Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass. Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.
Through the Looking-Glass: Introduction
Through the Looking-Glass: Plot Summary
Through the Looking-Glass: Detailed Summary & Analysis
Through the Looking-Glass: Themes
Through the Looking-Glass: Quotes
Through the Looking-Glass: Characters
Through the Looking-Glass: Symbols
Through the Looking-Glass: Literary Devices
Through the Looking-Glass: Theme Wheel
Brief Biography of Lewis Carroll
Historical Context of Through the Looking-Glass
Other Books Related to Through the Looking-Glass
- Full Title: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There
- When Written: 1868-1871
- Where Written: Oxford, England
- When Published: 1871
- Literary Period: The “Golden Age” of children's literature
- Genre: Children's Literature; Literary Nonsense
- Setting: Looking-glass House and the giant chessboard surrounding it
- Climax: Alice reaches the eighth square and is crowned queen
- Antagonist: None of the beings Alice encounters are clear-cut antagonists; however, it's also possible to read all non-Alice characters as antagonists, as even those that try to help her only make things difficult or slow her down.
- Point of View: Third-person limited, though the narrator occasionally addresses the reader directly
Extra Credit for Through the Looking-Glass
A Jack-of-All-Trades. Despite experiencing (but, according to most accounts, not enjoying) the fame from being a children's author, Charles Dodgson was skilled and successful in a number of areas. There are political ideas and mathematical theorems named after him, and he was a well-known photographer in his day. Though most of his photographs have since been destroyed, he made portraits of such famous individuals as John Everett Millais (a painter), Alfred Tennyson (a poet), and Michael Faraday (a scientist).
An Exercising No-No. Alice's dismay and confusion when she runs with the Red Queen likely has as much to do with the fact that she's not going anywhere as it does with how the Victorians overwhelmingly viewed exercise, especially for women: in general, not favorably. At the close of the 19th century, this culminated in widespread hysteria over women contracting "bicycle face," which, simply, was a face red from exertion. Among other concerns, male doctors were afraid that an afflicted woman's face might stay that way.