"A Mad Tea Party"

When the question came up in class on which chapter was my favorite in Alice in Wonderland I knew right away which one I enjoyed the most: A Mad Tea Party. There are several reasons why I enjoyed this one, but mainly the riddle which I will get to in a bit.
I want to start off with the actual tea party, which includes the Madhatter, the March Hare and a Dormouse, at least before Alice arrives. I wanted to dwell on what the March Hare says to Alice in the beginning of the tea party, "Then you should say what you mean," The March Hare went on. "I do," Alice hastily replied;"at least-at least I mean what I say-thats the same thing, you know." "Not the same thing a bit!" said the Hatter. This distinction in sentence structure is intriguing where the sentence is made up of the same words yet it has quite different meanings. It almost seems as this is a lesson, a necessary lesson in life-it seems as if Alice is growing up, learning. For a college educated reader the difference in the two sentences might seem quite obvious, yet I feel that as a child the recognization as these two sentences thought 'one' execute different meanings. It seems to be emphasizing the power of words and how you can manipulate them into doing what the user wants.
Right before this confrontation is when the Riddle is asked..."Why is a raven like a writing desk?" I was intrigued by this passage not only because riddles are intriguing but because the use of the raven in it, the portmanteau of meanings. The raven is used as a portmanteau throughout not only children's lit but life and the stories told throughout. I have been debating over possible answers to this riddle and the only thing I have been able to come up with is kind of a stretch. A raven is like a writing desk in that both are looked at with the power of knowledge, the raven for seeing everything that happens, an onlooker from the sky, whereas a writing desk absorbs everything that touch it, the subtle pen strokes that etch the knowledge into the wood frame. They both are there at the creation (the raven in Native myth) of a masterpiece-nature, a book, anything. My answer delighted my senses well enough, but I had to find what Carrol felt the answer was, which I found in the preface for the 1896 edition where it says, "enquiries have been so often addressed to me, as to whether any answer to the Hatter's Riddle can be imagined, that I may as well put on record here what seems to me to be a fairly appropriate answer, viz: 'Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front!' This Riddle, as orginally invented, had no answer at all. First off, for the record, I like my answer better, and secondly, the orginal riddle had no answer? What? I felt a wierd tingle when I read that line, a riddle with no answer? I have contemplated over this idea quite a bit and this is what I have come up with... he gave us the riddle to only think. To think, to imagine what possible connection could these two entities have? I feel that his answer isn't right just as my answer isn't right to him. The answer to the riddle is whatever you feel like it is, it is personal to the person doing the answering.
Also at the end of this chapter is when Alice finally makes it into the garden, the place she had been trying to get to since the beginning. Also here is where Alice makes one of the key remarks to the whole book; "Now, I'll manage better this time..." This quote is outlining the existence of a trial and error childhood, where one road will lead you down a path, possibly not the right path, but an experience is still felt on this path; after the experiences start to build up a greater sense of the world, of knowledge is acquired. Even though Alice hasn't recieved/reached what she yearns for, she is still content with the adventure she is on, making her more curious and curious as the book goes on. It almost seems as if she is on a path from innocence to experience.