Alice's Tea In The Kitchen Rhetorical Analysis

After encountering the Hatter, Alice joins him and his party for a tea where food makes an appearance. Alice is notably angry at the hatter since she speaks “angrily” and “with some severity” (Carroll 52-53). Her frustration with the Hatter and his tea resulted in her need to rely on food as a solution. While facing the confusing structure of this tea, Alice relies on the one thing that has carried her throughout her journey thus far: food. No one offers Alice food, and “Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself to some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and repeated her question” (Carroll 57). Though the food in this instance does not provide her the same results as the other food she has eaten in Wonderland, she unconsciously ate her food because she has been conditioned to eat food as a means to continue on her journey and move past obstacles. The eating of this “tea and bread-and-butter” symbolizes Alice’s transformation to being reliant on food and her evolution from eating based on command to eating as an automatic response to trouble.

When Alice first encountered food in Wonderland, it appeared out of no where and commanded she consume it. Now, Alice not only eats the food without a direct command but also secretly carries the food with her in her pocket. The food of Wonderland has developed a deeper relationship with Alice and no longer has to directly speak to her for it to impact her decisions and direction when traveling in Wonderland. However, as Alice runs out of mushroom and begins to grow without any food to control it, her journey in Wonderland is ended, and she is sent back her