It is very amusing how Carroll used playing cards as members of a royal kingdom. It ties so well into the strange happenings of Wonderland. At the same time, playing cards also fit into our own world. They each have their own classes. Spades as gardeners, Clubs as soldiers, Diamonds are coutiers and the Hearts are the royal kingdom. The most interesting thing about is the fact that they remain adequatly with the behaviors of actual playing cards. Such as, they lie flat on their faces, they cannot be identified from their knacks, they are easily turned over, and they bend themselves into croquet arches.
The way they interact with each other is identified by what type of card they are. The Kings and Queens are the highest and give out orders. One of the Queens(Queen of Hearts) seems to have the most authority out of all the others. She has an unforgiving nature and is very unjust. If something displeases her she shouts, “Off with his/her head.”
The interaction between the playing cards expresses the way the social classes of our own world interact. Everyone inferior to the queen must obey her commands and please or. The lower classes like the gardeners don’t have much of say in anything. It was very interesting when Alice said, “A cat may look at a king.” According to the annotations, this shows the special privileges the lower classes have to their superiors in their presence.
Having playing cards act as a society shows that their is order in Wonderland. As we see all the crazy stuff that happens it does not seem like there could be any order. From what we know it is chaos all of the time. However, now we know there is some what of a civilization in Wonderland. Later in the story you will see the way the court system works.
Christian Long
Alex C.
Hagen F.
Erin M.
Rachel L.
There is such a thing as controlled chaos. Do you think that’s what Wonderland is all about? In our society, who do you equate with “Spades, Diamonds, Clubs and Hearts?” You raise some interesting points!