In English, chasing a white rabbit means to chase the impossible, a fantasy, a dream. In 1967, the rock band Jefferson Airplane wrote a song. The White Rabbit is a major character from Disney 's 1951 animated film Alice in Wonderland. He is an anthropomorphic rabbit that serves as the Queen of Hearts 's royal herald, an obligation to which he is often late.
Summary
The White Rabbit approaches Alice, looking for his glovesand fan. Alice searches dutifully but cannot find them. The WhiteRabbit mistakes Alice for his housemaid, Mary Ann, and commandsher to go to his house and fetch his things. Startled by the Rabbit’s demands,Alice obeys and soon finds his house. As she walks, she thinks abouthow strange it is to take orders from animals and imagines thather cat Dinah might start ordering her around when she gets backhome. Inside of the house, she finds the gloves and fan, as wellas a little bottle labeled “DRINK ME.” Curious to find out whatthe contents of the bottle will do, Alice drinks the liquid. Beforeshe can finish, she begins growing rapidly and can barely fit inthe room. Her arm dangles from a window and her foot becomes wedgedin the chimney.
Alice decides that her adventures are like a fairy taleand imagines writing her own stories once she grows up. Given hernew size, she reasons that perhaps she has in fact grown up andwill never age. The White Rabbit interrupts her train of thoughtby calling for his fan and gloves. He tries to storm into the house,but Alice’s giant arm prevents the door from opening. The Rabbittries to climb through the window, but Alice bats him away withher giant hand. The Rabbit calls out for his servant, Pat, and thetwo begin to plot a way to deal with Alice when she swats them awayagain. The Rabbit and Pat recruit another servant, a lizard namedBill, to climb down the chimney, but Alice launches him into theair with her foot. A crowd gathered outside calls to burn down thehouse. Alice threatens to send Dinah to get them and they beginhurling pebbles through the window at her face. The pebbles transforminto cakes, and reasoning that the cakes might cause her to becomesmaller, Alice eats one and shrinks. She leaves the house and encountersa mob of animals ready to rush her.
Alice flees and heads into a wood where she thinks abouthow she might return to her normal size and find the garden. A sharpbark causes her to look up at an enormous puppy standing over her. Afraidit might be hungry, Alice tires it out by teasing it with a stick. Shethen sets off, wondering what she might eat or drink to return to heroriginal height. She comes across a giant mushroom and climbs tothe top, discovering a blue caterpillar smoking a hookah with an airof indifference.
Analysis
The White Rabbit’s status as an authority figure forcesAlice to adjust her perception that humans sit at the top of theanimal hierarchy. Alice wonders if her experiences in Wonderlandwill affect the way she conducts herself when she gets back home,since she imagines that she will have to start taking orders fromher cat Dinah. Alice accepts the inversion of the natural orderwith the same faith that she might accept new information in hernormal day-to-day life. Wonderland breaks down Alice’s beliefs abouther identity and replaces those learned beliefs and understandingsof the world with Wonderland’s nonsensical rules. Alice understandsthis identity displacement in terms of a fairy tale. She states,“When I used to read fairy tales, I fancied that kind of thing neverhappened, and now here I am in the middle of one!” Fiction has intrudedon her own sense of reality, and she finds herself unable to keepthe two separate. Alice is no longer the Alice she knew at homeand is not altogether sure of who she is anymore.
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Alice continues to have problems with her size, whichexacerbates her confusion over her identity and once again alludesto the painful transition from childhood to adulthood. In Chapter1, her changing size became a source of anxiety for Alice, revealingher desire to remain a child and avoid the pressures of adulthood.In this chapter, she identifies as a growing girl too large to beshut in by forces that seek to constrict and repress her. The focuson physical space in Chapter 4 emphasizes a child’s emerging feelingsof claustrophobia as he or she grows and changes. The house represents domesticrepression, an idea underscored by the fact that Alice enters itas a servant girl. When Alice literally outgrows the house, herbody manifests her desire to transcend the boundaries of her confinedexistence.
When Alice meets the puppy, she finally discovers a Wonderland creaturethat behaves in a way that she expects. Unlike the other creaturesAlice encounters in Wonderland, the puppy behaves the way a puppywould in the real world. Alice isn’t the only one who recognizesthis aberration in the logic of Wonderland. In a later chapter,the Cheshire Cat tries to prove to Alice that it is “mad” by comparingitself to a dog, which it views as being quite normal. The factthat the dog is the only thing in Wonderland that resembles Alice’sreality at home may be a function of the fact that Carroll hateddogs. Carroll reveals his disdain for canines by giving the dog noneof the magical qualities of the other animals in Wonderland.
In the book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the white
rabbit's name is White Rabbit. His house even has a brass plaque
'with the name `W. RABBIT' engraved upon it.'
In Disney's 1951 animated film he is also referred to
exclusively as the White Rabbit or Mr Rabbit, but in Tim Burton's
2010 film, he has been named Sir Nivens McTwisp.
(People sometimes think that the March Hare, who was at the mad
tea party, is a rabbit, but hares and rabbits are actually
different animals, though very similar. In the book he is called
March Hare, but Tim Burton has named him Thackery Earwicket.)