The Queen of Broken Hearts


Countless readers consider the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, as a bloodthirsty ruler, randomly and aimlessly “cutting people’s heads off”. The secret tale behind the Queen’s motives are buried deep within her card of hearts; hidden by the cruel King of Hearts and his army of Heartless soldiers. The muddled narrative Lewis Carroll portrays omits the heart wrenching story of a young girl, aged 17, losing her entire family and true love as demand and punishment for declining the King of Heart’s request for marriage.
Years before she becomes Queen, Anne Beatrice, is merely a girl from a noble family with a noble title. Intelligent, witty, and humorous, the virtuous young lady was indeed a catch for any man but certainly a young king. Henry Hearts, then aged 20, requested the Anne’s hand in marriage. Unfortunately, Anne was courting another man and had no desire to marry the King nor become Queen. After several polite refusals, Anne adamantly declared she would never marry him, never bear his children, and there were no amount of treasures or riches he could offer to change her mind. As a result of Anne’s bold and out of line manner (at least for the time period), Henry Hearts imprisoned her entire family and the man she loved, Jack. The King proclaimed to behead Anne’s family, one by one until she agreed to the term of marriage. Anne stood strong and her family willed behind her decision; thus slowly but surely, Henry executed her entire family and finally, Jack was the the only man left. Three day’s worth of threats of killing Jack, Anne decided to save him and marry Henry. However, the cruel King went back on his promise and executed Jack on the wedding day as a statement to Anne that she was his forever.
From that day forward, Anne vowed to take revenge on Henry and his heartless kingdom to avenge her true love. The events following included the new Queen weaving a web of lies to the King, professing her love for him and ensuring he was head over heels for her. Ten years into their marriage, the Queen began her vengeful plan, every servant and person belonging to the King of Hearts, “off with their head” she would announce. The entirety of the scheme was to kill off all the King’s people and all of his men until he, similar to Jack, was the last man standing.
When Alice came along and was accused of “stealing” the Queen’s tart, it was not made aware that this tart was the last object the Queen savored from her love, Jack, before his execution on her wedding day. The Queen’s outburst of emotion is understanding for a woman who lost a dear loved one in such a traumatic way. Revealing the backstory of the “evil” Queen of Hearts, uncovers that this woman was taken at a young age from her family and her true love without any say in the matter. These traumatic events could even be compared to PTSD or even bipolar; the Queen was never evaluated for her mental health obviously due to the lack of medical understanding of the time.


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