Hatter (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)

The Hatter is a fictional character in Lewis Carroll’s 1865 book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 sequel Through the Looking-Glass. He is very often referred to as the Mad Hatter, though this term was never used by Carroll. Mercury was used in the manufacturing of felt hats during the 19th century, causing a high rate of mercury poisoning among those working in the hat industry. Many such workers were sent to Pauper Lunatic Asylums.

About Hatter (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) in brief

The Hatter is a fictional character in Lewis Carroll’s 1865 book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 sequel Through the Looking-Glass. He is very often referred to as the Mad Hatter, though this term was never used by Carroll. Mercury was used in the manufacturing of felt hats during the 19th century, causing a high rate of mercury poisoning among those working in the hat industry. Many such workers were sent to Pauper Lunatic Asylums, which were supervised by Lunacy Commissioners such as Samuel Gaskell and Robert Wilfred Skeffington Lutwidge, Carroll’s uncle. Carroll was familiar with the conditions at asylums and visited at least one, the Surrey County Asylum, himself. The character’s signature top hat comes from John Tenniel’s illustrations for the first edition, in which the character wears a large top hat with a hatband reading \”In this style 106\”. This is further elaborated on in The Nursery \”Alice\”, a shortened version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, adapted by the author himself for young children. The Hatter also appears briefly in Carroll’s 1871 Through the Looking-Glass, the sequel to Alice’s Adventurous In Wonderland, alongside the March Hare under the name \”Haigha\”, which is pronounced ‘hare’”. The character is characterised by switching places on the table at any given time, making short, personal remarks, asking unanswerable riddles and reciting nonsensical poetry, all of which eventually drives Alice away.

He also appears again as a witness at the Knave of Hearts’ trial, where the Queen appears to recognise him as the singer she sentenced to death, and the King of Hearts also cautions him not to be nervous or he will have him executed on the spot. In the original novel, the Hatter wears a hat on his head with a price tag containing the numbers 10 and 6, giving the price in pre-decimal British money as ten shillings and six pence. Here it is stated that the character is wearing a hat with the number 10 on the head, as well as the number 6, which is the same as the price of a cup of tea in the original book. However, the character does not exhibit the symptoms of mercury poisoning which led to the phrase ‘mad as a hatter’ in the first edition of the book and is instead referred to by the Cheshire Cat as ‘Mad Tea-Party’ in the seventh chapter of the book. The first mention of both characters occurs in the sixth chapter of Carroll’s Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland, titled ‘Pig and Pepper,’ when the child protagonist Alice asks ‘what sort of people live in that direction?’ to which the cat replies that ‘they’re both mad!’ Both subsequently make their actual debuts in the seventh chapter of ‘A Mad Tea- party’.

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