ABSTRACT
Throughout the Alice books and in the wider body of his work, Carroll stages constant linguistic exchanges—dialogues between Alice and other characters, through which Alice formulates her own discursive position, and an inner “dialogue” which, though it speaks in a single voice, often adopts a question-and-answer form. Alice “plays against herself,” as if staging two sides of a debate to test the merits of each position. Dialogue, however, does not always take the form of a debate: conversation can also be generative. In the second chapter of Alice's Adventures titled “The Pool of Tears,” for instance, it is through dialogue that Alice builds a sense of temporary community with the animals that share her predicament. This chapter analyzes talking-with-others as one of the most significant place-making activities in all of Carroll's works: it is by talking that agency is deployed, and the nature of Alice's spatial experience is informed by the shape of the talk.
