Caterpillar (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)
- Caterpillar (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)
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.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 both the 1999 television film and Disney's 1951 version he does just that (albeit while angry from Alice's comment about being only three inches high).
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