The Mad Hatter and Alice

Jonathan Nickoson

Film Adaption

April 10, 2014

            The Mad Hatter, next to Alice, is probably one of the most recognizable characters from children’s fiction or even any fiction in general. He represents madness that every person in the world has a part of them. The character of The Mad Hatter can be seen with a much more complex history in the 2010 film than any other interpretation. In this version, The Mad Hatter and Alice connect very quickly and see something in each other that they do not see in others. Alice possibly sees herself and the madness that she has always had apart of her. She ends up learning from him that madness is her stability. The Mad Hatter probably sees Alice as a way back into normalcy. In this film, we see a version that is more complex than others. We see that he had a family that was ripped away from him and that could have been the reason why he was so mad in the first place and not because he was trapped in teatime or under the effects of mercury. The Mad Hatter has become such an important symbol for the novels. There are so many characters based off of him. In the DC Comics Universe, Batman has a villain based off of the character called Mad Hatter. He dresses exactly like him but, based off of his psychotic behavior, has become a villain dedicated to controlling others and finding his Alice in the real world. Maybe the creator of this version of The Mad Hatter had seen something others did not. Maybe the Mad Hatter was always looking for that one person who understands him. Maybe he was trapped in this emotional limbo until Alice came back to him. In the novel, the character has run from the Red Queen and subsequently become trapped at teatime after “murdering the time.” He is trapped and the only way for him and the other guests to be somewhat stable I was by moving about from one seat to the next. In The 2010 film, the character is able to move freely from the teatime and around the world of Underland. I would say that the Tim Burton chose to write the character in the way because he saw the cultural importance of this character and also the connection he had with Alice from the very beginning. In the novel, The Mad Hatter is one of the only humanlike organisms who had a more positive reflection on Alice. It made sense that Tim Burton would choose to make him such an important character because of his connection to Alice. I for one really admire this interpretation of The Mad Hatter. He was the most important character to Alice because he showed her how to be herself and to not give in to the pressure that her family has on her. She sees that he is able to make his own important choices and still be mad and this possibly pushes her to understand her own life.