CHAPTER XI. Who Stole the Tarts?
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Quick Facts
- Word Count
- 1,872
Summary
The chapter opens in a crowded courtroom where the King of Hearts presides as judge, the Queen glowers, and the Knave of Hearts stands chained before a tempting dish of tarts placed conspicuously at center. The White Rabbit, acting as herald, reads the indictment in nursery-rhyme form. The King promptly urges the jury to consider its verdict before evidence is heard, while the jurors laboriously write their own names so they won’t forget them. Alice, observing, quietly confiscates Bill the Lizard’s squeaky pencil. The Mad Hatter arrives still holding a teacup and bread-and-butter; his testimony devolves into nonsense about dates (“Fourteenth,” “Fifteenth,” “Sixteenth”) that the jury reduces to shillings and pence, and into linguistic tangles the King treats as proof (“It isn’t mine” becomes “Stolen!”). Under threat of execution he bites his teacup in confusion, and leaves shoeless when dismissed, as the Queen casually orders his decapitation after the fact. Guinea-pigs who cheer are promptly “suppressed” in literal bags, to Alice’s fascinated recognition of the newspaper cliché. The Duchess’s cook refuses to testify (“Shan’t”), claims tarts are made of pepper; the Dormouse murmurs “Treacle,” provoking the Queen’s chaotic commands to behead, pinch, and expel him, after which the cook vanishes. Meanwhile, Alice notices she is growing larger and resists pressure not to grow. As the White Rabbit fumbles the witness list, he unexpectedly calls “Alice!”
Analysis
Procedural theater and the making of nonsense: the trial as a machine for conclusions
Chapter XI stages law as spectacle by installing the King as a visibly uncomfortable judge—crown perched on wig—and by centering the desired object, the tarts, on the courtroom table. Before a single fact is heard, the King commands “Consider your verdict,” exposing a system primed for outcomes independent of evidence. The charge itself is a rhyme—“The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts…”—so that legal authority borrows its gravity from nursery verse, a parody of precedent that conflates moral formation and rote recital. The jury’s behavior compounds the farce: they write their names so as not to forget them and dutifully copy Alice’s whispered “stupid things,” transforming even criticism into record. Bill the Lizard’s squeaking pencil and his forced finger-writing literalize documentation as form without content.
The entry of the Mad Hatter imports the tea-party’s frozen ritual into court: he arrives with teacup and bread-and-butter, dates are reported as “Fourteenth…Fifteenth…Sixteenth,” and the jury absurdly converts them into shillings and pence, converting testimony into bookkeeping. The King’s linguistic pedantry—treating “It isn’t mine” as evidence of theft, and parsing alphabetic trivia about “twinkling” beginning with T—shows law reduced to word-tricks. The Queen sustains authority through intimidation rather than execution, staring until the Hatter shakes off his shoes and ordering belated decapitation once he flees, aligning with the book’s portrait of sovereign bluster maintained by subordinates.
Amid this, Alice begins to grow. The Dormouse’s complaint—“You’ve no right to grow here”—turns bodily change into a regulated offense, yet Alice stays: “she decided to remain…as long as there was room.” Her expanding body foreshadows a widening intellectual stance that will soon confront the court directly. The cook’s “Shan’t” and the Queen’s frenzy over the Dormouse (behead, suppress, pinch) display cross-examination as coercion. Even journalistic cliché is literalized when cheering guinea-pigs are “suppressed” in bags, a perfect Carrollian move from idiom to action. By chapter’s end, the White Rabbit calls “Alice!” shifting her from observer of nonsense to its next subject, the moment when her growing proportion must become voice.
The King’s “Consider your verdict” immediately after the rhyme-indictment frames justice as pre-decided display. The jury’s slate-scratching—names, “stupid things,” and arithmetic about dates—turns legal inquiry into clerical routine that records noise rather than reasons.
The Hatter testifies with teacup-in-hand, and his timeline (“Fourteenth…Fifteenth…Sixteenth”) is tallied into shillings and pence. The King fixates on word-initial letters and hat ownership, mistaking linguistic quirks and trade practice for guilt, a parody of hermeneutics as prosecution.
As Alice enlarges, the Dormouse asserts she has “no right to grow here,” converting development into breach. Alice decides to remain despite discomfort, prefiguring her imminent refusal to cede judgment to the court’s rituals. Bodily expansion anticipates intellectual dissent.
Courtroom absurdities enumerated
- Jury writes their own names and copies “stupid things.”
- Bill the Lizard loses his squeaky pencil and must “write” with a finger.
- Indictment is a nursery rhyme about tarts.
- Dates from testimony are added and reduced to money.
- Guinea-pigs who cheer are literally “suppressed” in canvas bags.
- The cook’s entire testimony: “Shan’t.”
- The Queen orders decapitations as casual afterthoughts.