The White Rabbit: a good metaphor for the times

The White Rabbit is an excellent metaphor for the current cultural zeitgeist of paranoia and the end-times mentality associated with the new fundamentalist movement. The White Rabbit is modern man, terrified of his own shadow thanks to media fear-mongering, and watching the clock frantically, waiting for something bad to happen . . . the next terrorist attack, perhaps, or the end of the world. He's unable to live in the moment and is constantly fretting about the future. The media has overwhelmed him with so much negativity that he fears it's too late to do anything about it: "I'm late! I'm late!"

So, in the modern context, Alice's following the rabbit down the hole takes on a new meaning--Alice, a little girl, represents the youth of today, being lead into the insanity of Wonderland by a paranoid pessimist obsessed with the dark future he envisions ahead.

I can only imagine a cult of paranoids plastering images of Carroll's White Rabbit all over the surfaces of walls, benches, street lamps, etc. in public places, perhaps with the caption: "Are you afraid? Join the White Rabbit Society now." It would make a good book, I think.