YOCELYN
CHAPTER 8



Alice enters a garden and comes across three playing cards, two, five, and seven, who are all painting the white roses red on the rose tree. They paint the roses red because they have planted white roses instead of red ones and now must paint all of them before the queen arrives. The queen of hearts appears and the three playing cards bow down to their majesty. Alice, who does not follow, is asked by the queen what her name is. Alice responds with great confidence, which displeases the queen. The queen yells “Off with her head!” only to be stopped by her husband, the king. The queen agrees with the king's remark explaining “She is only a child”. The queen of hearts then notices the roses that have been painted red by the three playing cards. She gets furious and yells “Off with their heads!” Alice saves the day by hiding them in a flower pot from being executed. Alice then follows the queen to play croquet. She notices the white rabbit at the event. He explains how the duchess was put into prison for execution for messing with the queen's ears. Alice then comes across croquet balls as hedgehogs and the mallets as flamingos. The cards act as arches for the ball to go through. She has a difficult time understanding and playing the game. Later on during the game, Alice steps away from the game of croquet only to be surprised to see the Cheshire cat. Alice and the cat share a interesting discussion until the king notices Alice conversating. The king decides to join and makes rude remarks to the cat. The Cheshire pays no mind to the king's taunts. This infuriates the king and ask the queen to remove the cat. The queen orders for his head to be cut off. The king, queen, and executor argue that you can't cut off a head without a body which then leads them asking Alice for advice. Alice suggest asking the duchess. They all run to fetch the duchess, this gives a chance for the Cheshire cat to vanishing away from the situation. By the time they come back the Cheshire cat has already disappeared making the king more angry then he was before.  

Red resembles passion. The queen of hearts had a passion, but for what? Love? Hate? A passion for cutting heads? It's a possibility. The roses were white before they were painted red. The color white resembles purity, innocence, and new beginnings. Once the white roses where covered up with red paint, to me this signified the meaning of how innocence, purity, and or new beginnings are then covered up by passion. The Queen of Hearts is based on Queen Victoria. At the age of 18, queen Victoria took over the throne. At the age of 21, she became married to her cousin Albert. This was a new beginning for her which involved in her losing her innocence and purity because of passion. Passion for being a queen, passion for ruling, passion for being married, whatever it may be. An interesting fact about Queen Victoria is that she had a child of her own named Alice. In total, Alexandrina Victoria (which is actually her full name) had 9 children. She wasn't very fond of children. Didn't even take care of her own children to be exact. Just like in this story, queen Victoria was a heartless and hard headed person. She wasn't the type to be willing to change her ideas or opinions. I feel as if the queen of hearts name has the word heart in it because she doesn't have a heart of her own. When she would get upset and furious the first thing that came to her mind was "Off with their head!" To me, this shows how cold hearted she actually is. She didn't think twice about her decision until someone told her to reconsider.

Facts about Queen Victoria for kids. (n.d.). Retrieved April 22, 2016, from http://www.primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/victorians/victoria.htm

Pruitt, S. (2013). 5 Things You May Not Know About Queen Victoria. Retrieved April 22, 2016, from http://www.history.com/news/5-things-you-may-not-know-about-queen-victoria