Lists of characters
The following is a list of main characters in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland .
- Alice
- Bill the Lizard
- Pat
- The Caterpillar
- The Cheshire Cat
- The Dodo
- The Dormouse
- The Duchess
- The Duck
- The Eaglet
- The Gryphon
- The Hatter
- The King of Hearts
- The Knave of Hearts
- The Lory
- The March Hare
- The Mock Turtle
- The Mouse
- The Puppy
- The Queen of Hearts
- The White Rabbit
Character allusions
In The Annotated Alice , Martin Gardner provides background information for the characters. The members of the boating party that first heard Carroll's tale show up in Chapter 3 ("A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale"):
- Alice Liddell (portrayed as the character Alice ) herself is there
- Carroll is caricatured as the Dodo (Dodgson stuttered when he spoke, and common lore suggests that he sometimes pronounced his last name as Dodo-Dodgson )
- The Duck refers to Canon Duckworth
- The Lory and Eaglet refer to Alice Liddell's sisters Lorina and Edith.
- Bill the Lizard may be a play on the name of British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. One of Tenniel's illustrations in Through the Looking-Glass — the 1871 sequel to Alice — depicts the character referred to as the "Man in White Paper" (whom Alice meets as a fellow passenger riding on the train with her) as a caricature of Disraeli, wearing a paper hat.
- The illustrations of the Lion and the Unicorn (also in Looking-Glass ) bear a striking resemblance to Tenniel's Punch illustrations of Gladstone and Disraeli.
- It has been suggested by some writers that The Hatter is a reference to Theophilus Carter, a furniture dealer known in Oxford. Tenniel apparently drew the Hatter to resemble Carter, on a suggestion of Carroll's. However, it is unlikely that Carter was the model for The Hatter, and there is no evidence that Carroll ever invited Tenniel to Oxford for any purpose.
- The Dormouse tells a story about three little sisters named Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie . These are the Liddell sisters: Elsie is L.C. (Lorina Charlotte), Tillie is Edith (her family nickname is Matilda), and Lacie is an anagram of Alice.
- The Mock Turtle speaks of a drawling-master, "an old conger eel" , who came once a week to teach "Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils". This is a reference to art critic John Ruskin, who came once a week to the Liddell house to teach the children drawing , sketching , and painting in oils . (The children did, in fact, learn well; Alice Liddell, for one, produced a number of skilful watercolours.)
