In a world of madness, the only sane character is the Cheshire Cat. He has a few distinguishing features, one of these being the philosophical and rational manner in which he speaks and interacts with Alice.
The Cat is the only character to speak plainly to Alice and points out how her way of thinking belongs in Wonderland much more than she believed. This is most evident in their conversation over which way to go, showing his awareness of the world around him. He gives Alice directions, which no other character is capable of doing, lost as they are in their own madness.
Though the Cat calls himself mad, it is a sign of insanity to not know when one is mad, so by the tilted logic of Wonderland, the Cat is telling Alice that he is a voice of reason amid the sea of illogical things that surrounds her. When he tells Alice that she is mad for coming there, it is an observation the reader has been waiting for, having experienced her form of logic, innocent and bizarre enough to rival that of Wonderland.
The Cat is unafraid in a world where lives are threatened by a mad monarch, because he has figured out how survive by exploiting the irrational rationality of the Wonderland denizens. This is illustrated by his choice to only have his head appear when in the realm of the Red Queen, knowing her habit of beheading bystanders, and knowing the conundrum a head without a body would present to the simple-minded court.
The only one who observes with honesty is the Cheshire Cat, and he does so unabashedly, for he has nothing to fear. When he meets Alice, he finds one who straddles the line of sanity and madness, and even as he pushes her toward a conclusion of madness, he shows her the simple logic of clear-thinking.
-Al
Stay tuned for an illustrated Grimm tale plus structure analysis! (way cooler than it sounds)
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