a
funny watch!' she remarked. 'It tells the day of the month, and doesn't
tell what o'clock it is!'

'Why should it?' muttered the Hatter. 'Does YOUR watch tell you what
year it is?'

'Of course not,' Alice replied very readily: 'but that's because it
stays the same year for such a long time together.'

'Which is just the case with MINE,' said the Hatter.

Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter's remark seemed to have no
sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. 'I don't quite
understand you,' she said, as politely as she could.

'The Dormouse is asleep again,' said the Hatter, and he poured a little
hot tea upon its nose.

The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without opening its
eyes, 'Of course, of course; just what I was going to remark myself.'

'Have you guessed the riddle yet?' the Hatter said, turning to Alice
again.

'No, I give it up,' Alice replied: 'what's the answer?'

'I haven't the slightest idea,' said the Hatter.

'Nor I,' said the March Hare.

Alice sighed wearily. 'I think you might do something better with the
time,' she said, 'than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.'

'If you knew Time as well as I do,' said the Hatter, 'you wouldn't talk
about wasting IT. It's HIM.'

'I don't know what you mean,' said Alice.

'Of course you don't!' the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously.
'I dare say you never even spoke to Time!'

'Perhaps not,' Alice cautiously replied: 'but I know I have to beat time
when I learn music.'

'Ah! that accounts for it,' said the Hatter. 'He won't stand beating.
Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he'd do almost anything
you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o'clock in
the morning, just time to begin lessons: you'd only have to whisper a
hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one,
time for dinner!'

('I only wish it was,' the March Hare said to itself in a whisper.)

'That would be grand, certainly,' said Alice thoughtfully: 'but then--I
shouldn't be hungry for it, you know.'

'Not at first, perhaps,' said the Hatter: 'but you could keep it to
half-past one as long as you liked.'

'Is that the way YOU manage?' Alice asked.

The Hatter shook his head mournfully. 'Not I!' he replied. 'We
quarrelled last March--just before HE went mad, you know--' (pointing
with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) '--it was at the great concert
given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing

     "Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
     How I wonder what you're at!"

You know the song, perhaps?'

'I've heard something like it,' said Alice.

'It goes on, you know,' the Hatter continued, 'in this way:--

     "Up above the world you fly,
     Like a tea-tray in the sky.
         Twinkle, twinkle--"'

Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep 'Twinkle,
twinkle, twinkle, twinkle--' and went on so long that they had to pinch
it to make it stop.

'Well, I'd hardly finished the first verse,' said the Hatter, 'when the
Queen jumped up and bawled out, "He's murdering the time! Off with his
head!"'

'How dreadfully savage!' exclaimed Alice.

'And ever since that,' the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, 'he won't
do a thing I ask! It's always six o'clock now.'

A bright idea came into Alice's head. 'Is that the reason so many
tea-things are put out here?' she asked.

'Yes, that's it,' said the Hatter with a sigh: 'it's always tea-time,
and we've no time to wash the things between whiles.'

'Then you keep moving round, I suppose?' said Alice.

'Exactly so,' said the Hatter: 'as the things get used up.'

'But what happens when you come to the beginning again?' Alice ventured
to ask.

'Suppose we change the subject,' the March Hare interrupted, yawning.
'I'm getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story.'

'I'm afraid I don't know one,' said Alice, rather alarmed at the
proposal.

'Then the Dormouse shall!' they both cried. 'Wake up, Dormouse!' And
they pinched it on both sides at once.

The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. 'I wasn't asleep,' he said in a
hoarse, feeble voice: 'I heard every word you fellows were saying.'

'Tell us a story!' said the March Hare.

'Yes, please do!' pleaded Alice.

'And be quick about it,' added the Hatter, 'or you'll be asleep again
before it's done.'

'Once upon a time there were three little sisters,' the Dormouse began
in a great hurry; 'and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and
they lived at the bottom of a well--'

'What did they live on?' said Alice, who always took a great interest in
questions of eating and drinking.

'They lived on treacle,' said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or
two.

'They couldn't have done that, you know,' Alice gently remarked; 'they'd
have been ill.'

'So they were,' said the Dormouse; 'VERY ill.'

Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways of
living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went on: 'But
why did they live at the bottom of a well?'

'Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

'I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, 'so I can't
take more.'

'You mean you can't take LESS,' said the Hatter: 'it's very easy to take
MORE than nothing.'

'Nobody asked YOUR opinion,' said Alice.

'Who's making personal remarks now?' the Hatter asked triumphantly.

Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself
to some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and
repeated her question. 'Why did they live at the bottom of a well?'

The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and then
said, 'It was a treacle-well.'

'There's no such thing!' Alice was beginning very angrily, but the
Hatter and the March Hare went 'Sh! sh!' and the Dormouse sulkily
remarked, 'If you can't be civil, you'd better finish the story for
yourself.'

'No, please go on!' Alice said very humbly; 'I won't interrupt again. I
dare say there may be ONE.'

'One, indeed!' said the Dormouse indignantly. However, he consented to
go on. 'And so these three little sisters--they were learning to draw,
you know--'

'What did they draw?' said Alice, quite forgetting her promise.

'Treacle,' said the Dormouse, without considering at all this time.

'I want a clean cup,' interrupted the Hatter: 'let's all move one place
on.'

He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him: the March Hare
moved into the Dormouse's place, and Alice rather unwillingly took
the place of the March Hare. The Hatter was the only one who got any
advantage from the change: and Alice was a good deal worse off than
before, as the March Hare had just upset the milk-jug into his plate.

Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very
cautiously: 'But I don't understand. Where did they draw the treacle
from?'

'You can draw water out of a water-well,' said the Hatter; 'so I should
think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well--eh, stupid?'

'But they were IN the well,' Alice said to the Dormouse, not choosing to
notice this last remark.

'Of course they were', said the Dormouse; '--well in.'

This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the Dormouse go on for
some time without interrupting it.

'They were learning to draw,' the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing
its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; 'and they drew all manner of
things--everything that begins with an M--'

'Why with an M?' said Alice.

'Why not?' said the March Hare.

Alice was silent.

The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into
a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with
a little shriek, and went on: '--that begins with an M, such as
mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness--you know you say
things are "much of a muchness"--did you ever see such a thing as a
drawing of a muchness?'

'Really, now you ask me,' said Alice, very much confused, 'I don't
think--'

'Then you shouldn't talk,' said the Hatter.

This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in
great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and
neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she
looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her:
the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into
the teapot.

'At any rate I'll never go THERE again!' said Alice as she picked her
way through the wood. 'It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all
my life!'

Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees had a door
leading right into it. 'That's very curious!' she thought. 'But
everything's curious today. I think I may as well go in at once.' And in
she went.

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 went 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.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Linguistic assaults are very much a part of the "polite bantering" in Wonderland. Often, traumatic and verbal violence seems just about to erupt all the time, breaking through the thin veneer of civilized behavior, but it rarely does. Alice reaches the March Hare's house in time for an outdoor tea-party. The tea-party turns out to be a very mad tea-party. In attendance are Alice, the March Hare, the Mad Hatter, and a Dormouse. All are indeed mad, except Alice and the sleepy Dormouse . Alice has arrived just in time for tea, which is served at six o'clock. But it is always six o'clock, with no time to wash the dishes; thus, it is always tea time. In fact, the significant feature about this tea-party is that time has been frozen still. The idea of real, moving, passing time is non-existent. The absense of time means that the Mad Tea-Party is trapped in a space without time. The world isn't turning, hands aren't moving around the clock, and the only "rotating" exists around the tea-party table. When the four have finished tea , they move to the next place-setting around the table. Dirty dishes accumulate, and there doesn't seem to be any substantive food. No one even seems to be taking tea. The Mad Hatter tells Alice that the Queen has accused him of murdering his friend Time; ever since the Mad Hatter and Time had a falling out, it has always been six o'clock. It's always tea time, and they have no time to wash the dishes between time for tea. Alice typically does her best to cling to her own code of behavior ; she is still determined to "educate" the creatures to the rules of Victorian social etiquette. They protest her joining the party with cries of "No room! No room!" But Alice ignores them , and she sits down. The insanity of it all begins immediately when the March Hare offers her wine that doesn't exist. Alice complains, of course, about this lack of civility in offering her some nonexistent wine. The March Hare counters that she was very rude to invite herself to their party. Her rules of etiquette completely fail her here. These creatures once again turn upside down all her principles of decorum. "Your hair wants cutting," the Mad Hatter interrupts her at one point. "You should learn not to make personal remarks," Alice says. "It's very rude." Later, she violates her advice and impolitely interrupts the Mad Hatter. "Nobody asked your opinion," she says. "Who's making personal remarks now?" retorts the Mad Hatter. Alice has been deflated and demoralized. The last above-ground rules of how to act and what to say seem to dissolve before her eyes. She cannot understand why they are acting this way! Thus, the tea-party continues with endless cups of tea and a conversation of absolutely meaningless nonsense. Suddenly, the Mad Hatter asks Alice: "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" At first glance, the riddle makes no sense as a logical question. And even the answer that Carroll provides elsewhere is nonsense. Presumably there should always be answers to any questions; at least, there were answers above-ground. The Mad Tea-Party conversation repeats this miscommunication pattern like all the other absurd conversations that Alice has had with Wonderland creatures in previous chapters. She delightfully explains: "I'm glad they've begun asking riddles -- I believe I can guess that." "Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?" asks the March Hare. "Exactly so," says Alice. "Then you should say what you mean," says the Hare. Alice's confidence is shaken: "I do," she says, "at least -- at least I mean what I say -- that's the same thing you know." But here, of course, Alice is speaking in the context of time's absence. There is no time. This is, even in Wonderland, "another world." "Why," says the Hare, "you might just as well say that 'I see what I eat' is the same thing as 'I eat what I see!"' This is reverse logic -- exactly right for Wonderland, but, of course, not correct above-ground. Alice cannot make the creatures understand this, however, and finally she sighs. "I think you might do something better with time . . . than wasting it in asking riddles that have no answers." To this, the Hatter replies: "If you knew Time as well as I do . . . you wouldn't talk about wasting it. It's him." Time is thus suddenly personified and becomes the source of much punning and comic relief. Alice participates in this nonsense in all seriousness, saying that she has to "beat time" when she learns music, even though she has "perhaps" never spoken to "him." "Ah! That accounts for it," says the Mad Hatter. "He won't stand beating!" Then the Mad Hatter launches into a satirical parody of another, famous children's verse: "Twinkle, twinkle little bat!" The bat is not the shining star of the Victorian poem, but a repulsive and morbid symbol of the ugly course of events about to begin. The Mad Hatter explains that his fight with Time and accusation of murder happened the last time that he was reciting that verse. So the disaster with Time is closely related to the Mad Hatter's distortion of the nursery rhyme. Filling his version with bats and flying tea-trays, the Mad Hatter's rhyme increases the comic personification of Time. The Mad Hatter has animated the inanimate star as a bat and has made an inanimate object live. The Mad Tea-Party is filled with atrocious puns in conversation. The pun is determined by the coincidence of two words that sound so alike that relevant information is muddled. And here the play on words is a way of freeing meaning from conventional definition. The Dormouse, for instance, tells a story about three sisters who lived in a treacle well and were learning to "draw" treacle . Alice asks: "But I don't understand. Where did they draw treacle from?" "You can draw water out of a water-well," says the Mad Hatter, "so I should think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well." "But they were in the well," says Alice . "Of course they were," says the Dormouse. "Well in." The Dormouse's illogic continues to frustrate Alice. Playing on words that begin with the letter M, the Dormouse describes the sisters as drawing "all manner of things -- everything that begins with an M such as mousetraps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness -- you know you say things are 'much of a muchness' -- did you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness!" Alice stammers, and the Hatter cries, "Then you shouldn't talk." With that rude remark, Alice storms away in disgust. She has still not succeeded in getting any closer to the reality she seeks. At the tea-party, she has not even received any tea or food. Her serving has been only a bitter course of verbal abuse and semantic teasing. Muchness indeed! The creatures are self-centered, argumentative and rude; they have violated all of the conventions of conversation that Alice has been taught to practice. All of these creatures in Wonderland have compounded the pain of Alice's psychological loss of place and time with their nonsense and cruel teasing. As she leaves the table, Alice notices the other two attempting to drown the Dormouse in the teapot. His ritualistic death is, at least, a seemingly logical consequence of the Mad Hatter's ominous verse and Alice's departure. The Dormouse should have been hibernating instead of attending parties and telling anecdotes; dunking him seems to be sort of a realistic -- if an absurd -- way of forcing him back to "slumber." This will be, however, if they are successful, more than just a "slumber"; it will be death, "much of a muchness." The Dormouse's fate serves as an appropriate conclusion to this chapter, for Alice enters another door and finds herself once again in the hallway with the glass table and the small doorway that leads to the beautiful garden. To try and reinforce the notion that Wonderland must have a hidden order, Alice first unlocks the door, and she then reduces her size by nibbling on a piece of the mushroom. She has finally learned a lesson from her initial, frightening experience in Wonderland: She has been eating, drinking, and changing sizes, without thinking first.


prompt:
Chapter: A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden: the roses
growing on it were white, but there were three gardeners at it, busily
painting them red. Alice thought this a very curious thing, and she went
nearer to watch them, and just as she came up to them she heard one of
them say, 'Look out now, Five! Don't go splashing paint over me like
that!'

'I couldn't help it,' said Five, in a sulky tone; 'Seven jogged my
elbow.'

On which Seven looked up and said, 'That's right, Five! Always lay the
blame on others!'

'YOU'D better not talk!' said Five. 'I heard the Queen say only
yesterday you deserved to be beheaded!'

'What for?' said the one who had spoken first.

'That's none of YOUR business, Two!' said Seven.

'Yes, it IS his business!' said Five, 'and I'll tell him--it was for
bringing the cook tulip-roots instead of onions.'

Seven flung down his brush, and had just begun 'Well, of all the unjust
things--' when his eye chanced to fall upon Alice, as she stood watching
them, and he checked himself suddenly: the others looked round also, and
all of them bowed low.

'Would you tell me,' said Alice, a little timidly, 'why you are painting
those roses?'

Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began in a low
voice, 'Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a
RED rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake; and if the Queen
was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know.
So you see, Miss, we're doing our best, afore she comes, to--' At this
moment Five, who had been anxiously looking across the garden, called
out 'The Queen! The Queen!' and the three gardeners instantly threw
themselves flat upon their faces. There was a sound of many footsteps,
and Alice looked round, eager to see the Queen.

First came ten soldiers carrying clubs; these were all shaped like
the three gardeners, oblong and flat, with their hands and feet at the
corners: next the ten courtiers; these were ornamented all over with
diamonds, and walked two and two, as the soldiers did. After these came
the royal children; there were ten of them, and the little dears came
jumping merrily along hand in hand, in couples: they were all ornamented
with hearts. Next came the guests, mostly Kings and Queens, and among
them Alice recognised the White Rabbit: it was talking in a hurried
nervous manner, smiling at everything that was said, and went by without
noticing her. Then followed the Knave of Hearts, carrying the King's
crown on a crimson velvet cushion; and, last of all this grand
procession, came THE KING AND QUEEN OF HEARTS.

Alice was rather doubtful whether she ought not to lie down on her face
like the three gardeners, but she could not remember ever having heard
of such a rule at processions; 'and besides, what would be the use of
a procession,' thought she, 'if people had all to lie down upon their
faces, so that they couldn't see it?' So she stood still where she was,
and waited.

When the procession came opposite to Alice, they all stopped and looked
at her, and the Queen said severely 'Who is this?' She said it to the
Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and smiled in reply.

'Idiot!' said the Queen, tossing her head impatiently; and, turning to
Alice, she went on, 'What's your name, child?'

'My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,' said Alice very politely;
but she added, to herself, 'Why, they're only a pack of cards, after
all. I needn't be afraid of them!'

'And who are THESE?' said the Queen, pointing to the three gardeners who
were lying round the rosetree; for, you see, as they were lying on their
faces, and the pattern on their backs was the same as the rest of the
pack, she could not tell whether they were gardeners, or soldiers, or
courtiers, or three of her own children.

'How should I know?' said Alice, surprised at her own courage. 'It's no
business of MINE.'

The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a
moment like a wild beast, screamed 'Off with her head! Off--'

'Nonsense!' said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen was
silent.

The King laid his hand upon her arm, and timidly said 'Consider, my
dear: she is only a child!'

The Queen turned angrily away from him, and said to the Knave 'Turn them
over!'

The Knave did so, very carefully, with one foot.

'Get up!' said the Queen, in a shrill, loud voice, and the three
gardeners instantly jumped up, and began bowing to the King, the Queen,
the royal children, and everybody else.

'Leave off that!' screamed the Queen. 'You make me giddy.' And then,
turning to the rose-tree, she went on, 'What HAVE you been doing here?'

'May it please your Majesty,' said Two, in a very humble tone, going
down on one knee as he spoke, 'we were trying--'

'I see!' said the Queen, who had meanwhile been examining the roses.
'Off with their heads!' and the procession moved on, three of the
soldiers remaining behind to execute the unfortunate gardeners, who ran
to Alice for protection.

'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.

'Are their heads off?' shouted the Queen.

'Their heads are gone, if it please your Majesty!' the soldiers shouted
in reply.

'That's right!' shouted the Queen. 'Can you play croquet?'

The soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, as the question was
evidently meant for her.

'Yes!' shouted Alice.

'Come on, then!' roared the Queen, and Alice joined the procession,
wondering very much what would happen next.

'It's--it's a very fine day!' said a timid voice at her side. She was
walking by the White Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously into her face.

'Very,' said Alice: '--where's the Duchess?'

'Hush! Hush!' said the Rabbit in a low, hurried tone. He looked
anxiously over his shoulder as he spoke, and then raised himself upon
tiptoe, put his mouth close to her ear, and whispered 'She's under
sentence of execution.'

'What for?' said Alice.

'Did you say "What a pity!"?' the Rabbit asked.

'No, I didn't,' said Alice: 'I don't think it's at all a pity. I said
"What for?"'

'She boxed the Queen's ears--' the Rabbit began. Alice gave a little
scream of laughter. 'Oh, hush!' the Rabbit whispered in a frightened
tone. 'The Queen will hear you! You see, she came rather late, and the
Queen said--'

'Get to your places!' shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder, and
people began running about in all directions, tumbling up against each
other; however, they got settled down in a minute or two, and the game
began. Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground in
her life; it was all ridges and furrows; the balls were live hedgehogs,
the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves
up and to stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches.

The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo:
she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under
her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got
its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the hedgehog a
blow with its head, it WOULD twist itself round and look up in her face,
with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out
laughing: and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin
again, it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled
itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides all this, there was
generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she wanted to send the
hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers were always getting up
and walking off to other parts of the ground, Alice soon came to the
conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed.

The players all played at once without waiting for turns, quarrelling
all the while, and fighting for the hedgehogs; and in a very short
time the Queen was in a furious passion, and went stamping about, and
shouting 'Off with his head!' or 'Off with her head!' about once in a
minute.

Alice began to feel very uneasy: to be sure, she had not as yet had any
dispute with the Queen, but she knew that it might happen any minute,
'and then,' thought she, 'what would become of me? They're dreadfully
fond of beheading people here; the great wonder is, that there's any one
left alive!'

She was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering whether she
could get away without being seen, when she noticed a curious appearance
in the air: it puzzled her very much at first, but, after watching it
a minute or two, she made it out to be a grin, and she said to herself
'It's the Cheshire Cat: now I shall have somebody to talk to.'

'How are you getting on?' said the Cat, as soon as there was mouth
enough for it to speak with.

Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then nodded. 'It's no use
speaking to it,' she thought, 'till its ears have come, or at least one
of them.' In another minute the whole head appeared, and then Alice put
down her flamingo, and began an account of the game, feeling very glad
she had someone to listen to her. The Cat seemed to think that there was
enough of it now in sight, and no more of it appeared.

'I don't think they play at all fairly,' Alice began, in rather a
complaining tone, 'and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can't hear
oneself speak--and they don't seem to have any rules in particular;
at least, if there are, nobody attends to them--and you've no idea how
confusing it is all the things being alive; for instance, there's the
arch I've got to go through next walking about at the other end of the
ground--and I should have croqueted the Queen's hedgehog just now, only
it ran away when it saw mine coming!'

'How do you like the Queen?' said the Cat in a low voice.

'Not at all,' said Alice: 'she's so extremely--' Just then she noticed
that the Queen was close behind her, listening: so she went on,
'--likely to win, that it's hardly worth while finishing the game.'

The Queen smiled and passed on.

'Who ARE you talking to?' said the King, going up to Alice, and looking
at the Cat's head with great curiosity.

'It's a friend of mine--a Cheshire Cat,' said Alice: 'allow me to
introduce it.'

'I don't like the look of it at all,' said the King: 'however, it may
kiss my hand if it likes.'

'I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked.

'Don't be impertinent,' said the King, 'and don't look at me like that!'
He got behind Alice as he spoke.

'A cat may look at a king,' said Alice. 'I've read that in some book,
but I don't remember where.'

'Well, it must be removed,' said the King very decidedly, and he called
the Queen, who was passing at the moment, 'My dear! I wish you would
have this cat removed!'

The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small.
'Off with his head!' she said, without even looking round.

'I'll fetch the executioner myself,' said the King eagerly, and he
hurried off.

Alice thought she might as well go back, and see how the game was going
on, as she heard the Queen's voice in the distance, screaming with
passion. She had already heard her sentence three of the players to be
executed for having missed their turns, and she did not like the look
of things at all, as the game was in such confusion that she never knew
whether it was her turn or not. So she went in search of her hedgehog.

The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with another hedgehog, which seemed
to Alice an excellent opportunity for croqueting one of them with the
other: the only difficulty was, that her flamingo was gone across to the
other side of the garden, where Alice could see it trying in a helpless
sort of way to fly up into a tree.

By the time she had caught the flamingo and brought it back, the fight
was over, and both the hedgehogs were out of sight: 'but it doesn't
matter much,' thought Alice, 'as all the arches are gone from this side
of the ground.' So she tucked it away under her arm, that it might not
escape again, and went back for a little more conversation with her
friend.

When she got back to the Cheshire Cat, she was surprised to find quite a
large crowd collected round it: there was a dispute going on between
the executioner, the King, and the Queen, who were all talking at once,
while all the rest were quite silent, and looked very uncomfortable.

The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all three to settle
the question, and they repeated their arguments to her, though, as they
all spoke at once, she found it very hard indeed to make out exactly
what they said.

The executioner's argument was, that you couldn't cut off a head unless
there was a body to cut it off from: that he had never had to do such a
thing before, and he wasn't going to begin at HIS time of life.

The King's argument was, that anything that had a head could be
beheaded, and that you weren't to talk nonsense.

The Queen's argument was, that if something wasn't done about it in less
than no time she'd have everybody executed, all round. (It was this last
remark that had made the whole party look so grave and anxious.)

Alice could think of nothing else to say but 'It belongs to the Duchess:
you'd better ask HER about it.'

'She's in prison,' the Queen said to the executioner: 'fetch her here.'
And the executioner went off like an arrow.

 The Cat's head began fading away the moment he was gone, and,
by the time he had come back with the Duchess, it had entirely
disappeared; so the King and the executioner ran wildly up and down
looking for it, while the rest of the party went back to the game.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: At last, Alice finds herself in the garden that she has so long sought to explore. Far from being a wild Eden, though, the garden is well cultivated and tended. And now Alice meets a whole set of new creatures -- this time, several animated playing cards. Immediately, she finds out that the Spades are, of course, the gardeners. And in spite of the Eden-like appearance, the garden has an aspect of "fear" in the air. Alice overhears three gardeners -- the Two, the Five, and the Seven -- talking about the Queen's threat to behead the Seven of Spades. They are painting the white roses red, an ominous color in view of their discussion. Suddenly, the Queen and King of Hearts appear. They are followed by a suit of cards which represents the "royal retainers." The Clubs are the "police," the Diamonds are the "courtiers," and the Hearts make up the royal "peerage." The Queen sees Alice and the three Spade gardeners . The Queen asks Alice who the three cards are, and Alice replies tartly: "How should I know?" This flippant answer throws the Queen into a rage; instantly she explodes with her infamous and beastly command: "Off with her head!" "Nonsense," says Alice, very loudly. The frequency and roaring of the Queen's threats reveal the terrible rule underlying the world of Wonderland. Execution, or the threat of execution, is indiscriminately announced -- and canceled -- in whimsical moments, with automatic reprieves. One may be sentenced to death without having committed a crime -- indeed, without having received a verdict. In contradicting the Queen, Alice confronts the system of Wonderland directly, as a leading participant-actor; she is no longer a detached observer. Wonderland is now a world of cruelty, destruction, and annihilation, and Alice sees this, and already we can see the possibility of her emerging from it, smiling and unscathed. The Queen orders the gardeners to be executed. Alice manages to save their lives, however, by hiding them in a flower pot. There is more humor in the subsequent scenes. Note, too, that Wonderland is a "Queendom," instead of a Kingdom because the King is subordinate to the Queen. Now, familiar characters like the White Rabbit, the Duchess, and the Cheshire-Cat enter the croquet-garden. The croquet game again reverses the real-world division between life and inanimate objects as hedgehogs form the balls, the flamingoes the mallets, and the card-soldiers the hoops. The White Rabbit apprises Alice of her inherent danger in a whispered conversation. Even the Duchess, he says, is in jail under a sentence of execution for having boxed the Queen's ears. Alice learns all this but she seems not to be intimidated. In the next scene, the Cheshire-Cat demonstrates the violently repressive regime of Wonderland. Because the cat is impertinent to the King, it is sentenced to be beheaded. But only the cat's head has materialized so the decapitation cannot be performed. The failed execution marks the slow disintegration of Wonderland in Alice's estimation. Within the character of the cat, Alice recognizes a fair and open mind. But he is fair and open -- only to a limited degree. She tries to explain to the cat that the croquet game doesn't make sense because the game has "no rules." The cat, however, replies in such non-sequiturs as "How do you like the Queen?" Clearly, the cat can no more understand a game with no rules than he can understand a world where cats could not disappear and reappear in thin air. Alice mistakes the Cheshire-Cat for a friend and someone with whom she can relate on a real-world, logical level. Her assumption is wrong.