Lewis Carroll has a lot of fun playing with language in Alice in Wonderland. It highlights its flexibility, its inadequacies and the confusion it can produce when taken literally, without common sense or interpretation. Its playfulness is certainly entertaining and raises points about some interesting quirks of language, but the play on words often contains more than just the joke that Alice and the Wonderland creatures find in it. There are often several levels of meaning. A fun, playful surface layer often uses light, distracting lights and colors to mask a deeper, darker layer underneath. Since this type of multi-layered wordplay parallels the multiple levels of meaning that run through the book, deconstructing and examining the tale of the mouse, an example of wordplay, provides a portal through which to view the most serious, darkest and most subversive messages in history. .Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay There are many puns and colorful, busy images before, after and throughout the story of the mouse (25) that help produce a happy and entertaining mood. we are there when we come across the enigmatic poem. Just before the story was told, a motley band of creatures were running in crazy circles in the "caucusing race" (23). A play on words on the word “tale” (24) then follows this very humorous image. The pun and entertaining images of the race lend a joyous, silly aura to the mouse story, and the reader goes into it without expecting any deep meaning. Carroll quickly employs another pun (on the word "not/knot" (25)) as soon as the tale is over, drawing the reader in and preventing lingering on the darker nature of the mouse poem. Puns, misunderstandings, and other forms of wordplay are omnipresent throughout the story. Puns are inherently fun. The idea of ​​one word conveying two ideas strikes a chord and excites people - especially if the second meaning brings with it a set of images and ideas that are surprising and completely incongruous with the other meaning. Puns help maintain the feeling of lightness and happiness even when less happy things are happening (like the mournful song of the perpetually crying mock turtle or the queen's emphatic execution orders). As in the scene in the mouse tale, the puns and exciting events and images create and maintain throughout the book the feeling that there is nothing darker or more subversive than the innocent tale of the adventures of a young girl in an imaginary world. In the case of the mouse story, the puns and silly images aren't the only things that contribute to the feeling of lightness; other elements combine to enhance this seemingly playful story. The concrete form of the poem on the page (see page seven of this article) is of course endearing and entertaining. The thought: “How cute! It looks like a tail! comes to mind. It's hard to pay close attention to the meaning of a poem when your eyes squirm back and forth and only read two or three words per line. Other poetic elements also enhance the feeling of pleasure, such as the cheerful rhyme scheme aab ccb dde ffe. More attention is paid to the look and sound of the poem than to its meaning. Although Carroll does not write any other part of the story in a visually descriptive way,the elaborate and frequent illustrations serve a similar purpose. The images, which are generally humorous, distract the reader and focus attention on the entertaining, funny, and visually exciting aspects of the story, not the darker, more meaningful layer beneath the surface. By distracting the reader and diverting attention, these superficial images, full of feeling but devoid of meaning, effectively hide the darker side of the poem from those who are not actively looking for it. They appeal to the casual reader and create a tale that can be enjoyed by all. The imagery coupled with various other puns and the exciting events that occur serve a similar function for the rest of the story. Certainly Alice and the Creatures of Wonderland (and probably most other kids too) can't see beyond the fun and silly smokescreen of an entertaining and bizarre world. Digging deeper and trying to grasp the true meaning of Carroll's words produces much more disturbing and heavier imagery that fits with the darker, more adult-oriented themes. The substance of the mouse's story, like many of the recurring themes in the book, is quite dark. In fact, the story is horrible. A dog forces an innocent mouse to participate in an unfair trial in which the rodent will obviously be sentenced to death and brutally killed (and most likely eaten). The strong triumph over the weak; evil triumphs over good. Death is often mentioned in the story. Carroll plants the seeds of these disturbing but real ideas in children's heads. Children do not yet need to confront them directly, but are aware of their dark presence. Many nursery rhymes and fairy tales do much the same thing. Carroll gives many events in Alice in Wonderland a similar two-tiered treatment: on the outside they appear to be pure fun and games, when in reality they have a deeper, more adult character; sometimes commenting on society, nature and subtext. Just before the mouse tells his story, the animals run here and there in the fantastic huddle race. The race, which is certainly exciting and bizarre on the one hand, doubles as a scathing satire of the English government: despite great agitation, nothing is accomplished and no one ends up with anything worth while. In fact, Alice was in a better situation (she had more candy) before the race started. There are other themes in the story of the mouse that are also found in underlays throughout the story. One of them, which seems to be one of Carroll's favorites, is the illogicality of many aspects of society. He conveys this throughout the book by pointing out and dealing with as usual many of the completely illogical things that happen in Wonderland. In the specific case of the mouse story, a completely illogical scenario occurs. The dog, Fury, wants to play all the roles in the courtroom. (It is interesting to note that the mythological Furies represented not only horrible punishments and cruelty, but also logic and justice. The fact that the dog embodies the first, negative aspects, but is the antithesis of the virtuous components of the Furies' characters compounds the lack of logic in the situation.) As the mouse rightly states, a trial in which the prosecutor doubles as judge and jury is an unnecessary waste of time. A fair trial could never take place in such circumstances (25). The mouse story is illogical for other reasons as well. The mouse tells 25.