Vainavi Mahendra

M.A English
Ms. Tapti Roy
16 November, 2017

Through The Looking Glass

Chapter 12: Which dreamed it?

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an
English writer, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon, and photographer. His most
famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass, which
includes the poem "Jabberwocky", and the poem The Hunting of the Snark all examples of
the genre of literary nonsense. He is noted for his facility at word play, logic and fantasy.
Through the Looking-Glass is a sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Set some six
months later than the earlier book, Alice again enters a fantastical world, this time by
climbing through a mirror into the world that she can see beyond it. Through the Looking-
Glass includes such celebrated verses as "Jabberwocky" and "The Walrus and the Carpenter",
and the episode involving Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
In the last chapter we find Alice back at home in England, rubbing her eyes, apparently
waking from a dream. Alice tells Kitty, who was sitting in her lap, that she was with her
throughout the dream. She speculates about cats' tendency to purr, and she cries out her
frustration with trying to figure out what is being said when the same noise is repeated over
and over. Alice then picks up the Red Queen from the table and tries to get Kitty to admit that
she was the Red Queen, but Kitty does not seem to want to look at the chess piece. She looks
over at Snowdrop, who is still having her cleaning from Dinah, and she concludes that the
White Queen must have been so disheveled in her dream for this reason. She believes that
Dinah must have been Humpty Dumpty.
Finally, Alice wonders who was dreaming all along. She believes that she might have
been the one dreaming or it could have been the Red King, since she was convinced that she
had been a part of his dream bringing us back to the conversation she had with Tweedledum
and Tweedledee. The narrator concludes by asking the reader who they think was dreaming

GEOLOGY 101 REPORT 1

all along, and follows the question with a poem about summers and dreaming and
Wonderland.
In the last poem of the book, the narrator paints a picture of day begone. He talks about
a boat ride, in the warm July weather, where he is narrating the story to three children who
are listening intently and curiously. Through the poem he is hinting at the sadness that
engulfs him when he thinks about that boat ride and states that even though she is no longer
present in from of his eyes, yet her memories haunt him. His lines about wonderland and
dreaming can be interpreted as their last vestiges of freedom that can be experienced by a
woman before she is married off. They also connote innocence. However, just as all things
come to an end, for a woman her free days shall also end as the summers die. The poet,
however, leaves us with an inquisitive question in the end which states that what is life if not
a dream. Hence, this poem can be seen as the poets attempt to make Alice aware of her new
responsibilities yet telling her that no matter where she is she will always be with him,
through his memories of her. It is important to know that the poem is an acrostic poem. The
beginning letters of each line, when put together, spell Alice Pleasance Liddell, making it
clear for whom the poem was dedicated to.

GEOLOGY 101 REPORT 2