Duchess (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)

Duchess
Alice character
Alice and the Duchess, 1865 illustration by John Tenniel
First appearance	Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Created by	Lewis Carroll
Information
Species	Human
Gender	Female
Nationality	Wonderland

The Duchess is a character in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, published in 1865. Carroll does not describe her physically in much detail, although as stated in Chapter 9 "Alice did not much like keeping so close to her: first, because the Duchess was VERY ugly; and secondly, because she was exactly the right height to rest her chin upon Alice’s shoulder..." Her hideous appearance and short stature is strongly established in the popular imagination thanks to John Tenniel's illustrations and from context it is clear that Alice finds her quite unattractive.

The Duchess is an antagonist of The Queen of Hearts. In her first appearance, the Duchess seems nearly as unpleasant as the Queen herself, but later on treats Alice with friendliness and respect.

According to Martin Gardner in The Annotated Alice, John Tenniel's drawings of the Duchess were inspired by Quentin Matsys's The Ugly Duchess (c. 1513) in the National Gallery. It has been said that the painting is a portrait of Margaret, Countess of Tyrol, who had the reputation of being the ugliest woman who ever existed. The painting, however, was done 200 years after her death.

The Duchess lives in Wonderland in a small palace just outside the Caterpillar's forest. She employs a footman, whom Alice thinks resembles a frog, and a Cook, who is addicted to pepper and who throws crockery and kitchen utensils over her shoulder with no concern for those who might be hit. The footman enjoys staring at the sky for days on end, oblivious to most people in or out of the house. The Duchess also has a child and a cat (the Cheshire Cat). Lewis Carroll is not explicit about her physical attributes, but Tenniel's drawings illustrate an ugly and grotesque woman with an extremely large head. Her character is strongly voluble; at times she even seems to have a double personality. When she first meets Alice in her kitchen, she shows herself to be nervous, aggressive, and not disposed to interact. She recites one of the better-known rhymes in the book, when she advocates beating a child for sneezing: