What happens in Chapter 10 of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?
Alice is still with the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon, who tell her about the Lobster Quadrille — a fancy seaside dance where lobsters are paired with sea creatures and thrown into the ocean before being brought back. The Mock Turtle and Gryphon give a short, sad performance of the dance for Alice, shuffling back and forth without any partners. Then, the Mock Turtle sings "Will you walk a little faster?" — a song about the whiting and the snail — which leaves Alice feeling politely confused. She tries to recite a poem but ends up with a jumbled, nonsensical version about a lobster. The Mock Turtle then sings his own song, "'Tis the Voice of the Lobster," which also turns into absurdity. The chapter ends with the Gryphon suddenly declaring that a trial has started and pulling Alice away, while the Mock Turtle's sorrowful singing fades into the background.
Analysis
Carroll uses the Lobster Quadrille to mock Victorian social rituals, particularly the quadrille, one of the most structured ballroom dances of the time. He strips it of its elegance, replacing it with chaos, missing partners, and an ocean backdrop. The humor comes from the way the dance's formal rules are presented with bureaucratic precision ("you advance twice, set to partners"), only to be disrupted and rendered somewhat tragic by the Mock Turtle's tearful rendition.
The chapter primarily blends elegy with farce. The Mock Turtle's songs carry an ongoing sense of loss—creatures cast into the sea, voices fading away—and Carroll cleverly incorporates parody versions of moralistic poems by Isaac Watts and Mary Howitt to subtly undermine the didactic verse Alice has learned to recite. When Alice’s own recitation devolves into nonsense about a lobster, Carroll indicates that Wonderland has even distorted her memory: the dependable self she brought into this underground world is starting to fade.
The Gryphon acts as a counterbalance throughout, tempering the Mock Turtle's sentimentality with a straightforward attitude. Their relationship—grief versus impatience—reflects the larger tension in the chapter between nostalgia and progress. The sudden departure, with the Gryphon pulling Alice toward an unseen trial, picks up the narrative pace and reminds readers that, despite Wonderland's distractions, Alice is always being hurried along to another place.
Key quotes from Chapter 10
“"Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail, "There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail."”
The Mock Turtle sings this song to demonstrate the spirit of the Lobster Quadrille, its breathless urgency a comic counterpoint to the dance's actual sluggishness.
“"What matters it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied, "There is another shore, you know, upon the other side."”
The snail's reply within the Mock Turtle's song, which Carroll invests with an accidental philosophical weight — a line about surrender and distance that resonates beyond its comic context.
“"That's different from what I used to say when I was a child," said Alice, but she did not venture to say it out loud, for she was not quite sure it was right.”
Alice's silent, uncertain recognition that her recitation has gone wrong captures the chapter's central anxiety: the slow dissolution of her pre-Wonderland self.
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Create an accountSign inVocabulary in Chapter 10
- quadrille
- A formal square dance popular in the nineteenth century, performed by four couples in a set pattern. The Lobster Quadrille is a parody dance performed by sea creatures.
- drawling
- Speaking slowly with vowels stretched out lazily, in a slow and indolent manner. Describes the elongated, unhurried speech style of certain Wonderland characters.