What do a Hatter, a Dormouse, and a March Hare Have in Common?

While reading the Victorian-Age book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,  we were exposed to a multitude of “mad” scenes and settings. The book follows the journey of Alice, a young girl sitting at the edge of a body of water with her sister, as she travels through the landscape of her vivid dream world. She experiences a multitude of encounters with tricky riddles, seemingly insane characters, and unwelcoming attitudes. As she travels through this world which she perceives as reality, she progressively learns more about it. Almost every individual she interacts with receives her with a rude demeanor, giving the story a curious and melancholy background. As the last chapter closes, Alice wakes up with her head laying on her sister’s lap, realizing that the adventure was nothing but a dream. 

We chose to write a letter from the Hatter to each of the member’s at his tea party. Consequently, the first letter to Alice is based off of Chapter VII of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, A Mad Tea-Party. In this chapter the Hatter explains to Alice “If you knew Time as well as I do… you wouldn’t talk about wasting it. It’s him.” (Carroll ch 7).  Furthermore, he says that if Alice had a positive relationship with Time, he would act in her favor. Based upon this interaction, we created a letter that displays the Hatter’s possible anger with Alice for upsetting Time, which is passing so slowly during the Victorian Era pandemic. The second letter is addressed to the Dormouse, who was also at the “Mad Tea-Party.” We based this letter on the main characteristic of the Dormouse, which is his constant drowsiness and abrupt napping. During this chapter, the Dormouse falls asleep umpteen times, almost as if he is narcoleptic. Finally, the last letter is made out to the March Hare, the third and final guest at the Hatter’s tea party. The March Hare is the seemingly most ordinary character in the group, conversating in a way that makes more sense than the others. He seems to be quite friendly with the Hatter, making him, in our minds, the Hatter’s friend. In one part of the chapter, The Hatter reminisces with the March Hare of how they angered time by saying, “We quarrelled last March–just before he went mad, you know–’ (pointing with his tea spoon at the March Hare,)” (Carroll ch 7). As the chapter closes, Carroll leaves us with a description of the Hatter and the March Hare trying to put the sleeping dormouse into a teapot. 

5th March, 1866

Dear Alice, 

This pandemic is going to drive me absolutely mad! But, like the Cheshire Cat says, “we’re all mad here” (Carroll ch 7). Time and I are going to have a ruckus the next time I see him. I haven’t even been able to have my tea parties. I watch as tea time passes by every day while I sit at my tea table alone. My friends, the March Hare and the Dormouse, are off in their own corners of wonderland, far away from myself and time. Perhaps you have upset time again, for he seems to be passing ever so slowly these days.  I’m sure you can tell just how boring my days have become, considering I’m writing to you at all. Anyways, I will work on a few new riddles to write to you in my next letter, pointless as you may find them. 

Stay Mad, 

The Hatter

12th March, 1866

Dear Dormouse, 

I’m sure you’re happily sleeping away this dreadful quarantine, but it has become quite tiresome to me. I do miss tea time with you and March Hare even though you slept through the best of it! You almost missed the meeting of the very odd Alice last year as I recall. Ah! That reminds me, how is an octopus like a lamp? 

I wish you were here to entertain my tea parties with your delightful stories, between your incessant napping, of course. Really, the company of anyone would be nice right about now, even that dreadful Alice. Who can understand anything she says when she won’t even  say what she means? 

Don’t sleep your life away, Dormouse. Alas, there is not much to do around here these days anyways. 

 Stay Mad,

The Hatter

20th March, 1866

Dear March Hare, 

Oh, how I miss our little talks of things that seem to make no sense. I would say I’ve had so much time on my hands, but my relationship with time is so brittle he might become even angrier with me. I’ve been thinking so much that I even thought of an answer to one of my own riddles the other day! I really do miss having you around to help me wake up the dormouse. What a dreadful sight it was watching him fall asleep in the middle of telling us a story.

That poor girl Alice surely got a rude impression of him, but she was quite rude herself! She kept asking him questions such as, “But why did they live at the bottom of the well?” (Carroll ch 7). Who asks such pointless things when being told a story? Alas, I have not much room to talk myself, as I quite often find myself asking people to solve riddles that I don’t know the answer to myself. It is quite funny if you sit and ponder about it. Of course, that is all I have to do these days. Stay safe my friend. I hope to have you back at my never-ending tea party soon.

Stay Mad, 

The Hatter

Works Cited

Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. 1865. Project Gutenberg, 

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11/11-h/11-h.htm. Accessed 29 April 2020.

The Evils on the Sea

The ballad, “The Daemon-lover” and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” share an overall common theme as well as many smaller parallels. “The Daemon-lover” tells the tale of a woman who is seduced by a seafaring demon who convinced her to leave her husband and two children to sail the sea with him. It is only later when she realizes he has lied to her about having seven ships, among other things, that she discovers the seaman is a demon. The demon sinks her into the sea at the end of the ballad. Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” tells the story of a man who unwittingly killed an albatross. His fellow seamen explain this is bad luck and hang the albatross from his neck. After the albatross falls into the sea his crewmates die, the ship sinks, and the mariner is doomed to tell his tale forever. The most prominent parallel between these two writings is the moral of the story; those who act selfishly and hastily must endure the inevitable repercussions.

The title characters from both “The Daemon-lover” and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” have a distinct moment of self realization. Both of these moments include the sudden awareness of a demonic or cursed occurrence. This moment can be seen in “The Daemon-lover” when the ballad says “she espied his cloven foot, and she wept quite bitterlie” (38). The mariner’s point of realization can be seen in the quote “instead of the cross, the Albatross about my neck was hung” (Coleridge, 42). These two quotes both depict the title character realizing they have gone terribly wrong. They realize that they have gotten themselves into a demonic situation and there is no way to get out of it. The characters from both texts are now doomed to suffer the consequences they have brought upon themselves.

The repercussions of their actions would be colossal. In “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” the aftereffects of killing the albatross are more slow-moving than those of “The Daemon-lover”, but still ever impending. The mariner’s crewmates begin to get sick and die off. Then suddenly they approach a boat and “It reached the ship, it split the bay; the ship went down like lead” (Coleridge, 462). Similarly, the title character of “The Daemon-lover” is sunken into the sea by the demon. This can be seen at the very end of the ballad when “he brake that gallant ship in twain, and sank her in the sea” (39). It is implied that the character from “The Daemon-lover” has died, while it is apparent that the mariner lives on as he is telling his story in the past tense to a room full of wedding guests. Despite this similarity, they both brought bad omens onto themselves and suffered terrible consequences due to their own irresponsibility and narcissism.

The strongest parallel between “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and “The Daemon-lover” is the overall moral of the story. The fact that both writings include a moment of self realization and similar repercussions builds on this idea. The two texts display supernatural activity in a similar fashion, while also shedding new light on the concept in each one. The supernatural activity in “The Daemon-lover” is more explicit, but it is also heavily implied in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

Works Cited

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” The Norton Anthology of British Literature: The Romantic Period. 10th ed. Stephen Greenblatt, General Editor. W. W. Norton, 2017. Pp. 448-64

“The Daemon-lover.” The Norton Anthology of British Literature: The Romantic Period. 10th ed. Stephen Greenblatt, General Editor. W. W. Norton, 2017. Pp. 37-39. 

The Juxtaposition of Life and Death

William Blake, plate 1, copy D, of “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” (1790-1793) / W.W. Norton

This painting by William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, depicts people dancing, birds soaring, and overall lighthearted gleeful actions. All of this is painted on top of a bleak background. At the bottom of the painting you can see what is perceived as an angel and a devil interlocked representing the union of Heaven and Hell. The title of the painting can be clearly seen written across the canvas which helps to exemplify the juxtaposition of the lighthearted aspects with the sinister, hellish aspects of the painting.

At first glance, comparison between Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and Shelley’s Frankenstein may seem unlikely. In Shelley’s introduction she reflects on her hometown in Scotland. She describes her residence on “the blank and dreary northern shores” which could easily be compared to the blankness and dreariness of the background of Blake’s painting. However, she then proceeds to reflect upon the “aerie of freedom” and “pleasant”ness of these same shores. This shows that just because something, a landscape, a painting, virtually anything, may appear to be one way at first, if you look deeper there may be more there. Neither of these things are simply good or bad, holy or evil. This same tone can be seen throughout the rest of Shelley’s book as well.

Works Cited

Blake, William. Plate 1, Copy D of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period. 10th ed. Stephen Greenblatt, General Editor. W. W. Norton, 2018. C3.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818, 1831. Introduction and Notes by Karen Karbiener. Barnes and Noble, 2003.

Writing Throughout A Semester

During my spring semester of college English 111, taken as only a sophomore in high school, my most prominent work was the one I least expected, my literacy narrative. When I was assigned this essay, fairly early in the semester, I immediately felt bogged down by stress and worries, worries that my story of learning to read and write would be a great bore, that my writing wouldn’t meet college-level expectations, or that maybe I wasn’t even a good writer after all. I addressed this same feeling in my literacy narrative as I discussed that since “others have labeled me as the smart kid… I must also be a good writer.” As this pressure began to weigh on me once again it launched my journey all the way back to kindergarten, where my narrative would begin.

Those worries ended up being only a fleeting emotion and my nerves began to settle. Soon after, I began searching my memory for my earliest recollection of reading and writing. My mother told me stories of my early writing experiences and the story began to fall into place. However, as I wrote the beginnings of my narrative, it became apparent that it would be an unpleasant endeavor to write more than a hundred words or so. I pushed through and wrote the whole paper, five hundred words. No matter how bleak it may have been, it was finished.

Then, I threw it away. It seemed unbearable to me that my childhood writing experiences were so painfully bland. I recall a line from Write or Wrong Identity, one of the first literacy narratives I had ever read. It perfectly describes how I felt in the moment; I was upset with myself and trying to “suppress that horrifying suspicion” that I was “actually not a writer at all” (74). Luck was in my favor that next week. My friend’s mother, who happened to be a teacher at my old elementary school, asked if I would be interested in volunteering at the school. I said yes, thinking nothing of my narrative at the time. Even as I walked through the glass doors and down my old hallways it still had not occurred to me what great fortune it was I was there that day. Finally, as I stepped into my old kindergarten classroom, it came to me. I knew exactly what I was going to write about; I knew I had a lot to say. After I returned home, I wrote down my idea as quickly as possible so as not to forget it. This second story flowed much easier, and I knew I could be confident in my writing. I can reflect upon one of the lines of my literacy narrative that was most important to me. I explained to the upcoming class that “writing would be a struggle, but not to be discouraged because after a while it wasn’t so hard anymore.” After writing my own narrative I realized that I should take my own advice into consideration and not feel so much pressure every time I was given a writing assignment.

Before taking this class those early memories of reading and writing rarely ever crossed my mind. In fact, those memories were so faded and forgotten that I’m sure I will never remember them all. Writing that narrative forced me to think about how my beginnings with the written word led to where I am now. It made me think about the journey, how much I have grown as a writer, and how I should be proud of my writing abilities. Over the span of this eighteen-week course. I have grown more confident in my writing, which I believe makes my writing even stronger, and it all started with one literacy narrative.

Works Cited

Vallowe, Emily. Write or Wrong Identity. The Norton Field Guide to Writing with Readings and

Handbook. 4th ed., by Richard Bullock, Maureen Daly Goggin, and Francine Weinberg,

2016, pp. 73-79

LRU, Welcoming or Unaccepting?

College advertisements are directed toward upcoming students; they are meant to appear welcoming and homey. Lenoir-Rhyne University takes a similar approach in their advertisement, published in Our State magazine. The advertisement, titled “With Sophistication, Style, and Southern Charm LRU welcomes you,” depicts well-dressed students mingling on the university’s beautiful sunny campus. This advertisement seems to have all the right details, but it may actually discourage prospective students from applying to or attending this university.

Lenoir-Rhyne flaunts the idea of having an appealing, admirable community, from their students to their studies. The ad claims that the “students at Lenoir-Rhyne University bring a sense of style as polished as our programs of study” (1). The photo shows two groups of students chatting outside on a nice clear day. Three females appear in this photo, all donned in pale blue dresses cut just above the knee and beige heel or wedge shoes. The males wear blue shirts and tan shoes. Lenoir-Rhyne hopes to promote class and sophistication by styling the students in such a fashion or manner, however; these appearances may discourage students who cannot personally relate to this ad. The sophistication of the clothes these young people are wearing invites a wealthy, haughty perspective of the school. Most college students today are looking for an easy-going, laid back environment where they can be accepted for their true personality. In fact, a lot of teenagers go to college to escape the strict, firm hand and high expectations of their parent’s households. So, while this ad may appear pleasantly intriguing to highschool students’ parents or grandparents it depicts quite the opposite of what many students are actually looking for in a college.

In further hopes of portraying a welcoming environment Lenoir-Rhyne strategically places the student models to create the idea of “a close knit community” (1). The students appear to be deep in thought and conversation with one another. However, a viewer cannot help but notice the failed attempt to portray diversity in the community. Out of the five students in the photo, four are Caucasian while the single African-American appears strategically placed in the center of the photo, as to catch the viewer’s eye. This may seem like enough diversity to a few average Caucasians, but there needs to be a lot more diversity before this advertisement can appeal to everyone. There needs to be a representation for multiple, or even better, all, races, not just two. It is truly astonishing that there are five official races and only two are pictured in this advertisement.

So, while this advertisement may seem innocently inviting at first glance, it portrays a long ingrained idea of superiority of rich and white privilege, especially in the south. The idea of “southern charm” may sound appealing to some, the south has a pernicious history toward anyone of color or of low class. This advertisement plays right along with that prejudice, thus discouraging many prospective students. The creator of this advertisement should consider including more diversity and try to appeal to people of all social statuses.

Works Cited

Lenoir-Rhyne U. Advertisement. Our State, Aug. 2015, p. 1.


My Writing Journey

I remember sitting on the colored block rug in Mrs. Chapman’s kindergarten classroom. The blocks were assigned by last name, so I always had a red or orange block. Each morning I would sit on my block and attempt to read my favorite book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. I didn’t know all of the words but I was still determined to read it every morning. After reading time was over, the teacher’s assistant, Mrs. Gant, gathered us all on the rug to go over our letter of the day, sing the alphabet, and recite our numbers.

After I learned how to read, I began drawing pictures which I would then write short captions to. I called them my “short stories” and forced my family to read them. My mom still has every single one of them in a container somewhere. They were typically about things that were very familiar to me, such as my family or my pets. I never got any criticism on my writing as a child, so whenever I started writing academically it was a bit of a shock for me. I did not receive constructive criticism very well and would feel like a failure if I didn’t do well on a paper. My last year of elementary school, I’m in Mrs. Ingle’s english classroom. This room is vastly different from the now foreign kindergarten classroom I once began my journey of writing in. The walls closed in, the tables got smaller, and the classes got harder. As I began writing my first real academic essay I struggled with structure, vocabulary, and content. It wasn’t a hard task. Write a short essay on a given topic and integrate personal experience. However, I worked very hard on it and when I was finished it still was not as good as I had hoped it would be. Mrs. Ingle called me over to “edit” my essay where she then seemed to completely change everything I had written. Even so, she assured me that I had done a great job for this to be my first essay. This gave me some hope for writing in the future. At the end of that school year we wrote letters to the upcoming 5th graders. I remember writing that writing would be a struggle, but not to be discouraged because after a while it wasn’t so hard anymore.

Ever since that year, and even before, others have labeled me as the smart kid, thus I must also be a good writer. I must admit that I have felt this pressure with every paper I have written since. Each beginning and ending I write or type is carefully edited and harshly criticized by myself. Writing has definitely become a lot easier for me, but I will always struggle with the identity of being a “good” writer.

A rough draft of my literacy narrative on paper.

family food.

My family has been a line of good cooks. From my classic southern grandma, making delicious buttery meals and scrumptiously sweet desserts to my own mom following in her footsteps. 27 years ago my grandma decided to follow her dreams and open her own restaurant. She found a building and business for sale and decided to go for it. My mom began helping her out at age 13 and and persevered through every struggle life threw at her. After the birth of her 2 children and the death of her mother she continued to put in hard work everyday to grow this business her mom had started. Ever since I can remember I’ve worked there over the summers and any other day off school, when my grandma was there and even after she wasn’t. So it was almost inevitable that this would become my favorite restaurant. As I’ve grown I have watched the menu continuously expand so my favorite food has been everchanging.

I can’t wait to see what my mom does with her business and how it will continue to grow. I’m excited to try every new recipe she comes up with and find new foods I love along the way.