On the 160th Anniversary of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Part 1 - A Portrait of the White Rabbit

The narrative commences with the striking appearance of the White Rabbit, a moment that Alice perceives as extraordinary. After all, she has never encountered a rabbit sporting a pocket watch, let alone one adorned with a waistcoat! Intriguingly, Alice does not seem surprised by the Rabbit's ability to articulate coherent speech; it is the watch—an unmistakably human attribute—that truly captivates her attention.

Equipped with his watch and driven by a neurotic anxiety stemming from his obsession with time, the White Rabbit epitomizes the adult world—a technological domain fixated on time, where the measurement of time itself becomes a mechanism of coercion. Carroll conceived Alice during the initial stages of a profound technological boom, a period when human activities were increasingly dictated by the schedules of trains and the blaring of factory whistles. While the latter represented the reality of the working class, train timetables imposed their influence on society at large. Furthermore, the synchronization of timekeeping across various regions was not merely an innovation; it played a pivotal role in the formation of empires and the rhythm of their territorial expansions.

Mad Tea Party from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, John Tenniel.

It is noteworthy that mechanical clocks divide time into equal segments, which can be filled with disparate content. The distinction between working time and leisure time becomes stark. Factory work, characterized by its mechanical nature, contrasts sharply with creative labor, which occupies the entirety of human existence. Mechanical labor reduces the worker to a mere cog in a machine, commencing and ceasing not according to the completion of tasks or the worker’s fatigue, but in response to external signals.

This relentless adherence to schedules imbues the Mad Hatter’s words with profound significance: some individuals manage to negotiate with Time, underscoring its inherently social nature. He muses, “If you hadn’t quarreled with Time, you could ask him to do anything you liked. Suppose it were nine o’clock in the morning, time to begin lessons: you’d only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!”

The White Rabbit embodies the constructs of time and social order. His existence is reduced to an automated routine. As a courtier, he is ensnared in rigid ceremonial rituals. A delay in arriving for a palace ceremony could result in dire consequences, as indicated by his watch predicting a potential execution by the Duchess for tardiness. In this world, the gravest transgression is to fall out of sync with the established timetable.

Such stringent adherence to a rigid schedule exacts a toll on the White Rabbit’s psyche. His behavior vividly illustrates the enslavement by time: one does not possess time, even with a gold watch perpetually tucked in a vest pocket; rather, time possesses you. He is a conformist devolved into a complete neurotic.

Remarkably, his neurosis is most evident during moments of respite. In casual attire, the White Rabbit appears flustered and clumsy, dropping everything he attempts to grasp. It is only when he dons his (pseudo-)medieval garb that he transforms into the noble courtier, dutifully advising the King and overseeing trials. Despite being a conservative reformer against his will, the Rabbit finds solace in the absurdity of ritual and tradition that pervades Wonderland.

P.S. In the case of the White Rabbit, the watch serves as a tangible embodiment of the concept of time itself. Ultimately, he becomes a slave not to time as an abstract notion but to the watch as an object—a mechanism dictating his existence.