Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

When Alice arrives at the March Hare’s house, there is a tea party underway. The Hare, the Hatter, and the Dormouse are crowded together at the end of a long table. When Alice approaches, the cry “No room!” though most of the table is empty (89). Their conversation is argumentative from the beginning. The Hare offers Alice wine, though there isn’t any, and the Hatter tells her that her hair needs cutting. Alice reminds him not to make personal comments and tells the Hare it was uncivil to offer wine when it had none.

The Hatter replies with the now-famous riddle: Why is a raven like a writing desk? (91). Alice believes she can guess the answer. When Alice says that saying what she means is the same as meaning what she says, they begin a conversation about syntactical logic. They contend that her phrases are not equivalent and give other examples, such as “I see what I eat” being the same as “I eat what I see” (91). The conversation further pushes the limits of sense and turns logic into a game of words, rather than an absolute standard for reasoning.

In this passage, Carroll makes the distinction between words and sense, meaning and language: “The Hatter’s remark seemed [to Alice] to have no sort of meaning, and yet it was certainly English” (93).