Through The Mad Hatter

The Mad Hatter is one of the only characters to appear in both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass where he appears as Hatta. Hatta is both very similar and very different to the Hatter just as Alice is very different from her Wonderland self. Everything in Wonderland is composed of pieces of Alice’s personality, “the dream that nearly obliterates her is composed of fragments of her own personality” (Auerbach 318). Since this is true every character in the Alice books is a reflection of Alice. Both Alice and the Mad Hatter are more mature in Through the Looking Glass than they were in Wonderland and this is seen in their interactions with the other characters and each other. Alice begins her journey in Wonderland as very immature
He is imprisoned at teatime because he attempted to murder Time when he sung “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Bat.” The Hatter, March Hare, and Dormouse cannot escape the psychological prison of the time being six o’clock because they feel compelled to always be at tea. Ironically the Hatter seems the most free at this time. He says what he wants to and acts how he pleases; he does not care whom he offends. He is free to do anything except finish his tea. The Hatter is the ringleader of the little group stuck at teatime. He gets onto the March Hare for getting the wrong butter and the March Hare is upset and meekly replies “It was the best butter,” (Carroll 53) but the Hatter does not care. The butter does not suit the works and that is all that matters, so he yells at the March Hare as if the March Hare is beneath him. Also both the Hatter and the Hare push the Dormouse around. It is like how children (like Alice) can get away with things because they are children and supposedly do not know any better, but as soon as they leave their childhood behind they lose that
When the Hatter changed his name, he became more somber and more mature in a way, but he lost his freedom. He can no longer do whatever he wants at a Mad-Tea Party that he created, but now works for the White King as a messenger. He may have escaped the Queen of Hearts and his prison of the Mad- Tea Party, only to lose the freedom that he had in his madness. He no longer can say whatever he wants or offend other people for no reason. Hatta has to conform to society. When the King tells him to talk he must answer. “‘Speak won’t you!’ cried the King. ‘How are they getting on with the fight?’ Hatta made a desperate effort, and swallowed a large piece of bread-and-butter. ‘They’re getting on very well,’ he said in a choking voice: ‘each of them has been down about eighty- seven times’” (Carroll