Through the Looking-Glass

 The Logic of a Reverse World

Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is the famous sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, written by Lewis Carroll (the pseudonym for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson). Published in 1871, the book continues Alice’s journey into a fantastical realm, this time accessed by stepping through the mirror above her mantelpiece. The sequel maintains the blend of brilliant nonsense literature, satire, and logic puzzles that characterized the first book, but organizes its structure around the complex rules of a game of chess.

Alice as a Pawn in the Game

In the Looking-Glass World, everything is reversed: clocks run backward, time is nonsensical, and cause-and-effect often work in reverse. Alice discovers that the entire world is arranged like a massive chessboard, divided into squares by brooks and hedges. She meets the Red Queen (who becomes her guide) and the White Queen, who tell her she is a Pawn. The novel’s plot is structured as Alice’s journey across the chessboard, where she must travel from the second square to the eighth square to achieve the goal of becoming a Queen.

Along the way, Alice encounters some of Carroll’s most memorable characters:

• Tweedledum and Tweedledee: The rotund twin brothers who recite the tragic poem The Walrus and the Carpenter.

• Humpty Dumpty: The famous egg-man who offers Alice bizarre definitions of words and discusses the difference between "glory" and "a nice knock-down argument."

• The White Knight: A gentle, clumsy figure who exemplifies sentimental absurdity.

The novel is perhaps best known for introducing the nonsense poem "Jabberwocky," a masterful piece of portmanteau words and linguistic invention that Alice is tasked with deciphering.

Themes of Language, Logic, and Time

Unlike the card-themed chaos of Wonderland, Looking-Glass is concerned with structure, order, and language itself:

• Nonsense and Logic: Carroll, a mathematician, uses the framework of chess and the rules of a reverse world to explore paradoxes and the arbitrariness of language and rules. The characters often argue based on absurd, yet internally consistent, logic.

• The Inevitability of Time: The theme of time runs throughout the book, often working backward or moving illogically, reflecting a child's struggle to understand and master the concept of linear time.

• The Dream Motif: The entire adventure culminates with Alice waking up, realizing the entire journey was a dream, leaving the reader to question which of the characters was truly the dreamer.

The book is a witty, intelligent, and enduring commentary on the nature of reality and the limits of communication.