# Shrinking opens Alice's garden

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH06.P021](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH06.P021/#char=1332,1389): "Alice must grow small if she is to be Alice in Wonderland"

In Lewis Carroll's *Alice's Adventures in Wonderland* (1865), smallness makes a desirable world accessible. Chapter I's tiny doorway shows Alice a beautiful garden she cannot enter at her usual size. Shrinking initially brings another difficulty: she cannot reach the key. At the end of chapter VII she finally takes the key first, reduces her height with the mushroom, and enters the garden. Chesterton turns this practical change of scale into an image of humility making wonder possible. His sentence compresses the story: Alice has already encountered wonders before shrinking, and the garden is a particular destination within her adventure. Carroll's scene supports Chesterton's metaphor; it does not establish that Carroll intended a Christian allegory. [Inspected witness: Project Gutenberg, Millennium Fulcrum Edition 3.0, chapters I and VII](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11/11-h/11-h.htm).

## Sources

- [Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Millennium Fulcrum Edition 3.0](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11/11-h/11-h.htm), Chapter I, tiny door and DRINK ME episode; chapter VII, final paragraph before chapter VIII

Revision 1 · 2026-11-07 · https://glosses.org/a/a_53uepza5/