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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Through the Looking-Glass, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Youth, Identity, and Growing Up
Adulthood and the Adult World
Rules and Etiquette
Sense, Nonsense, and Language
Summary
Analysis
In the garden, Alice decides to climb to the top of a nearby hill so she can see better. The path twists and turns and Alice finds that it consistently returns her to Looking-glass House. Frustrated, she declares that she's not going back yet and tries even harder to keep to a straight line. She fails and tries again. This time, she passes some beautiful flowers. She speaks to one of the flowers and says that she wishes the flowers could talk. Tiger-lily says that flowers can talk when there's someone worth speaking to. Alice asks if all the flowers can talk and several others pipe up.
Alice's struggle to get to the hill is her first indication that Looking-glass World doesn't function in the same way that Alice's does—clearly she's doing something wrong, even if she doesn't know what yet. The talking flowers reinforce this, while also flattering Alice by suggesting that she's someone worth talking to. By deigning to speak to Alice, the flowers indicate that children are possibly better conversational companions than adults are.
Themes
A Rose and the Tiger-lily discuss that while Alice might be the right color for a flower, her face isn't very nice and her petals don't curl enough. To change the subject, Alice asks the flowers who cares for them. The Rose says that the tree in the garden protects them. It can bark and say "Bough-wough," which, according to a daisy, is why its branches are called boughs. The daisies begin shouting. The Tiger-lily tries to silence them, but Alice steps in and threatens to pick the daisies if they don't stop. In an attempt to placate the rude flowers, Alice asks how they can speak, since she's never heard flowers speak. The Tiger-lily tells her to feel the ground. It's hard, and the lily explains that most garden beds are too soft, so the flowers sleep all the time. This makes sense to Alice.
The insults of the Rose and the Tiger-lily indicate that even if Alice may be the right kind of conversation partner in some regards, she's still not perfect. This can be read as a suggestion that Alice isn't yet a fully formed person; she's still a wild child and hasn't yet completed her transformation as she grows up into adulthood. When the Tiger-lily's explanation of hard and soft garden beds makes so much sense to Alice, it shows again that Alice desperately wants to make sense of this world and at this point, is willing to see most anything as sensible.
Themes
Several flowers insult Alice again. Alice ignores this and asks if there are more people in the garden. The Rose says that there’s one other person in the garden, but she's redder and has “nine spikes.” The Tiger-lily says that the other person's petals are neater than Alice's, and the Rose kindly says that Alice is starting to fade but it's nothing to be ashamed of. The Red Queen appears in the distance. She's now a half-head taller than Alice. Alice decides to go meet the queen and ignores the Rose when she suggests that Alice walk the other way. Alice heads for the queen but soon loses sight of her and ends up back at the house.
The nine spikes that the Rose mentions refers to the Red Queen's crown. When the Rose then says that Alice is starting to fade, it suggests that Alice is growing up and getting too old—the joyful innocence of childhood is starting to disappear, but it's not something that Alice should worry about too much. This makes Alice uneasy and it shows that growing up is an uncomfortable experience for children, especially when the fact that they're growing and changing is pointed out.
Themes
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Annoyed, Alice decides to walk in the opposite direction. It works: she finds herself in front of the Red Queen in a minute. The queen briskly asks Alice her business and tells her how to properly stand and carry herself. Alice stumbles through her story and does her best to follow the queen's instructions as she says that she just wants to see the garden and the hill. The queen interrupts and says that this is a wilderness and the hill is actually a valley. Alice, surprised, says that that's nonsense. The Red Queen says that she's heard nonsense on par with the dictionary. Alice curtseys as requested and walks with the queen to the top of the hill.
When Alice succeeds in meeting her target by aiming for something else, it indicates that the rules of Looking-glass World do make sense: in order to achieve a goal, a person must do the opposite. This is supported more by the queen's suggestion that they're in a wilderness (when it's actually a manicured garden) and that they're in a valley as they stand on a hill. Alice's attempts to comply with the queen's rules show that she wants to please and follow directions.
Themes
Literary Devices
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From the top of the hill, Alice sees that the land is divided up into squares with small brooks and hedges. Alice says that it looks like a chessboard and, excitedly, says that a huge chess game is taking place all over the world. She says that she'd love to join and won't mind being a pawn, but she'd like to be a queen. The Red Queen says that Alice can play as the White Queen's pawn, since Lily is too little to play. She says that Alice will start in the Second Square and when she reaches the Eighth Square, she'll be a queen.
Alice's desire to be a queen is representative of children's desire to grow up and become adults. In this sense, Alice's coming journey across the chessboard is a symbolic journey towards adulthood, as signified by graduating from a pawn to a queen. Getting to experiment with growing up in this dream suggests that this is likely something that troubles Alice in her waking life.
Themes
Without warning, Alice and the Red Queen begin to run. The Red Queen shouts for Alice to run faster but strangely, the landscape never changes as they race along. Alice is exhausted but finally, the queen stops. Alice sits to catch her breath. She looks around and says that they've been under the same tree the whole time. The Red Queen insists that this is normal here and when Alice explains that movement gets a person somewhere in her world, the Red Queen is derisive. Alice complains of thirst, so the queen offers her a biscuit. Alice doesn't want it but accepts it to be polite. It's extremely dry. The queen begins measuring the ground and asks Alice if the biscuit quenched her thirst. Confused, Alice doesn't answer.
The fact that the Red Queen and Alice don't get anywhere when they run provides more evidence that Looking-glass World does indeed function logically in the reverse of Alice's world, as does the queen offering Alice a cookie to quench her thirst. Alice's confusion and the sense that she's already lost in this world indicates that she's going to need to work harder if she wishes to adapt to the way that this world works and make it through without too much trouble. Her discomfort more broadly speaks to how uncomfortable it can be to be in the process of growing up and constantly changing.
Themes
Literary Devices
The Red Queen explains that she's going to give Alice directions. As she walks, the queen says that, since Alice is a pawn, she gets to move two squares in her first move. She'll end up in the Fourth Square quickly and she briefly explains what Alice will find in each square. In the Eighth Square, they'll both be queens. Alice curtseys. The queen gives Alice some final advice on etiquette and disappears.
The way that the queen frames Alice's journey continues to suggest that Looking-glass World operates on an easy-to-understand system. While this is comforting for Alice at this point, she'll soon discover that this is wrong: Looking-glass World is far more nonsensical than the Queen implies and, in that way, it does mirror Alice's real world, which she doesn’t always understand.
Themes
