In chapter 7 Alice comes across a tea party being held by the Marsh Hare and the Hatter. She became interested and decided to join them. The very first thing she says to them is that it was rude to offer her wine when there wasn’t any.
Now if you look at the situation Alice is being very hypocritical because she came over to their table and just sat down without being invited or asking. The Hare points it out to her that she was being rude by sitting down without an invitation, and she immediately defends herself saying she wasn’t aware it was their table. Even though it should not matter at all.
As Alice goes through Wonderland she becomes less of the well-mannered, well-behaved girl she started off being. As she starts her adventure she is thinking everything instead of saying it out loud. At the tea party she first slips up and speaks her thought out loud.
From this point on, she says more of what she thinks without thinking it over. At first, it doesn’t really make a difference to her, but as she continues it starts to get her into more and more trouble. For example with the Queen of Hearts in the croquet game.
Darcy S.
Connor S.
Devon H.
Morgan P.
Scott Mitchell
Alice's Pack of Cards 
Interesting observation about Alice’s changes (evolution?) as a character. Do you note similar changes in other characters? How does Alice’s presence influence or impact the world of Wonderland and its denizens?
At the heart of the tea party exchange, it seems to me, is the matter of manners and society—and constructions of “proper” vs. “rude” behavior. Manners are rules, or at least guidelines, but to what end? Whose? Devon (and commenters), I find it interesting that your discussion centers on Alice, and how her apparent rudeness reflects on her moral character (her evolving “brattiness”), and the reader’s conclusions about her. Morgan, your culture-shock analogy to visiting a foreign place is relevant and illuminating. I’d be curious to see how you’d extend this discussion to take on the question of manners, and what Alice’s struggles suggest about etiquette, rules, norms, and all the stuff of society.
I too agree, there began the Wonderland Alice. It is indeeed hypocritical of her to sit at the table, it seems pretty clear that it is indeed their table since they’re sitting at it. She is a child after all, her mother isn’t there to tell her to keep her manners. In the beginning, she did not fall down the rabbit hole, she hopped in to chase the rabbit. Her childish inquisitive mind cause her to jump down there. And whose to say that Wonderland isn’t flip-flopping everything else? Not only humans and animals, but even personalities?
I completely agree with you! I noticed that too. To me, it seemed like if really started during the tea party. At the beginning of the story Alice was an innocent, sweet little girl who fell down a rabbit hole. But my impression of her changed after reading that chapter. Alice seemed to become, well, a brat!At the beginning of chapter nine when Alice is talking to the Duchess, Alice mentions herself being Duchess in the future. I thought that was really weird. Just like you said, she used to be careful about what she said because she did not want to offend anyone. Why did that change? Was she so nice because it was a “foreign” place to her,but now she is sort of used to it? Very strange!