Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll summary and analysis

 

Lewis Carroll, pseudonym of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, was born on 27^th January, 1832, and is known today as the famous Victorian author of the Alice books. He was a mathematician at Oxford and an ordained deacon at Christ Church. As a child, Carroll was always shy but gifted with an inquisitive mind and greatly enjoyed the company of his siblings and invented games and riddles for them. He had a fondness for stories and wordplay and invented many using fantasy and imagination. Though born left-handed, Carroll suffered psychological trauma when he was forced to correct this tendency, but later not only excelled in mathematics but grew equally fond of wordplay and photography. The Alice Books included the following works, written between 1865 and 1889: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (1871), The Wasp in a Wig (1877), The Nursery Alice (1889), and Alice’s Adventures Under Ground (1965).

 

The book opens with Alice mock scolding her black kitten for unwinding a ball of wool. While the boys are out in the snow gathering sticks for the bonfire, Alice being a girl is confined to the house and can only amuse herself through ‘pretend’ games. Alice is presented as an imaginative child with a propensity to daydream as she lists the mistakes Kitty has made, all along talking to herself and pretending she is in a dialogue with Kitty. Playing with chess pieces, Alice asks Kitty if it plays chess and then putting the Red Queen piece before Kitty asks it to imitate it. Scolding Kitty in the manner of a Victorian governess, she threatens to put Kitty into the looking glass house for the mischief. We see Alice thinking about the chess game as she falls asleep and enters the fantastic world of the looking glass. The story runs like the dream of a half-asleep child in which Alice magically crosses over to the other side of the mirror into the world of looking glass. The use of fantasy not only establishes daydreaming as a motif in the text but also presents the restricted life of young Victorian girls who were denied the freedom available to boys. A little girl like Alice in a conservative patriarchal society can wander freely only through her imaginative daydreaming.

 

Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is a sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, written by Lewis Carroll. The novel is filled with whimsical/ eccentric characters and imaginative events as Alice steps through a looking glass into a world where everything is reversed. The structure of the novel mimics a game of chess, with Alice moving from pawn to queen throughout her journey.

Alice is sitting with her black kitten and notices a large mirror. She wonders what it would be like on the other side of the mirror. Suddenly, she finds herself stepping through it and entering Looking-Glass Land, where everything is reversed, just like a reflection in a mirror. As she explores the house, she discovers that the chess pieces on the mantelpiece have come to life. Alice meets the White Queen and the White King, who do not seem to notice her. She leaves the house and walks into the garden, realizing that the world she has entered functions under different rules.

Alice encounters a garden filled with talking flowers, including a rose, a tiger-lily, and others. The flowers tell her she is not very important and suggest that she is part of a chess game. As Alice moves forward, she meets the Red Queen, who acts as a chess piece in the game. The Red Queen explains to Alice that she is a pawn in the game and will need to reach the eighth square to become a queen. The Red Queen quickly rushes Alice across the land, shows her how to move and play by the game’s rules.

After her interaction with the Red Queen, Alice finds herself in a wood where things lose their names. She meets strange creatures, including a gnat, who talks to her about the unusual insects in Looking-Glass Land, such as a rocking-horse-fly, bread-and-butterfly, and snap-dragonfly. Alice then crosses a brook, transitioning to the next square of the chessboard and finding herself on a train with a Goat, a Beetle, and a man in paper clothes.

Alice meets Tweedledum and Tweedledee, two identical brothers who constantly argue. They recite the famous poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” a melancholy tale about tricking oysters into following them, only to be eaten. Alice tries to leave but is caught in the brothers’ quarrel over a broken rattle, which escalates into preparations for a fight. Before the battle begins, a giant crow flies overhead, scaring them into hiding. Alice seizes the opportunity to leave.

Alice crosses another brook and ends up in a shop owned by a Sheep, where strange things happen. She tries to buy an egg, but the egg grows larger and larger, transforming into Humpty Dumpty. He is sitting on a wall, and Alice talks to him about the meanings of words. Humpty Dumpty takes credit for coining new words and explains to Alice the meaning of several invented terms, including the words from the poem "Jabberwocky." Humpty Dumpty, however, is indifferent to his precarious position on the wall, foreshadowing his fall.

Humpty Dumpty and Alice engage in a conversation about the meaning of words and poetry. Humpty Dumpty claims to be a master of words and insists that he can make words mean whatever he wants them to. Their conversation is interrupted when Alice points out how dangerous it is for him to sit on the wall. Humpty Dumpty dismisses her warning, and eventually, Alice leaves. Shortly afterward, she hears a great crash, indicating that Humpty Dumpty has fallen, just as in the nursery rhyme.

Alice encounters the White King, who is receiving news from one of his messengers about the ongoing battle between the Lion and the Unicorn. These two figures are fighting over the crown, as in the famous nursery rhyme. Alice witnesses their fierce but humorous battle, which is interrupted by a feast of cakes and a drum procession. The White King is constantly bewildered by the absurdity around him. Alice, feeling out of place, decides to continue her journey.
Alice meets two knights, a White Knight and a Red Knight, who fight over who will capture her. The White Knight wins and escorts Alice across the land. As they travel, the White Knight tells Alice about his many ridiculous inventions, like a way to prevent oneself from falling off a horse. Though the White Knight seems kindly, he is impractical, and Alice listens to his ramblings with growing amusement. At last, she bids him farewell and continues toward her final destination.

Alice reaches the eighth square and becomes a queen. She is greeted by the Red Queen and the White Queen, who invite her to a bizarre and chaotic dinner party to celebrate her coronation. The queens behave erratically, giving nonsensical speeches and presenting Alice with absurd tasks. Alice grows increasingly frustrated with the chaos, eventually grabbing the Red Queen and shaking her violently.

As Alice shakes the Red Queen, everything around her begins to dissolve into confusion. The Looking-Glass world unravels, and Alice finds herself waking up in her own home. The Red Queen, who Alice had been shaking, has transformed back into her black kitten.

Alice realizes that everything that happened was part of a dream. She reflects on her strange adventures in Looking-Glass Land and wonders if the Red King, who had been sleeping throughout the novel, was dreaming of her. The novel leaves the reader questioning whether Alice was a figment of the Red King’s dream or whether the Red King was a part of Alice’s dream. In the final chapter, Alice ponders the events of her journey and whether she was part of the Red King's dream. The story closes with a playful uncertainty about dreams, reality, and imagination, leaves Alice and the reader to wonder which dream mattered more.

Critical Analysis and Symbolism of Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll

The central motif of the mirror in Through the Looking-Glass symbolizes the theme of reflection and inversion, which underpins the entire novel. The world Alice enters through the mirror is a reversal of her own, where everything operates in reverse or contrary to ordinary experience. This inversion applies not only to physical objects (such as directions being reversed) but also to concepts of time, language, and logic. For example:
- The White Queen experiences time backward, remembering things before they happen, which challenges conventional notions of cause and effect. Language itself is reversed in meaning or nonsensically manipulated, as seen with Humpty Dumpty’s claim that words mean whatever he chooses them to mean.

The entire narrative is framed as a chess game, with Alice playing the role of a pawn who must navigate her way across the chessboard to become a queen. The chess game symbolizes a world governed by strict rules and progression, in contrast to the chaotic, unpredictable nature of Wonderland. Each character in the story is a chess piece, and their movements are determined by the rules of the game:

The Red Queen embodies order and structure, dictating Alice’s progression through the chessboard. The White Knight’s movements, although unpredictable and restricted by the rules of chess. This structure highlights the theme of predestination versus free will, as Alice’s journey is seemingly directed by external rules rather than her own decisions. Yet, her eventual coronation as queen suggests that personal agency and achievement can still emerge from structured systems. The chess metaphor also alludes to the social hierarchy and the struggles for advancement within society, where different "pieces" (or individuals) have different powers and roles.

 
Time plays a central role in the symbolism of the novel, particularly through its reversal or absurd manipulation. The Looking-Glass world does not follow the linear progression of time: The White Queen’s backward experience of time, where she remembers things that have not yet happened, symbolizes a challenge to the ordinary experience. This inversion of time also represents the unpredictability of the future and the fluidity of memory.

  In addition, the episodic structure of Alice’s journey—where she meets different characters in separate, unconnected scenes, mimics the nonlinear progression of dreams. Time seems fluid, fragmented, and nonsensical, much like the disorienting experience of being in a dream state. This symbolism of time as disjointed or irrelevant calls into question the nature of reality and suggests that time itself may be an illusion.

 
Alice’s journey across the chessboard, from pawn to queen, can be seen as an allegory for personal growth and maturation. Each square she crosses represents a step toward self-awareness and empowerment: Initially, Alice is a passive pawn, with little control over her fate. However, as she moves through the various stages of the chessboard, encountering challenges and learning from her experiences, she gradually takes on more agency.
Her eventual coronation as a queen symbolizes the attainment of maturity, authority, and self-possession. The novel, therefore, functions as a coming-of-age story in which Alice gains greater insight into herself and the world, even if the world remains confusing and nonsensical.

Lewis Carroll in fact creates a dreamlike, inverted world that serves as an allegory for reality itself. The novel’s use of symbolism—through the mirror, chess, time, language, and duality, invites readers to reflect on the nature of logic, identity, and the human experience. By playing with the rules of language and reality, Carroll suggests that meaning is often fluid and subjective, and that our understanding of the world is shaped as much by imagination and perception as by logic and reason.