The Passengers on the Train: As the train is filled with various and sundry creatures going about their business, the identities of those sharing Alice’s railway carriage (Man, Goat, Beetle, Horse and Gnat) tell us much about the nature of Looking-Glass Land. In Wonderland, sentient animals lived side by side with humans. Insects, however, were not to be found. In Looking-Glass Land, these industrious creatures are everywhere. As we will see, they are quite concerned with issues concerning work, sorrow and death … no doubt as a result of their own fleeting and difficult lives.
An Extremely Small Voice: It should be noted that in the original text, the words spoken by the gnat are in a smaller font. Due to the difficulties this causes for adjustable text on the Kindle, I have opted not to include this original formatting.
“She’s Got a Head on Her”: In Carroll’s day, postage stamps featured the profile portrait of Queen Victoria. Since Alice is the only human girl in the carriage (and perhaps even the only one in Looking-Glass Land!), the people have mistaken her rushing head for a postage mark.
“I Know You Are a Friend”: The Gnat’s speech here is quite mysterious. He may be implying that he knows Alice is a friend, because anyone else would have swatted him by now. He may also regard Alice as an old friend, simply because his own life is so short and he has now known her for several minutes.
The Goat’s Beard: Alice first vanished and appeared on the train by jumping over the brook. Now that the train is jumping over another brook, she vanishes again and appears back in the forest (although in another square).
Looking-Glass Insects: The nature of Looking-Glass Insects is curious—all of the ones pointed out by the Gnat seem to be artificially created, awkward and doomed to failure (and death). They may represent the lower class, or even the untouchables, of Looking-Glass Land society.
“It Always Happens”: This grim, touching line underscores the nature of being … not only for the insects of Looking-Glass Land, but for all mortal creatures.
The Nameless Wood: After the conversation Alice had with the Gnat concerning names as indicators of identity, it seems that Alice (having regarded names as not being important to insects themselves, if insects are inferior) has begun to lose her identity. This disconcerting effect is brought on by the primeval, non-sentient nature of the forest itself.
“I Know It Begins With L”: Alice may either be struggling to remember her last name (Liddell), or she may be confusing herself with her elder sister (Lorina). She may also be remembering the other White Pawn (Lily).
A Curious End: This chapter ends as an incomplete sentence, with the continuation, “Tweedledum and Tweedledee” being the title of the following chapter.
Chapter IV
Tweedledum and Tweedledee: These twins, derived from a well-known nursery rhyme, receive their most in-depth characterization here in Carroll’s work. They are forever at odds, contradicting one another’s ambitions as if battling each other to lay claim to a single identity. To “tweedle” means to twist, or contort.
The Overgrown Schoolboys: In his illustrations of the twins, Tenniel clearly drew on the inspiration of his prior pictures of John Bull, the epitome (in cartoon form) of the everyday Englishman. The “Tweedles,” in the same manner as Bull, wear the classic skeleton suit of 19th-century schoolboys. They are also dull, plucky, straightforward, stubborn and full of heart!
“First Boy,” “Next Boy”: Alice is jesting with them because they are wearing skeleton suits, the traditional wear of English schoolboys. “First Boy” was a titular honor given to the smartest boy who knew all the answers, while “Next Boy” (contrariwise!) would indicate his slight inferior.
The Carpenter’s Hard Times: In the illustrations, the Carpenter appears wearing the classic paper cap of the lower-class Victorian laborer. If he is wandering at the seashore of Looking-Glass Land, he may be an out-of-work shipbuilder. (He may also be responsible for working on the woodwork of the Ship of Fools, which we will see in The Hunting of the Snark.)
The Walrus and the Carpenter: Unlike most of the poems in the Alice works, this one is unique to Carroll and not a parody of an existing work. There are hints of the superstitions of mariners, such as the midnight sun and the boiling sea. As we will see later in The Hunting of the Snark, such warnings are prevalent on the approach to Jabberwock Isle. The warning nature of the poem becomes more apparent when we consider that Carroll once (in the earlier editions) cited Tweedledum and Tweedledee as White Castles (Rooks), the Carpenter as a Red Knight, and the Walrus as a Red Bishop. In other words, the white chessmen are warning the new White Pawn (Alice) about the predatory nature of the red chessmen. The Oysters are innocents, and their lack of care among the red pieces leads to their grisly end.
This Was a Puzzler: For the first time in her life, Alice is forced to contemplate the moral conundrum posed by determining the lesser of two evils.
The Sleeping King: As opposed to the Queens in chess, the Kings move very slowly. In fact, it is often considered tactically unsound to move the King unless absolutely necessary, since doing so wastes a turn that could be spent moving a stronger (and less crucial) piece into place.
The Dream of the Red King: The nature of the Red King’s dream emphasizes the darker, deadlier nature of Looking-Glass Land. In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, we learned that Alice fell into Wonderland when she fell asleep, and left it when she woke. In Looking-Glass Land, however, she learns that she is not dreaming. Instead, she is being dreamt of. This chilling revelation makes her escape from Looking-Glass Land all the more urgent (which fits in again with the theme of rushing time).
“I Bought It Yesterday”: The only real shop in Looking-Glass Land, it seems, is the Sheep Shop, where the White Queen (Sheep) sells objects of desire. If this is where Tweedledum bought his rattle, it also brings up another question: Are those brothers the sons of the White Queen? They serve in the game as chessmen (like Lily, the White Pawn and Queen’s daughter); they are rather dull; and in the absence of their mother, they tell Alice that they will need her help in getting dressed.
The Monstrous Crow: The crow is featured in the original nursery rhyme, but it is also a bird symbolic of death. Rather grim, but quite in keeping with Looking-Glass Land!
Chapter V
The White Queen: Carroll (in “‘Alice’ on the Stage”) described her thusly: “Lastly, the White Queen seemed, to my dreaming fancy, gentle, stupid, fat and pale; helpless as an infant; and with a slow, maundering, bewildered air about her just suggesting imbecility, but never quite passing into it; that would be, I think, fatal to any comic effect she might otherwise produce. There is a character strangely like her in Wilkie Collins’ novel ‘No Name’: by two different converging paths we have somehow reached the same ideal, and Mrs. Wragg and the White Queen might have been twin-sisters.”
“Am I A-Dressing …”: A quick Victorian pun, born of misunderstanding. Alice is asking if she is speaking to royalty; the White Queen is responding that yes, you’re putting my shawl back on, so I suppose you are indeed a-dressing me.
Caring for the White Queen: Alice’s careful and compassionate rituals over the White Queen—dressing her, fixing her hair, asking after her—comprise one of her first experiences in role reversal. In a way, this is Alice’s first moment of proving her worth as a future Queen.
“The Effect of Living Backwards”: Whereas the Red Queen has proven herself as a mistress in control of time, the poor doddering White Queen is quite swept up in the opposite direction. She still has the powers of a Looking-Glass Queen, but the powers are beginning to rule her, as opposed to the other way around.
“The Trial Doesn’t Even Begin”: The King’s Messenger in question is certainly the Hatter, that unlucky exile from Wonderland. The prescient White Queen tells us that something will happen (perhaps the Hatter will earn the White King’s ire, as he did that of the Queen of Hearts), and he’ll be thrown into prison once again. Or, she is actually (considering the illustration) referring to the
trial that already happened in Wonderland, which has not yet happened in Looking-Glass Land due to the confounding effects of living backwards!
“Seven and a Half, Exactly”: It is six months to the day after Alice’s seventh birthday, when she adventured in Wonderland.
“Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast”: This part of the conversation is interesting, because of Alice’s declaration that she can’t believe in impossible things. In other words, she sincerely believes in everything that is happening to her, in both Wonderland and Looking-Glass Land. It is this conviction that makes her the only young girl who is capable of exploring these realms of unreality and getting back out again. The White Queen, meanwhile, believes impossible things every day. And well she might, as the sovereign of a land filled with impossibilities! Impossibility is all she has ever known.
She Crossed the Little Brook: As we have seen twice before, whenever Alice jumps over a Looking-Glass Brook, some strange shift in perspective always occurs. The first time was when she vanished and appeared on the train; the second was when the train leaped and she vanished off of it again. Now, since the White Queen leapt first (and Alice followed), the transformation happens to the Queen, and Alice is carried along.
The Sheep: In entering Looking-Glass Land, Alice has probably fallen asleep in her favorite arm-chair, back in the Deanery’s drawing-room. Sheep (of the counted variety) have long been associated with pleasant dreams. Also, Alice goes on a journey up the river of dreams, which is certainly the River Isis near where she fell asleep (to the bleating of sheep again!) and fell into Wonderland. As in all the best dreams, Alice goes quietly along with the lovely insanity that is now enfolding her.
The Old Sheep Shop: This store, as illustrated, was an actual candy shop which Alice frequented while living in Oxford. These days, it remains as a souvenir shop selling Alice keepsakes and other mementoes. For those who wish to visit, it is located at 83 Saint Aldgate’s Street. Enjoy!
The Empty Shelves: Alice is experiencing the effects of a mirage, or a trick of light in the corner of the eye. Peripheral vision shows there is something there, but looking directly shows nothing at all. Carroll is also alluding to the untouchable, fog-like nature of desired things in beautiful dreams.
How Can She Knit With So Many?: The White Queen, as the Sheep, is casually showing her supreme mastery of the world of illusion and dream. Handing the knitting-needles to Alice turns them into oars, perhaps because Alice is “apprenticed” to the idea of dream-shifting and finds herself in one of her happiest places on earth: the River Isis, where Lewis Carroll first told her the dream-stories of Wonderland.
“Feather!”: A “feather” is a skilled type of oar stroke that gives greater control. The Sheep is showing Alice how to master the world of dream. When recollecting a river jaunt with Carroll down to Nuneham, Alice Liddell once commented (in part) as follows: “When we had learned enough to manage the oars, we were allowed to take our turn at them, while the two men watched and instructed us. I can remember what hard work it was rowing upstream from Nuneham, but this was nothing if we thought we were learning and getting on. It was a proud day when we could ‘feather our oars’ properly.”
Catching a Crab: A “crab” is a bad stroke of the oar, which causes the water to pull the oar down sloppily. In dream-parlance, this indicates Alice’s lack of control on the river of dreams, although she is learning to “feather” more as she goes.
The Scented Rushes: The rushes are Carroll’s symbol for those most beautiful dreams which cannot be attained. (We wonder if Carroll’s own scented rushes were dreams of a life spent with Alice Liddell.) As an odd parallel, the netherworld paradise of the ancient Egyptians was known as the Field of Rushes, a place of lovely, cool water and banks of scented plants, beyond which laid desires.
The Shop of Curiosities: Once Alice has proven that she can begin to master the river of dreams, the Sheep returns her to the shop where Alice must select something, pay for it and leave. To the Sheep, this is a grave matter indeed. Alice has learned that she cannot keep the dream-rushes, so it is time to think of something more practical that is important to her. Alice chooses an egg, perhaps just being hungry after all her exertion. The Queen, however, knows that the egg will prove to be Humpty Dumpty (a pontificating mentor) after the shop of illusion fades. Once the shop does fade and Alice crosses the next brook, the new transformation occurs and she is ushered into the presence of Humpty Dumpty!
Chapter VI
Humpty Dumpty: Much like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Humpty Dumpty is a nursery rhyme figure who Alice is quite familiar with. Humpty, however, has much more in common with the Caterpillar of Wonderland. Both are earlier phases of a creature’s metamorphosis: The Caterpillar will become a Butterfly, and the Egg will become a Rooster. Both are intellectual mentors, with the Caterpillar being a dreamy philosopher and Humpty Dumpty being a stern logician and semanticist. Humpty, however, is caught in a strange kind of time distortion, perhaps because he serves the White Queen. He does not know that his pride and audacity will cause him to fall off the wall, but in Alice’s world, this has already occurred and had a famous rhyme composed about it. (We can only speculate whether Carroll was parodying certain Oxford dons he and Alice both knew, or simply making fun of himself.)
“What Does It Mean?”: Although Alice does not know this and cannot answer, Humpty would probably be quite interested to learn that the name “Alice” comes from the Old German “Adelaide,” meaning “of the noble kind.”
“You Might Have Left Off at Seven”: Alice, thankfully, is quite oblivious to Humpty Dumpty’s morbid fascination. Basically, Mr. Dumpty is saying that Alice might not have been able to manage committing suicide at the tender age of seven, but “with proper assistance” (from a murderer), she would have had absolutely no problem ending her own little “growing older” situation!
“That Seems to Be Done Right”: Like all the best egg-headed professors, Humpty Dumpty is a master in his specialty of language, but anything outside of that—such as mathematics—is far too much of a chore for him to bother with understanding.
A Rather Sudden Ending: Once Humpty Dumpty observes that his uniquely-crafted poem is not having the desired effect on Alice, Mr. Dumpty is quite done with her, say thank you.
Chapter VII
All the King’s Men: Here, we learn that the White King has control of considerable forces beyond those few champions who are vying for victory in the chess match. They are shown in the tradition of medieval English soldiers, and include (from the illustration) knights, arquebusiers (gunmen) and pikemen.
Nobody on the Road: This crafty joke is very old, dating all the way back to Homer’s Odyssey, wherein Odysseus deceived the Cyclops Polyphemus by given his name (which he knew would be shouted later) as “No-Man.”
Anglo-Saxon Attitudes: Carroll here is poking fun at the stilted figures prevalent in artwork from Anglo-Saxon times, featuring crude caricatures with splayed limbs that are posed at awkward angles.
Haigha and Hatta: These are Anglo-Saxon names. Haigha is pronounced as “hare,” and is the March Hare. Hatta, of course, is the Hatter. Both are exiles from Wonderland, fleeing the wrath of the Queen of Hearts which they experienced some six months prior. We can only assume that the poor Dormouse was either left behind, or is safely asleep somewhere!
“I Love My Love With an H”: Alice is playing an old parlor game, in which participants challenge one another to see how long they can carry on a viable monologue of words beginning with a single letter.
The Lion and the Unicorn: This nursery rhyme dates back several centuries, and tells the tale of two troubled kingdoms battling against one another. The Lion is the heraldic beast on the coat of arms of England, while the Unicorn is the symbol of Scotland. The Lion and the Unicorn both serve the White King, but apparently the kingdom is one with some considerable history of warfare and unification. An interesting parallel can again be drawn to the white and red roses in the garden of the Queen of Hearts,
which were symbols of the War of the Roses.
“There’s Some Enemy After Her”: The White King has a rather bored and passing interest in ceremonial battle. He is quite unconcerned with his Queen being chased by enemies, because the chess match is merely a game, after all. Similarly, he is very casual in his regard to the ritual sparring between the Lion and the Unicorn, and seems quite shocked when Alice asks if his crown is at stake. Of course, the game is far more serious than the White King realizes!
The Nature of the Child: Alice is something of a peculiarity in the fantastical realm of Looking-Glass Land, being “only” a little girl. There is nothing else quite like her. The March Hare does not recognize her (perhaps as a result of the time-distortion he was trapped in at the Mad Tea-Party), but the Unicorn has never seen anything quite like her. Carroll twists this situation around to masterful effect, where the bored and fantastic Unicorn is utterly awed by the existence of something so mundane and un-impossible as a human child from the “imaginary” land of England.
“Fetch Out the Plum-Cake, Old Man!”: In the finest Scottish tradition, the Unicorn is completely unconcerned with showing deference to the harmless little King! (Best of all, the King takes it.)
Twice As Much for the Lion: The Lion, of course, has taken the lion’s share of the cake!
Chapter VIII
“Ahoy! Ahoy! Check!”: In moving into Alice’s square, the Red Knight has captured the White Pawn (Alice), while simultaneously putting the White King in check. The White Knight, however, is quite oblivious to the propriety of all this, and is a little slow on the uptake. Before either result of the Red Knight’s move can be honored, the White Knight intervenes on Alice’s behalf and challenges the Red Knight to a duel. Honoring the quizzical rules of Looking-Glass Chivalry (with a damsel in distress apparently trumping a mere check), the Red Knight gamely agrees to battle.
The Complete Alice in Wonderland (Wonderland Imprints Master Editions) Page 25