This is such an iconic novel that Disney used a good percentage of it word-for-word and evidently based their character designs on the evocative originals. Disney’s Queen of Hearts stands out as the most different looking but even she has the same terrifying facial expressions. Some of the characters like the Tweedles are practically copies and the Mad Hatter has the same details on his hat in both the book and original Disney film, but the animals are often more realistically drawn in the book.
The story takes the form of ‘it was all a (day)dream (or was it?)’ of a 7 year old girl with an untamed imagination, even in the stifled Victorian era. Some of the characters agree with whatever she says, others describe nonsense she can’t understand, like the adults in her real life. She is often ordered to recite poems or songs she would have been taught by her governess but perverts them without meaning to, the new lines being a lot more savage and bitter, more reflecting the dangers of life. The arbitrary punishments of the Queen of Hearts for anything displeasing her could reflect how Alice feels the adults of her life punish her just for being a child and doing what children do.
SPOILERS for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass and the 1951 Disney movie
Both visual media start out with Alice lamenting her sister’s picture-less book. The film then has an added section where she dreams about her own nonsensical world before seeing the white rabbit with the pocket-watch panicking dive into its hole, panicking about being late. In the book Alice follows after him, and she crawls in in the film too but its accidental that she tumbles down. In both, she next loses the rabbit and proceeds a series of negotiating with the size-changing food and drink, becoming distraught when she gets too large so when she shrinks, she has to swim through her own sea of tears. In the book, a mouse finds her and, although she terrifies it by mentioning her cat, it takes her to the caucus race. In the film, she washes up on land of her own accord and joins their group.
In the book she scares the group away by continuing on about her cat and then upon seeing the White Rabbit, he mistakes her for his housekeeper and, afraid, she goes back to his house to collect his gloves for him. But she drinks something else and grows large enough to take up his whole house so he sends in the lizard Bill to flush her out. Shrinking down, she runs out and away. A large divergence is that in the film she runs away from the group instead and finds Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, who stick close to their role in the book but they are actually not characters in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland- they only show up when she returns to Wonderland in the second book. After this, she walks up to the Rabbit’s house and the same then occurs.
But just as soon as the film gets back on track it diverts again! Alice runs into a field of cruel gossipy flowers, who are also from the second book. The film reverts to her next interaction from the book, with the caterpillar, but instead of his being concerned by her reciting How Doth the Little Busy Bee wrong, she begins correctly and he himself changes it. Disney’s caterpillar is quite confrontational and becomes so offended by her hatred for the size he is that he combusts into a caterpillar but in the book he is just sleepy and hands her the size-changing mushroom himself. The film skips completely the cruel Duchess who beats her child, which Alice tries to save but then the baby turns into a pig. It goes straight to the Duchess’ vanishing cat giving her muddled descriptions, but actually more specific in the film. She takes these directions to join the March Hare’s tea party, although a lot more screen time goes into this than the sparse eight pages it occupies. Their whole ‘Un-birthday’ shtick is actually Humpty Dumpty’s from the second book. The White Rabbit shows up to Disney’s tea party and Alice tries to follow him but gets lost until the Cheshire Cat appears to guide her to the Queen of Hearts’ castle, unlike the book, where she stumbles upon the cards painting the roses red herself.
When the Queen approaches, Book Alice has a lot more, probably foolish, gumption and stands up to her, whereas in the film she flattens herself on the floor like the cards but in both, she then plays croquet with some troublesome flamingos who are determined the Queen must win. The Cat appears and in the book the Queen wants its head but it is pointed out that no-one ever actually loses their head, they are always freed behind her back. In the film, the cat disappears and Alice is charged with its crime and given a trial. In the book, a trial has been pre-planned, for the Knave who stole the tarts and Alice is only called as a witness, not as a criminal. Both trials feature an incompetent jury and at their ends she wakes up, but in the film she is first chased by everyone she has met back through Wonderland. In the park, her sister remains a stuffy traditional Victorian, but in the book she herself seems to have an imagination because it ends with her sister having the same daydreams, although more ‘grown-up’ because she knows whenever she opens her eyes she will return to reality.
What Was Missing from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?
The swim with the mouse- and Alice focussing on its tail so hard she imagines a poem in its shape
Alice being chased by a giant dog
The frog footmen, the duchess, her cook obsessed with pepper, and her pig baby
The mock turtle and the gryphon teaching Alice the Lobster-Quadrile
The Knave of Hearts who stole them tarts
What was missing from Through the Looking Glass?
Alice lecturing Dinah’s kittens
Going into the looking glass and manipulating the chess pieces
Rewriting the Jaberwocky
The Red Queen pulling Alice along on a super-speed run just to stay where they are
The White Queen giving Alice life advise before turning into a sheep and selling her an egg- Humpty Dumpty
Both queens subjecting Alice to a queen test to become one herself and finally, Alice turning them into her kittens
Into New Realms 