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. Suddenly their eyes chanced to fall upon Alice, as
she stood watching them. "Would you tell me, please," 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, with their hands and feet at the
corners: next the ten courtiers; these were ornamented all over with
diamonds. After these came the royal children; there were ten of them,
all ornamented with hearts. Next came the guests, mostly Kings and
Queens, and among them Alice recognized the White Rabbit. 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 THE
QUEEN OF HEARTS.

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.

"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!"

"Can you play croquet?" shouted the Queen. The question was evidently
meant for Alice.

"Yes!" said Alice loudly.

"Come on, then!" roared the Queen.

"It's--it's a very fine day!" said a timid voice to Alice. 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. "She's under sentence of execution."

"What for?" said Alice.

"She boxed the Queen's ears--" the Rabbit began.

"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 croquet balls were live
hedgehogs, and the mallets live flamingos and the soldiers had to double
themselves up and stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches.

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.

"They're dreadfully fond of beheading people here," thought Alice; "the
great wonder is that there's anyone left alive!"

She was looking about for some way of escape, when she noticed a curious
appearance in the air. "It's the Cheshire-Cat," she said to herself;
"now I shall have somebody to talk to."

"How are you getting on?" said the Cat.

"I don't think they play at all fairly," Alice said, in a rather
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."

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

"Not at all," said Alice.


Alice thought she might as well go back and see how the game was going
on. So she went off 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. She caught the flamingo and tucked it away under
her arm, that it might not escape again.

Just then Alice ran across the Duchess (who was now out of prison). She
tucked her arm affectionately into Alice's and they walked off together.
Alice was very glad to find her in such a pleasant temper. She was a
little startled, however, when she heard the voice of the Duchess close
to her ear. "You're thinking about something, my dear, and that makes
you forget to talk."

"The game's going on rather better now," Alice said, by way of keeping
up the conversation a little.

"'Tis so," said the Duchess; "and the moral of that is--'Oh, 'tis love,
'tis love that makes the world go 'round!'"

"Somebody said," Alice whispered, "that it's done by everybody minding
his own business!"

"Ah, well! It means much the same thing," said the Duchess, digging her
sharp little chin into Alice's shoulder, as she added "and the moral of
_that_ is--'Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of
themselves.'"

To Alice's great surprise, the Duchess's arm that was linked into hers
began to tremble. Alice looked up and there stood the Queen in front of
them, with her arms folded, frowning like a thunderstorm!

"Now, I give you fair warning," shouted the Queen, stamping on the
ground as she spoke, "either you or your head must be off, and that in
about half no time. Take your choice!" The Duchess took her choice, and
was gone in a moment.

"Let's go on with the game," the Queen said to Alice; and Alice was too
much frightened to say a word, but slowly followed her back to the
croquet-ground.

All the time they were playing, the Queen never left off quarreling with
the other players and shouting, "Off with his head!" or "Off with her
head!" By the end of half an hour or so, all the players, except the
King, the Queen and Alice, were in custody of the soldiers and under
sentence of execution.

Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, and walked away with
Alice.

Alice heard the King say in a low voice to the company generally, "You
are all pardoned."

Suddenly the cry "The Trial's beginning!" was heard in the distance, and
Alice ran along with the others.

 Alice comes into the garden and discovers that it is the Queen's garden. There she finds several playing-card-shaped men painting the Queen's white roses red. This is because they accidentally planted a white rose bush instead of a red one. Symbol Alert! Many scholars have been concerned with the literal symbolism of this scene. That is, they take this scene as a reference to the War of the Roses, a powerful conflict in British history between the Lancastrian Family and the York Family . Thus, the Lancastrian Queen is driving out the York roses as a statement of her power. ACCCSounds good, and in some sense it is true, but what could it possibly have to do with Alice and her quest for adulthood? A popular Freudian argument makes sense of this scene in the following manner: the Queen is aging and therefore waning in her power . At the same time, Alice is waxing, growing to adulthood, fertility and beauty. As a mother dies, so the daughter rises to take her place. Red here, then, is a symbol of menstrual blood. That is, it is a symbol of youthful vigor in much the same way as red lipstick or heavy rouge on the cheeks. The Queen is vainly fighting against the power of time. I choose this argument because it fits much better in the overall argument of the novel. It deals with the downside of growing up: growing OLD. Also, it places Alice in a larger context of adulthood, which is that older adults resent the vigor of younger adults and children, thus presenting a whole new level of complexity to the problem of politeness. Unlike madmen like the Hatter and the Hare, Alice cannot overcome time, cannot freeze time, so she has to realize that when she grows up, someone else is growing old, and when she grows old, someone else has to die. All that in a little bit of red paint on a white rose. White flowers, the flowers of a funeral. The flowers of death. Anyway, Alice's meeting with the gardeners is cut short by the appearance of the Queen and her court. Alice does not lay down like the other subjects and thus attracts the attention of the Queen. Alice introduces herself, but privately realizes that she need not be afraid because the court is only a pack of cards. Alice speaks corageously to the Queen and the Queen demands that her head be lopped off for the offense against civility. Nonsense! Alice cries. The Queen seems to forget Alice at this, and the King thinks it is because Alice is only a child. In fact it is because Alice is an adult with some sense. That is, Alice has realized that civility cuts both ways. You must be polite to a degree that is appropriate, but you must not become such a slave to civility that you forget your own humanity. The Queen is such a slave to civility that any offense, in her eyes, should receive the penalty of death. There is a comment here, perhaps, on the reason that people become more conservative as they grow older. The Queen, feeling her body grow old and weak is trying to assert her power by more forcefully enforcing civility. The irony, as we shall see, is that she has grown progressively more and more Uncivil in the process. Notice that the Queen only shouts, she never speaks. Loudly, the Queen invites Alice to a game of Croquet. The game turns out to be, rather than a game with no rules, a game with TOO many complications. Live flamingoes for mallets, live hedgehogs for balls, bent over soldiers for arches, nothing but ridges and furrows on the ground, and everyone must play at once without waiting for turns. Alice finds here the opposite but equal problem of the Caucus Race. That is, with too many complications and with a Mad Queen seeking to enforce fatally every minor indiscretion, one is as immobilized as if there were no rules at all. Either way, there is hardly any point in playing at all. With no rules, everyone wins but the winning is meaningless. With too many rules and a cruel enforcement, everyone is sure to lose and then die! Just as Alice was beginning to realize her problem she saw the Cheshire Cat slowly fading into view. The cat is pleasantly impertinent to the king and Alice notes that a cat may look at a king, so he isn't being uncivil. At this point, though, the King and Queen call for the cat's head to be chopped off. Alice departed for a moment to continue with the game only to return to find the executioner, the King and the Queen all arguing around the cat about something. They each tried to get Alice to settle the dispute. The executioner refused to cut off the cat's head because he had no body. The King said that anything with a head could be beheaded. The Queen said that the whole matter had better be settled or everyone would be killed. Alice replied that the cat belonged to the Duchess . Then the party dissolved in disarray because the cat faded out of view. Ultimately, this chapter sets up a sort of endgame between Sensibility and the twin forces of Nonsense, that is Too Many Rules, and Too Few.

