![]() Image of Elizabeth de Mowbray, Duchess of Norfolk that inspired the original illustrations of the Queen of Hearts.Īfter unsuccessfully attempting to illustrate Alice's Adventures in Wonderland himself, Lewis Carroll was persuaded to engage a professional artist to provide the illustrations. The gardeners' painting the white roses red may be a reference to these two houses. Their rivals, the House of York, had a white rose for their symbol. During the War of the Roses, a red rose was the symbol of the House Lancaster. The Queen may also be a reference to Queen Margaret of the House of Lancaster. The reference to Queen Victoria is explicit in Jonathan Miller's 1966 television version where she and the King of Hearts are portrayed without any attempt at fantasy, or disguise as to their true natures or personality. The Queen of Hearts was feared by the people of Wonderland and would give the order for execution for even the slightest offense, although her husband would often quietly pardon them. Queen Victoria was loved more by her people in contrast with her consort, Prince Albert, in part because some did not trust him as he wasn't English. Some elements of reality in line that would make the Queen of Hearts recognizable as Queen Victoria were the way in which their subjects viewed them as rulers as one Queen was loved while the other was feared. The Queen is believed by some to be a caricature of Queen Victoria, with elements of reality that Dodgson felt correctly would make her at once instantly recognizable to parents reading the story to children, and also fantastical enough to make her unrecognizable to children. She is just one of the many obstacles that Alice has to encounter on the journey, but unlike other obstacles, she makes a higher potential threat. Modern portrayals in popular culture usually let her play the role of a villain because of the menace the character exemplifies, but in the book she does not fill that purpose. In the final chapters, the Queen sentences Alice again (for defending the Knave of Hearts), and she offers a bizarre approach towards justice: sentence before the verdict. The Gryphon tells Alice, "It's all her fancy: she executes nobody, you know." Nevertheless, all creatures in Wonderland fear the Queen. The King of Hearts quietly pardons many of his subjects when the Queen is not looking (although this did not seem to be the case with The Duchess), and her soldiers humor her but do not carry out her orders. The Queen's soldiers act as the arches (or hoops) on the croquet grounds, but have to leave off being arches every time the Queen has an executioner drag away the victim, so that, by the end of the game in the story, the only players that remain are the Queen herself, the King, and Alice.ĭespite the frequency of death sentences, it would appear few people are actually beheaded. This is presumably with the aim that the birds' blunt beaks should strike, but, as Alice observes, it is complicated by the fact that they keep looking back up at the players- as well as the hedgehogs' tendency to scuttle away without waiting to be hit. One of the Queen's hobbies – besides ordering executions – is croquet however, it is Wonderland croquet, where the balls are live hedgehogs and the mallets are flamingoes. 'Off with his head!' she said, without even looking around. Generally, however, as we are told by Carroll: The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. She is often confused with the Red Queen from the 1871 sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, although the two are very different. The Queen is referred to as a card from a pack of playing cards by Alice, yet somehow she is able to talk and is the ruler of the lands in the story, alongside her husband, the King of Hearts. One of her most famous lines is the oft-repeated "Off with his/her head!" / "Off with their heads!" She is a foul-tempered monarch whom Carroll himself describes as "a blind fury", and who is quick to give death sentences at the slightest offense. The Queen of Hearts is a fictional character from the 1865 book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. ![]() King of Hearts (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) Helena Bonham Carter ( Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland) John Tenniel's illustration of the King and Queen of Hearts at the trial of the Knave of Hearts.ĭisney's Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)
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