Page 38 - English Expedition Class 6

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Alice Meets the Cheshire Cat

Lewis Carroll

Have you ever been called ‘mad’, or called someone else ‘mad’, for doing something unusual or
behaving in an unconventional way? Is it possible that madness might just be a new, uncommon way
of thinking and doing? Share your thoughts with the class.
This story begins when Alice, bored of books with no pictures and people with no interesting
conversation, follows the waistcoat-clad White Rabbit down a rabbit hole. She turns up in the strange
world of Wonderland, where she encounters many peculiar creatures that tell her strange tales and
answer her questions in riddles. Alice is none too keen on this sort of improper behaviour, but begins
to get used to it nevertheless. In the course of events, she fi nds herself in front of the door of a house
on a small estate and decides to let herself in. What or who lies on the other side?

he door led right into a large kitchen, which was full of smoke from one end to the other.
Th e Duchess was sitting on a three-legged stool in the middle, nursing a baby, the cook was
Tleaning over the fi re, stirring a large cauldron which seemed to be full of soup.
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‘Th ere’s certainly too much pepper in that soup!’ Alice said to herself, as well as she could for
sneezing.
Th ere was certainly too much of it in the air. Even the Duchess
sneezed occasionally; and the baby was sneezing and howling
alternately without a moment’s pause. Th e only things in the kitchen
that did not sneeze, were the cook, and a large cat which was sitting
on the hearth and grinning from ear to ear.
‘Please would you tell me,’ said Alice a little timidly, for she was
not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to speak fi rst,
‘why your cat grins like that?’
‘It’s a Cheshire cat,’ said the Duchess, ‘and that’s why. Pig!’
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She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice quite
jumped; but she saw in another moment that it was addressed to the
baby, and not to her, so she took courage, and went on again:
‘I didn’t know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I didn’t know that cats could grin.’

1 cauldron: a large deep pot for boiling liquids or cooking 2 Cheshire is a county in England. The expression grinning
food over an open fi re like a Cheshire cat is a popular British folk saying,
although its origin is unknown.
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