Down the 🐇 Rabbit-Hole
- metaphor; accidentally going deeply into something, [theory, research e.g] through twists & turns, ending up somewhere strange, unexpected. Reference to the chapter title* & eponymous🔍 character following the white rabbit in ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND.
Often implies a distraction/ detour, not worth the time/ effort. (Though I strongly disagree! Treasure hidden at the bottom of rabbit-holes are as valuable as dragon-hordes; with inherent worth, regardless of their relevance to the initial journey's aim, and well worth their respective quests: I went down one about spiders writing this!) Rabbit-holes symbolize risk, escapism and curiosity; a insatiable desire to explore & discover new things both hidden in our psyche and out of our comfort zones. They are invitations to step out into chaos/ uncertainty, and initiations into deeper truths.
"Time flies when you’re... falling down a rabbit hole." – Alice
In the Internet Age it has come to be associated with engagement traps, distracting websites/ divergent research trails etc. Getting 'sucked in' to following something, somewhat unwillingly [Wiki-rabbit holes, e.g the winding path a reader takes researching on wikipedia.] It also has an association with psychedelic drugs use.
NOTABLE USES IN CULTURE:
📚 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland | Lewis Carol 1865
🎥 Film: The Matrix | released 1999
🎥 Film: Donnie Darko | released 2001
RELATED IDIOMS🔍 / PHRASES:
Analysis Paralysis: the abundance of choice on the internet creating endless research/ analysis and preventing a decision
Red Pill / Blue Pill: reference to metaphorical choice in THE MATRIX between an unsettling / life-changing truth (red pill) or maintaining an illusion; "ignorance is bliss" (blue pill.) In turn a reference 1990 film TOTAL RECALL, where hero is asked to swallow a red pill to return to reality from a dream-like fantasy. Both loosely connect to psychedelic experiences & Alice's "Eat Me" cake & "Drink Me" potion, consumption of which drastically alter her perception & reality.
Similar THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS - Another Carol reference to 1871 eponymous sequel to WONDERLAND, where Alice enters a new reality by stepping into the reflected image of a mirror. [A trope as old as SNOW WHITE & picked up in the 1832 poem THE LADY OF SHALOTT | Alfred Tennyson, where said Lady sees the world indirectly through reflections, THE LION THE WITCH & THE WARDROBE c. 1950, as a portal to Narnia, and, more obscure, the grotesque mirror in Jorge Luis Borges' TLÖNl, UQBAR🥚, ORBIS TERTIU c. 1940
Lost in a Labyrinth / Maze - Caught in a Tangled Web: sucked into/ stuck in a complicated/ convoluted structure or process "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice do deceive" often attributed to Shakespeare, but actually from Sir Walter Scott's poem MARMION: A TALE OF FLODDEN FIELD, 1808. A reference to being caught in a spider's web like a fly- an image used in J.R.R. Tolkien's THE LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING & Stephen Kings THE MIST
Similar GORDIAN KNOT - Ancient Greek legend of a complex knot tied an oxcart in Gordium | Phrygia; whoever could untie it (like Arthur's Sword in the Stone) would be destined to rule all of Asia.. Alexander the Great dramatically cut through it with his sword, rather than attempting to disentangle it. Used as a metaphor for using brute force to solve a seemingly-intractable problem.