Literalism in Alice in Wonderland

As I read Alice, I can't help but notice that Carroll frequently confuses and distresses his heroine by making literal what is often an expression or else plays out the duality of a pun. When she reaches the bottom of the rabit hole and can't find an escape, for instance, she literally begins drowning in her own tears.The mouse's confusing "tale" is written in the twisting shape of a tail. The caterpillar constantly questions the commonplace expressions Alice uses like the habit of saying "you know" or "myself". It is by turning our habits of language and expression upside down that Wonderland becomes such a fantastically strange place. Carroll succeeds in creating a truly strange world not just by making outlandish things happen, but by basing a bizarre turn of events on a common experience: tea parties, games of chess and croquet , even familiar songs like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". This is what makes Wonderland so unsettling and strange.