Through The Looking Glass

“Alice used to say, beginning with her favourite phrase ‘Let’s pretend.’ She had had quite a long argument with her sister only the day before—all because Alice had begun with ‘Let’s pretend we’re kings and queens’; and her sister, who liked being very exact, had argued that they couldn’t, because there were only two of them.”

Alice’s inventive nature shows the theme of imagination well, as her favorite pastime is to play pretend. Her characterization reveals she enjoys having no rules, letting her imagination be limitless, reflecting the looking-glass land’s nonsensical ways. Her ideals contrast with her strict sister, who represents the rules and norms of society.

“’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two!

And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

He chortled in his joy.

“Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.”

The classic poem “Jabberwocky” uses wordplay and made-up words, which are components of Lewis Carroll’s writing style. He invents words and experiments with language to comedic effect. Later, this poem is a key text of contemplation for Alice and Humpty Dumpty; they dissect and analyze it, giving some specific meanings to certain words, such as “slithy” and “toves.”

“‘[The tree] says ‘Bough-wough!’ cried a Daisy. ‘That’s why its branches are called boughs!’”

This is one of countless examples of wordplay in the story. The Tiger-Lily tree is known to bark, saying “bough-wough” because of its boughs. Carroll puns on the homophones “bow” and “bough”—as in a branch of a tree—to characterize the tree as a guard dog.

“[A]nd Alice began to remember that she was a Pawn, and that it would soon be time for her to move.”

The Red Queen has informed Alice that she is a pawn, and she accepts her position, trying to figure out the nonsensical rules of playing chess in the strange squares. There is a double meaning to her being a pawn: She is at the mercy of an unfamiliar world and characters; they can influence and manipulate her as if playing a game, but Alice has very little power until she is crowned queen.

“Better say nothing at all. Language is worth a thousand pounds a word!”

The train’s passengers scold Alice for not speaking properly. The irony is that many characters use made-up words or illogical dialogue, so Alice is not the only one guilty of using wordplay. However, this quote also emphasizes the importance of language and the seriousness that can underlie wordplay.

“Alice couldn’t see who was sitting beyond the Beetle, but a hoarse voice spoke next. ‘Change engines—’ it said, and there it choked and was obliged to leave off. ‘It sounds like a horse,’ Alice thought to herself. And an extremely small voice, close to her ear, said, ‘You might make a joke on that—something about ‘horse’ and ‘hoarse,’ you know.’”

Carroll’s wordplay and linguistic humor shine using the terms “horse” and “hoarse.” The gnat points out an obvious joke one could have made with the homophones horse and hoarse. They sound the same but have completely different meanings, showing language’s bizarre, funny tricks.

“‘Crawling at your feet,’ said the Gnat (Alice drew her feet back in some alarm), ‘you may observe a Bread-and-butter-fly. Its wings are thin slices of bread-and-butter, its body is a crust, and its head is a lump of sugar.’ ‘And what does it live on?’ ‘Weak tea with cream in it.’”

For more humor and contrast between Alice’s world and the looking-glass realm, the author uses comparisons. In Alice’s world, they have butterflies, but they only have bread-and-butter-flies here. Carroll uses linguistic continuity to create a fantastical creature and imagine what it might look like and do, displaying these themes of change, imagination, and mirroring.

“So they walked on together though the wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the soft neck of the Fawn, till they came out into another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, and shook itself free from Alice’s arm. ‘I’m a Fawn!’ it cried out in a voice of delight. ‘And, dear me! you’re a human child!’ A sudden look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment it had darted away at full speed.”

The sensory description creates an atmospheric scene with Alice and the Fawn, especially touch, sight, and sound. The word choice of “lovingly,” “soft,” and “delight” make the tone gentle and friendly. The Fawn and Alice are companions who strive to find their identities because they have lost their names and their foundation of identity. Losing language makes them unable to define themselves until they get to the woods’ end and regain their essential vocabulary, suggesting that language is necessary for a sense of self.

“Alice did not like shaking hands with either of [the Tweedles] first, for fear of hurting the other one’s feelings; so, as the best way out of the difficulty, she took hold of both hands at once.”

Alice’s kindness is clear when she doesn’t want to upset the Tweedles. Her choice to shake both their hands at once shows she is a polite and proper girl, building her character’s depth. The Tweedle’s competitiveness is also an important part of their characters since they would be upset or envious if Alice chose one over the other.

“But four young oysters hurried up,

All eager for the treat:

Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,

Their shoes were clean and neat—

And this was odd, because, you know,

They hadn’t any feet.”

The famous poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter” employs nonsense and humor. Poetry is used often in the book, usually with illogical or amusing lines like these, since oysters indeed do not have feet. Often, Carroll pokes fun directly at the nonsensical like this, purposely using things that do not make sense.

“‘Well, it's no use your talking about waking [the Red King],’ said Tweedledum, ‘when you’re only one of the things in his dream. You know very well you’re not real.’

‘I am real!’ said Alice and began to cry.

‘You wo’n’t make yourself a bit realler by crying,’ Tweedledee remarked […]

‘If I wasn’t real,’ Alice said—half-laughing through her tears, it all seemed so ridiculous— ‘I shouldn’t be able to cry.’

‘I hope you don’t suppose those are real tears?’ Tweedledum interrupted […] ‘I know they’re talking nonsense,’ Alice thought to herself: ‘and it’s foolish to cry about it.’”

Alice swearing she is “real” brings the question of reality versus imagination into play, causing readers to wonder about the actuality of existence. Does someone exist if only in a dream? The question of whether everything is a dream—and whether that makes those events any less real—is central to the story.

“‘You couldn’t have it if you did want it,’ the Queen said. ‘The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday—but never jam to-day.’

‘It must come sometimes to “jam to-day,”’ Alice objected.

‘No, it ca’n’t,” said the Queen. ‘It’s jam every other day: to-day isn’t any other day, you know.’

‘I don’t understand you,’ said Alice. ‘It’s dreadfully confusing!’

‘That’s the effect of living backwards,’ the Queen said kindly…

[…] ‘Living backwards!’ Alice repeated in great astonishment. ‘I never heard of such a thing!’

‘—but there’s one great advantage in it, that one’s memory works both ways.’ ‘I’m sure mine only works one way,’ Alice remarked. ‘I ca’n’t remember things before they happen.’”

This dialogue epitomizes Carroll’s wordplay, which plays with ordinary language in unusual ways. Just as Alice had to move away from the flower garden at the beginning in order to move toward it, the White Queen moves backward through time as she moves forward. The inversion of backward and forward movement alludes to the fact that the looking-glass world is the mirror image of the real one.

“‘Now I’ll give you something to believe. I’m just one hundred and one, five months and a day.’

‘I ca’n’t believe that!’ said Alice.

‘Ca’n’t you?’ the Queen said in a pitying tone. ‘Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.’

Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said: ‘one ca’n’t believe impossible things.’

‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’”

This is one of the most famous and most oft-quoted sections in all of the Wonderland universe. The use of the word “impossible” is significant to the whole premise because so many impossible things happen throughout the looking-glass world. The White Queen teaches Alice to dream and imagine bigger and to believe in her mind’s power as much as anything else, which relates to holding onto her childhood innocence and love of pretend.

“‘I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’ [said Humpty Dumpty].

‘But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’ Alice objected.

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master—that’s all.’

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. ‘They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs: they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!’”

By taking words and making them mean whatever he wants, Humpty Dumpty reveals the arbitrariness of language. His dialogue with Alice reveals another great example of the themes of wordplay and language’s changing meanings since he argues anyone can invent a word or re-define one if they would like. The personification of parts of speech as living things he tames adds another layer of creative interpretation to linguistics.

“‘I see nobody on the road,’ said Alice.

‘I only wish I had such eyes,’ the King remarked in a fretful tone. ‘To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance, too! Why, it’s as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!’”

This wordplay goes over Alice’s head, but Carroll takes a regular noun (nobody) and turns it into a proper noun (Nobody). Making Nobody into a specific character is an entertaining, unexpected way to play with Alice’s mind and challenge her beliefs. The deeper meaning of seeing Nobody may also relate to seeing things others cannot—in other words, using one’s imagination to make an invisible, pretend world, the way Alice loves to do.

“‘I always thought they were fabulous monsters!’ said the Unicorn. […] The Unicorn looked dreamily at Alice, and said ‘Talk, child.’

Alice could not help her lips curling up into a smile as she began: ‘Do you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too? I never saw one alive before!’

‘Well, now that we have seen each other,’ said the Unicorn, ‘if you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you. Is that a bargain?’

‘Yes, if you like,’ said Alice.”

As another famous quote from the Wonderland sagas, this quote offers a positive, uplifting message about believing in even the most “impossible” things, such as unicorns. In another mirror-world inversion, children in the looking-glass land are mythical, while unicorns are real. Alice and Unicorn’s resolution to believe in one another reveals that whatever one believes is real, is indeed real, no matter how implausible.

“However, there was the great dish still lying at her feet, on which she had tried to cut the plum-cake, ‘So I wasn’t dreaming, after all,’ she said to herself, ‘unless—unless we’re all part of the same dream. Only I do hope it’s my dream, and not the Red King’s! I don’t like belonging to another person’s dream.’”

This moment foreshadows the revelation in the final chapters that Alice has dreamed or imagined the whole story. The repeated motif of dreams and the idea that Alice might be part of a dream is a symbolic, powerful sign of the power of her imagination. Furthermore, the fact that Alice has tangible evidence from what seems to have been a dream blurs the distinction between dreams and reality.

“‘How can you go on talking so quietly, head downwards?’ Alice asked, as she dragged him out by the feet, and laid him in a heap on the bank.

The Knight looked surprised at the question. ‘What does it matter where my body happens to be?’ he said. “My mind goes on working all the same. In fact, the more head-downwards I am, the more I keep inventing new things.’”

The White Knight offers Alice significant dialogue about one’s mental state. No matter where a person’s body may be, their mind never has to be bound by physical limitations. An inventor who brings his ideas into practice, the White Knight proves that one’s mind and creativity are stronger than one’s body, an inspiration to Alice to keep daydreaming and inventing new things.

“Of all the strange things that Alice saw in her journey Through The Looking-Glass, this was the one that she always remembered most clearly. Years afterwards she could bring the whole scene back again, as if it had been only yesterday—the mild blue eyes and kindly smile of the Knight—the setting sun gleaming through his hair, and shining on his armour in a blaze of light that quite dazzled her—the horse quietly moving about, with the reins hanging loose on his neck, cropping the grass at her feet—and the black shadows of the forest behind—all this she took in like a picture, as, with one hand shading her eyes, she leant against a tree, watching the strange pair, and listening, in a half-dream, to the melancholy music of the song.”

The imagery in this passage is vivid, filled with details of the knight’s armor, his blue eyes, the blaze of light, the horse cropping grass, shadows, and trees. The description conveys the sharpness of Alice’s memory of the moment, which itself suggests how important it is to her. That her memory of the White Knight is the most precious of her memories of the looking-glass land indicates his importance.

“‘I only said “if”!’ poor Alice pleaded in a piteous tone.

The two Queens looked at each other, and the Red Queen remarked, with a little shudder, ‘She says she only said ‘if’—’

‘But she said a great deal more than that!’ the White Queen moaned, wringing her hands. ‘Oh, ever so much more than that!’

‘So you did, you know,’ the Red Queen said to Alice. ‘Always speak the truth—think before you speak—and write it down afterwards.’

‘I’m sure I didn’t mean—’ Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen interrupted her impatiently.

‘That’s just what I complain of! You should have meant! What do you suppose is the use of child without any meaning? Even a joke should have some meaning—and a child’s more important than a joke, I hope.’”

The comedy of this passage develops from the queens’ overly-literal interpretation of Alice’s words, and Alice’s inability to understand their logic. The queens are correct—Alice did say more than the single word “if”—but Alice did not mean her sentence literally. The queens’ response that Alice should have “meant” is both comically literal and raises questions about where the meaning of language actually lies.

“At any other time, Alice would have felt surprised at this, but she was far too much excited to be surprised at anything now. ‘As for you,’ she repeated, catching hold of the little creature [the Red Queen] in the very act of jumping over a bottle which had just lighted upon the table, ‘I’ll shake you into a kitten, that I will!’

[…]

The Red Queen made no resistance whatever: only her face grew very small, and her eyes got large and green: and still, as Alice went on shaking her, she kept on growing shorter—and fatter—and softer—and rounder—and—

—and it really was a kitten after all.”

The theme of blurring the lines between imagination and reality returns when the Red Queen becomes Kitty. The kitten and queen are one and the same, coming full circle from the story’s beginning. This scene is an effective use of the theme of transformation and identity too, since Kitty and the queen are equals in mirrored worlds. Carroll choosing to make the transition from fantasy to reality across multiple chapters, even cutting off sentences, creates suspense and forward momentum.

“‘Your Red Majesty shouldn’t purr so loud,’ Alice said, rubbing her eyes, and addressing the kitten, respectfully, yet with some severity. ‘You woke me out of oh! such a nice dream! And you’ve been along with me, Kitty—all through the Looking-Glass world. Did you know it, dear?’”

The themes of dreams, imagination, and the power of the mind are all evident in Alice’s chat with Kitty. By calling the kitten “Your Red Majesty,” Alice equates her with the Red Queen, thinking they share the same characterization in transformed bodies in her inner fantasy. To Alice, her cat was with her, just in an altered state in her mind.

“‘You see, Kitty, it must have been either me or the Red King. He was part of my dream, of course—but then I was part of his dream, too! Was it the Red King, Kitty? You were his wife, my dear, so you ought to know—Oh, Kitty, do help to settle it! I’m sure your paw can wait!’ But the provoking kitten only began on the other paw, and pretended it hadn’t heard the question.

Which do you think it was?”

The ending leaves readers with the grand question of who was dreaming of the looking-glass world. If it was the Red King, it implies the looking-glass realm exists and Alice does not. If it was Alice, only her world exists, and the Red King’s does not. The question leaves the story with an ambiguous, playful ending.