SOURCE: Irwin, Michael. “Alice: Reflections and Relativities.” In Rereading Victorian Fiction, edited by Alice Jenkins and Juliet John, pp. 115-28. Houndmills, England: Palgrave, 2000.

In the following essay, Irwin explores the theme of instability in the Alice stories.

The Alice books are centrally concerned with instability. In Wonderland the heroine suffers alarming shifts of size. In Through the Looking-Glass (1871) there is much straightforward physical disequilibrium. When the White Knight is sliding down the poker Alice notes that ‘he balances very badly’.¹ He and the Red Knight repeatedly fall off their horses. Humpty-Dumpty is doomed to tumble from his wall and defy re-assemblage. In both stories there are strange translations and dissolutions. The Cheshire Cat vanishes and reappears. A baby becomes a pig. The White Queen turns into a sheep, the Red Queen into a kitten. Everyday assumptions about the workings of time, direction, language and personal identity are called...