Caterpillar (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)
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The Caterpillar is a fictional character appearing in Lewis Carroll's book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Introduced in Chapter IV ("Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill") and the main centre of interest of Chapter V ("Advice from a Caterpillar"), the Caterpillar is a hookah-smoking caterpillar exactly three inches high which, according to him, "is a very good height indeed" (though Alice believes it to be a wretched height).
Alice does not like the Caterpillar when they first meet, because he does not immediately talk to her and when he does, it is usually in short, rather rude sentences, or difficult questions. He asks Alice to repeat the poem You Are Old, Father William, which comes out rather strange like many of the nursery rhymes Alice attempts in Wonderland. The Caterpillar tells Alice how to grow and shrink using the mushroom upon which he is sitting.
The original illustration by John Tenniel at right, is something of a visual paradox; the caterpillar's human face appears to be formed from the head and legs of a more realistic caterpillar.[1]
The caterpillar makes an appearance in a few other places outside Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, such as American McGee's Alice and the novel The Looking-Glass Wars; in both of these spin-offs he plays the role of an oracle. The caterpillar also makes an appearance in Curiouser and Curiouser an episode of the television show Forever Knight in the form of a child's toy. In popular music, the Caterpillar is mentioned in Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit (1967) - a song loosely based upon the book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
His memorable phrase is a breathy "Whooo... are... you?". In the Disney movie, this line is shown as he exhales as 'O', 'R' and 'U'. Alice remarks in the original story that the Caterpillar will one day turn into a butterfly, and in Disney's version he does just that (albeit while angry from Alice's comment about being only three inches high).
The Caterpillar is frequently referred to in the computer game Apeiron by Ambrosia Software, serving as the main antagonist of the game, and taunting the player after losing.
[edit] References
- ^ a b "And do you see its long nose and chin? At least, they look exactly like a nose and chin, don't they? But they really are two of its legs. You know a Caterpillar has got quantities of legs: you can see more of them, further down." Carroll, Lewis. The Nursery "Alice". Dover Publications (1966), p27.
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