If this is your first time here, this Tumblr is dedicated to my discoveries of how David Lynch’s Twin Peaks relates to Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. To start at the beginning, see my links at the bottom! Also support #SaveTwinPeaks from the powers that be.

Episode 1, Season 1 - “Traces to Nowhere”

I slipped a little, but I’m back! It’s easy to be like, “I’m going to write every day!” And then the subway breaks down and I’m trapped and hungry, wondering who on the train might help me escape from the armies of rats I assume are swarming around our stopped train. Then I’m wondering which person I would eat first, if it came down to that. That’s just one example, but basically, the stresses of the world slap your creativity and fervor in the face, as New York is wont to do. I’m pretty used to living a reverse Ralph Waldo Emerson lifestyle by now.

I’m still loving comparing these great works. I’m excited to post this episode analysis because one of my favorite things to point out is in the NEXT post, so that means we’re one post closer!!! Let’s do dis…

ALICE’S AGE AND JOHNNY’S CHILD-LIKE MENTAL STATE

Johnny, Audrey’s older brother, is said to have the mental state of a third grader. Students in third grade are usually around 8 or 9 years old. Scholars have suggested that Alice is around 7 in Carroll’s books, making her and Johnny very close in age. As mentioned in my previous post, the visual comparison can be made between Johnny and Alice when we see Johnny kneeling next to a dollhouse, referencing Alice when she grows too large for the rabbit’s house in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

LEO THE LION - A CAT IN THE LIFE OF ALICE

A close-up of Leo’s truck reveals the name of it as “Big Pussycat”. Cats in general are a theme in the Alice books – the Cheshire Cat is the most commonly known but isn’t the only one! There’s also Alice’s cat named Dinah, and in the sequel there are Dinah’s kittens, and when Alice meets a mouse in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, it shrieks about how it detests the creatures:

“Our family always hated cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! Don’t let me hear the name again!” - Mouse in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

And in thinking about cat comparisons in that way… Leo means the lion, as per the zodiac, AKA the most vicious cat of the animal kingdom. Leo is a pretty nasty, low and vulgar character!

COCAINE AKA CHASING THE WHITE RABBIT

“In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in      the world she was to get out again.” - Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

That Alice quote could also be used to describe a drug user. And furthermore, another phrase for using cocaine is called “chasing the White Rabbit”. Cooper is referencing Laura, of course, in the image above. So both Alice and Laura are chasing the White Rabbit… it’s just that Laura has a drug problem and Alice chases a little rabbit in a waistcoat.

MORE “FALLING” (AS IN: DOWN A RABBIT HOLE)

I’ve found two other references to “falling” in the pilot, and here we have a third reference.

“Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end! ‘I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?’ she said aloud.” - Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

How many more will we find? Will it ever come to an end? I hope not!

TOO BIG FOR THE SMALL HOUSE… AGAIN!

“She was now only ten inches high, and her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going through the little door into that lovely garden.” - Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Some more fun with sizing in Twin Peaks! This is also a third reference to sizing, just like “falling” that I have found. Just saying, it’s not feeling coincidental, in case you had some doubts. This reference is a close-up on a toy railroad designed to be a miniature version of the Twin Peaks train station. I think it’s interesting that the train set has a Twin Peaks town name sign on it. It could have easily been ambiguous, but the Twin Peaks signage makes it look like a tiny version of the town, as if we are giants looking at small tiny building, just like Alice does in the books as she shrinks and grows to various proportions.

POETRY, ALL THE TIME

Cooper can’t just answer how he takes his coffee in any old way. He says he likes his coffee, “Black as midnight on a moonless night.” Very poetic. Poetry is constant in the Alice books. In every segment of every adventure there is poetry that is either recited to Alice, or that she herself recites. And the same goes for Twin Peaks, much of the time, as we’ll continue to see throughout the series.

MORE OF CATHERINE, THE QUEEN OF HEARTS

Catherine Martell wears that blue sheet like royalty. As if it is Her Majesty’s  robe. And then, we see Ben Horne kiss her feet like a loyal servant stroking the ego of an evil tyrant. Her red hair and her red toenails match the Queen of Hearts’ red-themed card color.

POETRY, ALL DAY LONG

Once again, normal conversation is replaced with poetry.

CONFUSION, AND MISTAKEN IDENTITY

When Donna visits Laura’s mother Mrs. Palmer, the latter has a living nightmare (daymare? is that a thing?) that Donna has morphed into her daughter Laura. And for a second, she is convinced she is seeing her daughter again, as pictured in the image above.

In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice’s fall down the rabbit hole causes her to be very confused (literally because she is actually in a dream state), and in many instances throughout her journey she gets very confused and mixes facts up in her head. For a while she cannot remember whether she is herself, or if she is instead one of her friends.

“’I’m sure I’m not Ada,’ she said, 'for her hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine doesn’t go in ringlets at all; and I’m sure I can’t be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a very little! Besides, she’s she, and I’m I, and — oh dear, how puzzling it all is!” - Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Very puzzling indeed! Except… not at all. We, as the readers, know she is still Alice, and is not one of her friends. How silly for her to think otherwise! Just as we, as the watchers of Twin Peaks, know that Donna is not Laura. How crazy for Mrs. Palmer to think otherwise!

ALWAYS… WITH THE FOOD

And now I’ll leave you with a bunch of food references from throughout the episode, because they’re just so plentiful in Twin Peaks.

From cakes to elixirs to bread-and-butter to mushrooms, themes of food are scattered throughout (and integral to) Alice’s adventures as well.

Go further down the rabbit hole with my previous posts.

<3 Celia Q.