Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is a novel by Lewis Carroll, the
sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Set some six months later than the earlier
book, Alice again enters a fantastical world, this time by climbing through a mirror into
the world that she can see beyond it. Though not quite as popular as Wonderland, Through
the Looking-Glass includes such celebrated verses as "Jabberwocky" and "The Walrus and
the Carpenter", and the episode involving Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
Plot summary
Alice is playing with a white kitten and a black kitten—the offspring of Dinah, Alice's
cat in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland—when she ponders what the world is like on the
other side of a mirror's reflection. Climbing up on the fireplace mantel, she pokes at the
wall-hung mirror behind the fireplace and discovers, to her surprise, that she is able
to step through it to an alternative world. In this reflected version of her own house,
she finds a book with looking-glass poetry, "Jabberwocky", whose reversed printing she
can read only by holding it up to the mirror. She also observes that the chess pieces have
come to life, though they remain small enough for her to pick up.
Upon leaving the house, she enters a sunny spring garden where the flowers have the power
of human speech; they perceive Alice as being a "flower that can move about." Elsewhere
in the garden, Alice meets the Red Queen, who is now human-sized, and who impresses
Alice with her ability to run at breathtaking speeds. This is a reference to the chess rule
that queens are able to move any number of vacant squares at once, in any direction,
which makes them the most "agile" of pieces. The Red Queen reveals to Alice that the entire
countryside is laid out in squares, like a gigantic chessboard, and offers to make Alice
a queen if she can move all the way to the eighth rank/row in a chess match. This is
a reference to the chess rule of Promotion. Alice is placed in the second rank as one
of the White Queen's pawns, and begins her journey across the chessboard by boarding
a train that literally jumps over the third row and directly into the fourth rank, thus
acting on the rule that pawns can advance two spaces on their first move.
She then meets the fat twin brothers Tweedledum and Tweedledee, whom she knows from the famous
nursery rhyme. After reciting the long poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter", the Tweedles
draw Alice's attention to the Red King—loudly snoring away under a nearby tree—and maliciously
provoke her with idle philosophical banter that she exists only as an imaginary figure
in the Red King's dreams. Finally, the brothers begin acting out their nursery-rhyme by suiting
up for battle, only to be frightened away by an enormous crow, as the nursery rhyme
about them predicts.
Alice next meets the White Queen, who is very absent-minded but boasts of her ability to
remember future events before they have happened. Alice and the White Queen advance into the
chessboard's fifth rank by crossing over a brook together, but at the very moment of
the crossing, the Queen transforms into a talking Sheep in a small shop. Alice soon
finds herself struggling to handle the oars of a small rowboat, where the Sheep annoys
her with nonsensical shouting about "crabs" and "feathers". Unknown to Alice, these are
standard terms in the jargon of rowing. Thus the Queen/Sheep was speaking in a perfectly
logical and meaningful way. After crossing yet another brook into the
sixth rank, Alice immediately encounters Humpty Dumpty, who, besides celebrating his unbirthday,
provides his own translation of the strange terms in "Jabberwocky". In the process, he
introduces Alice to the concept of portmanteau words, before his inevitable fall. "All the
king's horses and all the king's men" come to Humpty Dumpty's assistance, and are accompanied
by the White King, along with the Lion and the Unicorn, who again proceed to act out
a nursery rhyme by fighting with each other. In this chapter, the March Hare and Hatter
of the first book make a brief re-appearance in the guise of "Anglo-Saxon messengers" called
"Haigha" and "Hatta". Upon leaving the Lion and Unicorn to their
fight, Alice reaches the seventh rank by crossing another brook into the forested territory
of the Red Knight, who is intent on capturing the "white pawn"—who is Alice—until the
White Knight comes to her rescue. Escorting her through the forest towards the final brook-crossing,
the Knight recites a long poem of his own composition called Haddocks' Eyes, and repeatedly
falls off his horse. His clumsiness is a reference to the "eccentric" L-shaped movements of chess
knights, and may also be interpreted as a self-deprecating joke about Lewis Carroll's
own physical awkwardness and stammering in real life.
Bidding farewell to the White Knight, Alice steps across the last brook, and is automatically
crowned a queen, with the crown materialising abruptly on her head. She soon finds herself
in the company of both the White and Red Queens, who relentlessly confound Alice by using word
play to thwart her attempts at logical discussion. They then invite one another to a party that
will be hosted by the newly crowned Alice—of which Alice herself had no prior knowledge.
Alice arrives and seats herself at her own party, which quickly turns to a chaotic uproar—much
like the ending of the first book. Alice finally grabs the Red Queen, believing her to be responsible
for all the day's nonsense, and begins shaking her violently with all her might. By thus
"capturing" the Red Queen, Alice unknowingly puts the Red King into checkmate, and thus
is allowed to wake up. Alice suddenly awakes in her armchair to find
herself holding the black kitten, whom she deduces to have been the Red Queen all along,
with the white kitten having been the White Queen. The story ends with Alice recalling
the speculation of the Tweedle brothers, that everything may have, in fact, been a dream
of the Red King, and that Alice might herself be no more than a figment of his imagination.
One final poem is inserted by the author as a sort of epilogue which suggests that life
itself is but a dream. Characters
Main characters Alice
Bandersnatch Haigha
Hatta Humpty Dumpty
The Jabberwock Jubjub bird
Red King Red Queen
The Lion and the Unicorn The Sheep
The Walrus and the Carpenter Tweedledum and Tweedledee
White King White Knight
White Queen Minor characters
Returning characters The characters of Hatta and Haigha make an
appearance, and are pictured to resemble their Wonderland counterparts, the Hatter and the
March Hare. However, Alice does not recognise them as such.
Dinah, Alice's cat, also makes a return – this time with her two kittens; Kitty and Snowdrop.
At the end of the book they are associated with the Red Queen and the White Queen respectively
in the looking-glass world. Though she does not appear, Alice's sister
is mentioned. In both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass,
there are puns and quips about two non-existing characters, Nobody and Somebody. Paradoxically,
the gnat calls Alice an old friend, though it was never introduced in Alice's Adventures
in Wonderland. Writing style and themes
Symbolism The themes and settings of Through the Looking-Glass
make it a kind of mirror image of Wonderland: the first book begins outdoors, in the warm
month of May, uses frequent changes in size as a plot device, and draws on the imagery
of playing cards; the second opens indoors on a snowy, wintry night exactly six months
later, on 4 November, uses frequent changes in time and spatial directions as a plot device,
and draws on the imagery of chess. In it, there are many mirror themes, including opposites,
time running backwards, and so on. The White Queen offers to hire Alice as her
lady's maid and to pay her "Twopence a week, and jam every other day." Alice says that
she doesn't want any jam today, and the Queen tells her: "You couldn't have it if you did
want it. The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday- but never jam to-day." This is
a reference to the rule in Latin that the word iam or jam meaning now in the sense of
already or at that time cannot be used to describe now in the present, which is nunc
in Latin. Jam is therefore never available today.
Chess
Whereas the first book has the deck of cards as a theme, this book is based on a game of
chess, played on a giant chessboard with fields for squares. Most main characters in the story
are represented by a chess piece or animals, with Alice herself being a pawn.
The looking-glass world is divided into sections by brooks or streams, with the crossing of
each brook usually signifying a notable change in the scene and action of the story: the
brooks represent the divisions between squares on the chessboard, and Alice's crossing of
them signifies advancing of her piece one square. Furthermore, since the brook-crossings
do not always correspond to the beginning and ends of chapters, most editions of the
book visually represent the crossings by breaking the text with several lines of asterisks.
The sequence of moves is not always followed. The most extensive treatment of the chess
motif in Carroll's novel is provided in Glen Downey's The Truth About Pawn Promotion: The
Development of the Chess Motif in Victorian Fiction.
Poems and songs
Prelude "Jabberwocky" including readings)
"Tweedledum and Tweedledee" "The Lion and the Unicorn"
"The Walrus and the Carpenter") "Humpty Dumpty"
"In Winter when the fields are white..." "Haddocks' Eyes" / The Aged Aged Man / Ways
and Means / A-sitting on a Gate, the song is A-sitting on a Gate, but its other names
and callings are placed above. "To the Looking-Glass world it was Alice that
said..." White Queen's riddle
"A boat beneath a sunny sky" is the first line of a titleless acrostic poem at the end
of the book—the beginning letters of each line, when put together, spell Alice Pleasance
Liddell. The Wasp in a wig
Lewis Carroll decided to suppress a scene involving what was described as "a wasp in
a wig". It has been suggested in a biography by Carroll's nephew, Stuart Dodgson Collingwood,
that one of the reasons for this suppression was due to the suggestion of his illustrator,
John Tenniel. In a letter to Carroll, dated 1 June 1870, Tenniel wrote:
...I am bound to say that the 'wasp' chapter doesn't interest me in the least, and I can't
see my way to a picture. If you want to shorten the book, I can't help thinking – with all
submission – that there is your opportunity.
For many years no one had any idea what this missing section was or whether it had survived.
In 1974, a document purporting to be the galley proofs of the missing section was sold at
Sotheby's; the catalogue description read, in part, that "The proofs were bought at the
sale of the author's ... personal effects ... Oxford, 1898...". The bid was won by John
Fleming, a Manhattan book dealer. The winning bid was £1,700. The contents were subsequently
published in Martin Gardner's The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition, and is also
available as a hardback book The Wasp in a Wig: A Suppressed Episode ....
The rediscovered section describes Alice's encounter with a wasp wearing a yellow wig,
and includes a full previously unpublished poem. If included in the book, it would have
followed, or been included at the end of, chapter 8 – the chapter featuring the encounter
with the White Knight. The discovery is generally accepted as genuine, but the proofs have yet
to receive any physical examination to establish age and authenticity.
Dramatic adaptations The book has been adapted several times, in
combination with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and as a stand alone film or television special.
Stand alone versions The adaptations include live and TV musicals,
live action and animated versions. One of the earliest adaptations was a silent movie
directed by Walter Lang, Alice Through a Looking Glass, in 1928.
A dramatised version directed by Douglas Cleverdon and starring Jane Asher was recorded in the
late-1950s by Argo Records, with actors Tony Church, Norman Shelley and Carleton Hobbs,
and Margaretta Scott as the narrator. Musical versions include the 1966 TV musical
with songs by Moose Charlap, and Judi Rolin in the role of Alice, a Christmas 2007 multimedia
stage adaptation at The Tobacco Factory directed and conceived by Andy Burden, written by Hattie
Naylor, music and lyrics by Paul Dodgson and a 2008 opera Through the Looking Glass by
Alan John. Television versions include the 1973 BBC TV
movie, Alice Through the Looking Glass, with Sarah Sutton playing Alice, a 1982 38-minute
Soviet cutout-animated film made by Kievnauchfilm studio and directed by Yefrem Pruzhanskiy,
an animated TV movie in 1987, with Janet Waldo as the voice of Alice and the 1998 Channel
4 TV movie, with Kate Beckinsale playing the role of Alice. This production restored the
lost "Wasp in a Wig" episode. In March 2011, Japanese companies Toei and
Banpresto announced that a collaborative animation project based on Through the Looking-Glass
tenatively titled Kyōsō Giga was in production. With Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Adaptations combined with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland include the 1933 live-action
movie Alice in Wonderland, starring a huge all-star cast and Charlotte Henry in the role
of Alice. It featured most of the elements from Through the Looking Glass as well, including
W. C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty, and a Harman-Ising animated version of The Walrus and the Carpenter.
The 1951 animated Disney movie Alice in Wonderland also features several elements from Through
the Looking-Glass, including the poems "Jabberwocky" and "The Walrus and the Carpenter". Another
adaptation, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, produced by Joseph Shaftel Productions in
1972 with Fiona Fullerton as Alice, included the twins Fred and Frank Cox as Tweedledum
and Tweedledee. The 2010 movie Alice in Wonderland by Tim Burton contains elements of both Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Combined stage productions include the 1980
version, produced and written by Elizabeth Swados, Alice in Concert, performed on a bare
stage. Meryl Streep played the role of Alice, with additional supporting cast by Mark Linn-Baker
and Betty Aberlin. In 2007, Chicago-based Lookingglass Theater Company debuted an acrobatic
interpretation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass with Lookingglass
Alice. Lookingglass Alice was performed in New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, and
in a version of the show which toured the United States.
The 1985 two-part TV musical Alice in Wonderland, produced by Irwin Allen, covers both books;
Alice was played by Natalie Gregory. In this adaptation, the Jabberwock materialises into
reality after Alice reads "Jabberwocky", and pursues her through the second half of the
musical. The 1999 made-for-TV Hallmark/NBC film Alice in Wonderland, with Tina Majorino
as Alice, merges elements from Through the Looking Glass including the talking flowers,
Tweedledee and Tweedledum, "The Walrus and the Carpenter", and the chess theme including
the snoring Red King and White Knight. The 2009 Syfy TV mini-series Alice contains elements
from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.
Other The 1977 film Jabberwocky expands the story
of the poem "Jabberwocky". The 1936 Mickey Mouse short film "Thru the Mirror" has Mickey
travel through his mirror and into a bizarre world. The 1959 film Donald in Mathmagic Land
includes a segment with Donald Duck dressed as Alice meeting the Red Queen on a chessboard.
See also
References Notes
Citations
Other sources
External links Media related to Through the Looking-Glass
and What Alice Found There at Wikimedia Commons A catalogue of illustrated editions of the
Alice books from 1899 to 2009 Online texts
Through the Looking-Glass at Project Gutenberg Through the Looking-Glass Free audio book
at LibriVox HTML version with commentary of Sabian religion
Text of A Wasp in a Wig c1917 edition from archive.org – scanned
for download or reading online Multiple Formats, plaintext, concordance ) SiSU