Down The Rabbit Hole

Content Warning: This section discusses women’s objectification.

Holly’s title, and the brief introductory quote to each of her 17 chapters, are drawn from Lewis Carroll’s 1865 book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Holly uses these quotes symbolically, to make statements about what she is experiencing at different points in her Playboy journey. Holly places the following excerpt at the beginning of Chapter 10: “‘I can’t help it,’ said Alice very meekly: ‘I’m growing.’ ‘You have no right to grow here,’ said the Dormouse” (188). This quote presages a period of enlightenment for Holly, during which she begins to recognize the potential of reality television and of her own abilities. Though it certainly was not what Hefner wants to happen, Holly grows dramatically. Thus, each of the Carroll quotations serves as a prelude to the events of the upcoming chapter.

The underlying symbolic meaning of Holly’s use of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland refers to Holly’s personal journey: An innocent young girl falls down a rabbit hole into a bizarre world, where nothing makes sense, and she must find her own way back to a meaningful reality. By relying on Carroll in this way, Holly symbolically says she fell into a rabbit hole—a bunny being the trademark of Playboy—moved through the surreal world, and returned to the real world, bruised but intact.