Alice in Wonderland: Character Parallels and Excellent Music

It's been two and a half years since Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland film adaptation came out, so this may seem a bit out of place.  I think about the randomest things, and while I was thinking about this during this week, I decided to write a blog post about it.


First, a recap for those who didn't see it.  MAJOR SPOILERS if you haven't seen it.  For my purposes, I'll be focusing more on characters than plot, but still.

The movie begins in late 19th century London, as Alice's father discusses a risky trade move with his business partners, but leaves to comfort Alice after she has one of her recurring dreams of the classic Alice in Wonderland adventures: falling down a rabbit hole, the white rabbit, and such.  He comforts her worries of madness with "I'm afraid so.  Mad.  Bonkers.  'Round the bend.  But I'll tell you a secret: all the best people are."  He started the "believe in six impossible things before breakfast" theme.

Fast-forward ten years, and Alice is a teen with a rebellious attitude ("What if it were agreed that 'proper' meant wearing a codfish on your head? Would you wear it?" "Alice..." "To me, a corset is like a codfish.").  Her father died during the interval.  Her mother conforms to societal norms and wants Alice to do the same, but loves Alice more than most.

Alice and her mother arrive at a party, where a middle-aged couple greet them.  The wife, Lady Ascot, an aggressive, controlling socialite, hates rabbits and despises the idea of ugly grandchildren.  The husband, Lord Ascot, was an old associate of Alice's father's and is far kindlier.

Twin girls at the party, last name Chattaway, spoil to Alice that the party is Alice's engagement party; the couple's unpleasant son, Hamish, will ask for her hand.  Alice's sister walks in, scolds the two for spoiling the surprise, and walks off, explaining to Alice that "Your life will be perfect.  It's already decided!"  A little while later, Alice walks in on her sister's husband, Lowell, kissing some girl behind a hedge.  He sweet-talks his way away, but Alice is unimpressed.  

The only remaining important characters before Wonderland are Hamish and Aunt Imogen.  Hamish is the son of the couple and heir to the title of Lord Ascot.  Hamish is spoiled, almost stupidly conformist, and missing on many social cues.  Aunt Imogen is an old maid, and when we see her she talks of her delusion that she's engaged to a prince.

That's all the "normal-life" characters.  

Follow the White Rabbit!  Does anyone else love the music that starts at 0:50?

The Wonderland characters are more well-known and need less introduction, so I'll use bullet points.

• The White Rabbit: even more nervous than traditional White Rabbit characters, and with more sense of propriety.
• Mallymkun:  The Dormouse.  In the same group as the Mad Hatter and March Hare, but has mad skills with her tiny rapier and quite a bit of attitude.  Starts the movie disliking Alice, but ends up as an ally.
• Absolem:  The Caterpillar.  (Voiced by Alan Rickman; all I could think the whole movie was "who transfigured Snape into a caterpillar?")  Less unpleasant than the original caterpillar; bristly, but intending to help Alice find herself by herself.
• Tweedledee and Tweedledum:  Twin boys, round and shy, who argue nonsensically and finish each other's sentences.
• Cheshire Cat: Same as usual.  "The Alice?" "There seems to be some debate about that." "I never get involved in politics." ...  "All this talk of blood and slaying has put me off my tea."
• The Mad Hatter: played by Johnny Depp, occasionally takes on a Scottish accent, repeatedly asks why a raven is like a writing desk, and recites the "Jabberwock" poem.  Alice's best ally in Wonderland.
• Bayard: a talking bloodhound prisoner of the Red Queen's.  She has his wife and pups, and falsely promises to set them all free if Bayard finds Alice.  This makes him do as she says, but his loyalty is to Wonderland.
• The White Queen: eccentric, graceful, slightly psycho.  Sort-of mentor to Alice, and sister of the Red Queen.
• The Red Queen: Helena Bonham Carter.  Who else could play the evil, petulant Red Queen?  "Off with his head!"
• The Knave: Knight and lover of the Red Queen (well, sort of), spearheading her reign of terror.  He has eyes for Alice more than for the Queen; guess what happens next.  In the end, when he is forced into exile with her, he tries to kill her, unsuccessfully.

So what's so special about all this?  I've always been intrigued by the implications of this line at the end, when Alice is confronting everyone at the party, to the Chattaway girls:

"You two remind me of some funny boys I met in a dream."

Spoilers again: It's all a dream. Not kidding. (I thought this was a strange choice on the part of the writers, but wwhatevver.)


Anyway, I have been wondering which Wonderland characters correspond to which Victorian characters. In some movies where it's All Just A Dream (or more commonly TV episodes) the same actors/actresses play the corresponding dream characters as play the real-life characters they take after, but this is not the case in Alice. So, I decided to puzzle this out for myself.

We can start with the Chattaway Sisters = Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Next, Lady Ascot is obviously the Red Queen. Her quotes, "I despise rabbits. I do enjoy setting the dogs on them," and "Imbeciles! I specifically asked for red roses!" make this obvious before Alice even goes down the rabbit hole.

The Mad Hatter is probably Alice's father.  He and his trade scheme were described as mad, and he told Alice that all the best people are.  It would make sense that the Mad Hatter, closest in Wonderland to Alice, would parallel the real-life character closest to her: her father.

Alice's mother is the white rabbit.  "You're not properly dressed" dialogue parallels the "You're not the real Alice" debate that permeates most of Alice's time in Wonderland.  Both the rabbit's and Alice's mother's sense of propriety further the parallel.

The Knave is Lowell, Alice's sister's cheating husband.  The Knave tries to seduce Alice, but when he fails, he tells the Red Queen that Alice did so to him.  Lowell was cheating on his wife, and when Alice runs in on them, the two have the following dialogue:

"She's an old friend."

"I can see you're very close."

"You won't tell Margaret, will you?"

"I don't know.  I'm confused."

"You wouldn't want to ruin our marriage, would you?"
"But I'm not the one sneaking around..."

Lowell's cheating and blaming it on Alice are very much like the Knave's attempting to cheat and blaming it on Alice.

(It could also be argued that the Knave is a darker, more competent Hamish.  His attraction to Alice, upholding of the Red Queen's reign, and status as her favorite could definitely be argued as parallel to Hamish's proposal to Alice, upholding of his mother's extreme Victorian values, and status as his mother's favorite; but since the Red Queen fancies the Knave, I don't think it would be ok to parallel the two to a mother and son. Squick.)

Absolem shows up at the end as a blue butterfly, proving that Alice isn't the only character who can travel between the two worlds.  (Ok, actually, it's probably just a blue butterfly that Alice says Hello to in order to prove to the audience that she remembers her time in Wonderland at all.  But I'm going to take the slightly more whimsical explanation.)

I'm not entirely sure about more than that.  Any suggestions from those who have seen the movie?  I'm still not sure about who the White Queen represents, if anyone.  Comment below!



And in a bit of an afternote: the music in this movie is excellent.  Say what you like about how well it stuck to the book, or whatever you want, but the music was awesome.  Just listen to the music in that video above.  Or, you could listen to one of these:

"Alice's Theme" Excellent.

"Going to Battle" Features a more dramatic, intense version of the main Alice theme.

"Alice Reprise #5" Alice's theme gets 5 reprises, and this is the fifth.