By: Shelly Erez, Revital Rephaeli, Stav Yahalomi

Table of contents:

• Rationale for the

topic………………………………………………….…………..3

• The Mad Hatter and "Alice's adventures In

Wonderland"……….……4

• Why the Mad

Hatter?..................................................................6

• Personalities behind the Mad Hatter……………………………….

………….7

• The Mad Hatter's riddles……………………………………………….

………….9

• About Lewis

Carroll……………………………………………………….………..10

• Conclusions and

Reflections……………………………………….…………...11

• Bibliography…………………………………………………………

…….………….12

2
Rationale for choice of topic.

We chose to write about "the Mad Hatter" because we are

fascinated by this mysterious character. We wish to find the origin

of the Mad Hatter and the meaning behind his unconventional

behavior.

We know this character from the Walt Disney film "Alice in

Wonderland", based on the book of this name by Lewis Caroll. We

found the Hatter to be the most colorful and interesting character in

the whole movie, therefore we chose to refer to him in our project.

Walt Disney's rendition of "Alice in Wonderland" stimulates the

imagination, and is full of colorful and amusing characters and

breathtaking animation.

In the guise of an innocent, simple children's' story, "Alice in

Wonderland" is filled with "between the lines" philosophical

messages.

Only at second and third glance do you notice the sophisticated

details.

3
We hoped to find interesting results in our research (and so we did).

The Mad

Hatter and "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

The Hatter, also known as "the Mad Hatter" is a fictional character

from the book "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll.

The Mad Hatter is also mentioned in the book "through the looking

glass" by Lewis Carroll.

An amusing fact is that the common nickname of the character,

"Mad Hatter" does not appear at all in the book, although the

Cheshire Cat does warn Alice that he is mad, and the Hatters

behavior supports this. Furthermore, the "mad tea party" in chapter

seven is often called "The Mad Hatter's Tea Party".

The tea party in which the Hatter is first mentioned, takes place in

front of the March Hare's house. Alice meets the Hatter in the

4
company of the March Hare and the Dormouse seated at a large,

well set table for tea.

The clocks at the March Hare's house don't tick - the reason being

that the Hatter was accused of "murdering time", by the Queen of

Hearts when he attempted to sing her a song at a celebration of

hers. He was sentenced to death, but escaped the decapitation.

Out of anger at this attempted "murder", time itself was halted for

the Hatter, keeping him and the March Hare suspended at teatime

forever – doomed to an endless tea-party, going on and on till the

end of time.

The three of them randomly change places around the table at any

given time, while asking unanswerable riddles and reciting

nonsensical poetry.

For example, they claim that there is no more room for sitting at the

table, though there is obviously plenty.

The Mad Hatter appears again as a witness at the Knave Of Hearts'

trial.

In "through the looking glass", the Hatter is called "Hatta" but it is

the exact same character (the illustrator described him similarly in

the book "Alice's adventures in wonderland", holding a cup of tea -

just to make it clear to the readers).

5
6
 Why a Mad Hatter?

The Hatter is described wearing a hat with a note tucked into the

headband. On the note there is the number 10/6 that represents it's

price: ten shillings and six pence, the price of the hat in British

currency - a visual indication of the Hatter's trade.

The choice of a Hatter as a mad character is taken from the

expression "mad as a Hatter". This common phrase's origin is in the

madness that afflicted Hatters (hat makers) in the Victorian era

because of Mercury poisoning. The production of hats requires the

use of mercury. Inhaling the mercury fumes causes mercury

poisoning, which induce the symptoms of mental illness. The usual

symptoms of the mercury poisoning do not match the Hatter's

behavior - Carroll only wanted to make it clear to the readers that

this character is insane.

Furthermore, metaphorically – a Hatter is a person that "changes

personalities" through changing hats. The hat, so to speak,

represents the person's mind. When a person has a lot of hats, like a

Hatter, he supposedly has multiple personalities.

7
 Personalities behind the Mad Hatter

Some say that the Mad Hatter's character is based on Theophilus

Carter. Carter was a Victorian inventor who owned a furniture shop

in Oxford. Carroll knew Carter, who used to stand in front of his

shop, wearing a high cylinder hat. Possibly Carrol was inspired by

him and ordered the illustrator of "Alice's adventures in wonderland"

to creat the Mad Hatter in Carter's figure.

Another assumption is that the Hatter is based on Samuel Ogden, a

Hatter from Manchester, also known as "Mad Sam" .

But the personality most appealing to us is a the third personality

who is associated with the Mad Hatter's character: Bertrand

Russell, the celebrated British philosopher, logician,

mathematician, historian, pacifist, social critic and Nobel Prize

Laureate (1950, for Literature).

8
9
Many acquaintances of Bertrand Russel described his appearance as

being extremely reminiscent of the Mad Hatter – as may be seen by

comparing the following photograph with the original illustration.

The behaviour of the participants at the Mad Tea party may easily

be construed to be a criticism of the seemingly pointless arguments

(as reflected in the strange riddles) which the scientific community

spend their time analysing , and their prevailing petty rivalry and

jealous behaviour (as reflected the claim of no remaining room at

the table, despite its actual abundance)..

10
 The Mad Hatter's riddles

At the mad tea party the Hatter asks Alice the famous riddle: "Why

is a raven like a writing desk?". When Alice doesn't know the answer

to the riddle, the Mad Hatter confesses that he does not know it

either. Carroll does not give an answer in the book.

This riddle seemed to disturb some people's rest, and many have

volunteered answers to it. Here are three:

Sam Loid suggested :"Poe wrote on both", a reference to Edgar

Allen Poe, who wrote the famous poem "The Raven", which the

author described while seated at his writing desk..

Another suggestion is "Because there is B in Both" – an answer that

typifies the ingenious nonsense that permeates the actual story.

The third suggestion is given by Carroll himself in the preface to the

1896 edition. Carroll wrote: "Enquiries have been so often

addressed to me, as to whether any answer to the Hatter’s Riddle

can be imagined, that I may as well put on record here what seems

to me to be a fairly appropriate answer, viz: "Because it can produce

a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is never put with the

wrong end in front!" This, however, is merely an afterthought; the

riddle as originally invented, had no answer at all."

11
 About Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll was born in 1832 at Daresbury , Cheshire ,England ,

under the name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.

His first pieces were published in his family newspaper to amuse his

seven sisters and three other brothers.

At the age of nineteen he was sent to Oxford University, where he

studied mathematics and later lectured.

Dodgson was a fan of word plays, nonsense riddles and poems, and

the name Lewis Carroll is a word play of his original name in Latin

and English

"Alice in Wonderland" (1865) and it's continuation " through the

looking glass " (1872) were written for Alice Liddell, the 6 years old

daughter of the dean Henry Liddell and her three siblings.

Some assume that Dodgson fell in love with Alice and waited for her

to grow up so they could be together, but the 18-year- old Alice

rejected him.

After the rejection, Dodgson was left heartbroken, went into

isolation and disassociated himself from the name Lewis Caroll..

He spent his last days living with his sisters, isolated from society.

Dodgson died from pneumonia in 1898 at the age of 66.

12
13
Conclusions and Reflections

During the writing of this project we discovered interesting facts

about the colorful character of the Mad Hatter, and interesting

information about the whole story "Alice's Adventures in

Wonderland" - such as the mad hatter's origin, it's exhilarant,

intelligent and ingenious riddles and the rich content in general.

In order to write about the Mad Hatter we had to find information

about the entire comprehensive subject .

It was truly fascinating to sit down together and find information on

the literature about this delightful and amusing subject. We had a

great time together in making this project and we all found our

places during the process of its creation.

In order to explain about the attribution of the Hatter to Carroll's

story, we were obliged to delve deeply into the World Wide Web in

search of the details, for which we were richly rewarded.

Bibliography

14
http://lib.cet.ac.il/Pages/item.asp?item=10078

http://www.ynet.co.il/yaan/0,7340,L-20535-

MjA1MzVfMjQ4MjUzNjZfMTQ4Njg3MjAw-FreeYaan,00.html

http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/‫הרפתקאות_אליס_בארץ_הפלאות‬

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Hatter

http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/‫לואיס_קרול‬

http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/‫הכובען_המטורף‬

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rgs/alice-VII.html

15