SOURCE: "Sanity, Madness and Alice," in Ariel: A Review of International English Literature, Vol. 4, No. 2, April, 1973, pp. 80-89.

In the following essay, Graham considers the function of the insanity theme in Alice.

One of the most interesting characters in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is the Cheshire Cat. Unlike most of the creatures, the Cheshire Cat is sufficiently detached from his environment to be able to comment, in a fast, facetious sort of way, on the characters who share Wonderland with him, and one of his more challenging comments in particular deserves attention.

He tells Alice that everybody in Wonderland is mad. The exchange occurs after Alice has left the Duchess's kitchen and has had her dream-like wrestle with the pig-baby. She sees the Cheshire Cat on the bough of a tree and asks it what sort of people live around here:

"In that direction," the Cat...