Through the Looking-Glass: Motifs | SparkNotes (2024)

Inverse Reflections

Many of the basic assumptions that Alice makes about herenvironment are reversed in Looking-Glass World. Outcomes precede events,cakes are passed out before being cut, destinations are reachedby walking in the opposite direction, and characters remember thefuture and think best while standing on their heads. These strangephenomena challenge the way Alice thinks and in some cases exposethe arbitrary nature of her understanding of her own world. Manyof Alice’s experiences exist as meaningless parodies of aspectsof her own familiar world back home. Alice becomes aware of a new,inverted perspective on life as she travels forward and backwardthrough Looking-Glass World.

Dream

Alice falls asleep at the beginning of Throughthe Looking-Glass, just as she did at the outset of Alice’sAdventures in Wonderland, so that the resulting fantasticaladventures occur in her dreams. The story follows Alice throughthe various episodes of Looking-Glass World so that we experienceher adventures through her impressions of Looking-Glass House, thechess game, and her quest to become a queen. The characters andscenes that she encounters exist as a combination of her memoriesand impressions of the waking world and the random, illogical inventionsof her dreaming mind. Carroll emphasizes the dream motif by basingsome of the denizens of Looking-Glass World on individuals fromthe life of his real-life muse, Alice Liddell. For example, theRed Queen is based on Alice’s governess Miss Prickett, while theWhite Knight is closely based upon Lewis Carroll himself.

Chess

The chess game that Alice participates in becomes theorganizing mechanism for her adventure in Looking-Glass World. Alice’sjourney closely follows the rules of a traditional game of chess.The perspectives and movements of the individual characters correspondto the movements of their respective chess pieces. The Red and White Queenshave an unlimited view of the board, since queens can move in anydirection and as many spaces as they want in a single turn. TheRed and White Kings can only move one space at a time in any direction,so while they have the same perspective as the queens, they havelimited mobility. This limitation explains why the White King cannotfollow the White Queen as she runs away from the other chessmen,since she moves “too fast.” As a pawn, Alice can only move forwardonce space at a time, with the exception of her first move, in whichshe can move two spaces. Like a pawn, Alice can only “see” one squareahead of her. When she reaches the final square and becomes a queen,she can “see” the whole board because now she has the full mobilityof the queen chess piece. Alice’s move to take the Red Queen resultsin a checkmate of the Red King, ending the chess game and causingAlice to wake up.

Train Imagery

Trains and train imagery appear frequently to underscorethe feeling of unstoppable forward motion that governs Alice’s journeytoward womanhood. The Red King’s somnolent snoring resembles a train engine,while the White Queen screams like a train whistle before she pricksher finger. Alice skips forward several spaces when she finds herselfunexpectedly on a train, shooting through the forest toward herdestination and mimicking Alice’s forward movement as a pawn inthe chess game. The train imagery suggests the irreversible andunstoppable movement toward adulthood that Alice becomes subjectto in her journey through Looking-Glass World.