Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll
"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and its sequel, "Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There," are iconic works by Lewis Carroll that explore the whimsical and often nonsensical realms of imagination. The narrative begins with Alice, a young girl who, during a daydream, follows a white rabbit and tumbles into the fantastical world of Wonderland. The story is filled with peculiar characters, such as the grinning Cheshire Cat, the eccentric Mad Hatter, and the tyrannical Queen of Hearts, each presenting challenges that blur the lines of logic and reality.
In her adventures, Alice grapples with her changing size and identity, reflecting the complexities of growing up. The sequel introduces a chess-themed landscape where Alice starts as a pawn and navigates her way to becoming a queen, serving as a metaphor for her coming-of-age journey. Throughout both stories, themes of absurdity, authority, and self-discovery are woven together, inviting readers to question the nature of dreams and reality. Carroll's imaginative storytelling and playful language have made these tales enduring favorites, encouraging exploration of the boundaries of thought and perception.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There
First published:Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass: And What Alice Found There (1871 but dated 1872)
Type of work: Novels
Type of plot: Fantasy—alien civilization
Time of work: Undefined, in dreamlands
Locale: Wonderland and Looking-Glass Land
The Plot
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is an outgrowth of Lewis Carroll’s earlier and shorter tale titled Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, which he based on a story he told to Alice Liddell and her two sisters during a boat trip they took in 1862. Carroll completed this story, written in longhand and illustrated with his own drawings, in 1863. In 1864, he gave the manuscript to Alice as a gift. Revised and expanded by Carroll and newly illustrated by John Tenniel, this work evolved into Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland the following year.
While listening to her older sister reading aloud, Alice drifts off to sleep and begins her dream adventures. She follows a white rabbit and falls down his hole into Wonderland. Alice is constantly at odds with the creatures who inhabit this alien world and also with her own body, which shrinks when she drinks from a mysterious bottle, then grows to enormous size when she eats a small cake.
She encounters many creatures endowed with wit and cleverness, who confuse her at every turn. She meets the ugly Duchess, whose baby turns into a pig in Alice’s arms. Things are not what they seem. It is at the Duchess’ house that she first sees the unsettling Cheshire Cat, who sits in the corner grinning, with his eyes fixed on Alice. Later, the Cheshire Cat reappears on a tree branch, from which he demonstrates his ability to vanish, leaving only his eerie smile lingering in the air.
At the Mad Tea-Party, Alice must exchange witty remarks and insults with the Hatter and March Hare, an experience that further challenges her sense of time and logic. It is always six o’clock, always teatime, at this table.
The threatening nature of Wonderland is reinforced in the garden scene, dominated by the raucous Queen of Hearts, who continually shouts “Off with her head!” The threat becomes problematic, however, when the executioner is summoned to cut off the disembodied head of the Cheshire Cat.
Alice’s last adventure is at the trial of the Knave of Hearts, who is accused of stealing the Queen’s tarts. The Queen calls for the defendant to be sentenced before the jury submits its verdict, and it soon becomes clear that the law itself is on trial. Outraged at the absurd form of justice she witnesses, Alice asserts, “You’re nothing but a pack of cards!” With that exclamation, she annihilates Wonderland as if by magic, and she emerges from her strange dream.
In Through the Looking-Glass (which carries the subtitle And What Alice Found There), Carroll again frames his story as a dreamlike experience, but this time he presents a world that is controlled by the rules of a chess game. Alice enters the geometrical landscape, which is laid out like a chessboard, as a pawn. During her movement across the board en route to becoming a queen, she may converse only with the chess figures on adjacent squares. Among the many memorable characters she engages are the White Queen, from whom she learns the advantages of living backward in time; the battling Lion and Unicorn; the pompous Humpty Dumpty; the bullying Tweedledee and Tweedledum, who tell Alice that she is merely an object in the Red King’s dream; and the eccentric White Knight.
After Alice bids farewell to the White Knight, in a scene that may represent Carroll’s adieu to Alice Liddell as she reached puberty, Alice goes on to become queen. In terms of the chess game, the pawn has become a queen, and in human terms, Alice’s final move suggests her coming of age. It is at this point that she wakes from her dream and is left wondering who dreamed it all, herself or the Red King.