The binary I had noticed was instinct vs. reason. All throughout the novel, this binary clashes against each other. While instinct defines much of the childlike innocence of Alice in the novel, Alice has a hard time forming dependable reasoning.

This is revealed in the text as it states, “It was all very well to say “Drink me,” but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. “No, I’ll look first,” she said, “and see whether it’s marked ‘poison’ or not;” for she had read several nice little stories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts, and other unpleasant things…” (Carroll 12)

Carroll uses the clash between instinct and reason in order to create a form of balance. While, Alice claims to be very reasonable, her reasoning is often skewed and is not too different from relying on her gut instinct. Despite the fact the bottle was something she had never seen before, she decides to drink it after a simple ‘poison mark’ check. Her reasoning is very much unreasonable to the point where she might as well have followed her instinct to drink the bottle without any form of inspection. However, it is because she has this form of reason that Carroll is able to balance foolishness with innocence throughout the novel.