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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
Alice stands on tiptoe so she can see as much of this world as she can. She reasons it's like learning geography and looks for principal rivers, towns, or mountains. There aren't any. Alice notices creatures making honey and thinks that they're bees, but realizes that they're elephants. As she thinks of how huge the flowers must be she decides to go look, but feels suddenly shy. Reasoning that she wants to get into the Third Square more than she wants to see the elephants, she runs down the hill and jumps over the first brook.
Standing up to look around and likening this to learning geography shows that Alice is very interested in thinking logically about the world around her. When she's able to head for the next square and jump over the brook, it shows that the system that the Red Queen introduced her to earlier won't hold true for the rest of the novel—per the queen's logic, Alice should've headed in the other direction.
Themes
Alice finds herself in a train car. The Guard pokes his head in the window and demands tickets from everyone. Everyone but Alice pulls out tickets that are as big as they are, and both the Guard and the passengers chide Alice for not promptly presenting her ticket. Scared, Alice says that there wasn't a ticket office where she came from. The Guard and the passengers chastise her. Alice thinks that there's no use in speaking and, to her surprise, everyone in the carriage chastises her in their thoughts. The Guard studies Alice with a telescope, a microscope, and then opera glasses. He declares that she's going the wrong way and leaves.
Since pawns in chess move two squares in their first move, Alice finds herself on a train moving quickly through the next square. The Guard's heckling introduces Alice to the fact that as she continues along, she's going to come across all sorts of rules and systems that she has no knowledge of but is going to be asked to follow anyway. This more broadly mirrors how adulthood might feel for Alice, as adults can be just as lost in the world as children can be.
Themes
The passengers around Alice are actually animals. They lament that she should know where she's going and should know how to get a ticket, even if she doesn't know her name or the alphabet. A hoarse voice begins to say that Alice needs to change engines, but it chokes and stops. Alice thinks that it was a horse speaking. A small voice in her ear quietly says that she could make a joke about “horse” and “hoarse.” As passengers try to give Alice advice, the tiny voice in her ear continues to suggest jokes. Finally, Alice tells the voice to make the jokes itself. It sighs unhappily, confirms that Alice is a friend, and admits that it's an insect. Alice wants to know if it stings, but feels that this is a rude question.
Alice's belief that it'd be rude to ask about information she needs shows that there are limits to how useful etiquette is for someone like Alice—if she's going to be polite, she can't ask an impertinent question like this, even if she'd really like to have the information for her own use. The Gnat's joke suggestions mirror the expectations put on adults to properly perform at all times, while Alice's rejection of these suggestions reminds the reader that she's still a nonconforming child.
Themes
Literary Devices
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The engine screams, a Horse explains that they're going to jump over a brook, and as the carriage rises straight up, Alice finds herself sitting under a tree with the Gnat. She realizes that this is who she's been talking to. The Gnat is as big as a chicken, but Alice finds that she's not scared. She admits that she's afraid of the insects in her world and offers to share some of their names. The Gnat asks if the insects respond to their names and suggests that there's no use in having a name if a being doesn't respond to it. Alice proposes that the names are useful to other people.
Alice's lack of fear points to the fact that she is an adaptable person who is able to go with the flow, something that will serve her well throughout her life. When she and the Gnat discuss names, Alice suggests that names matter because they allow people to make sense of the world around them. While she's more interested in putting together how her world works, the Gnat is more interested in piecing together individuals' identities.
Themes
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Alice begins listing insects. She lists the horsefly, so the Gnat points to a rocking-horse-fly in a bush. It lives on sap and sawdust. Alice lists the dragonfly and again, the Gnat points out a snap-dragon-fly, which eats mince pie. When Alice lists the butterfly, the Gnat draws her attention to a bread-and-butter-fly at her feet. It eats weak tea with cream, and the Gnat says that they often die when they can't find tea.
The insects that the Gnat points out are all made up, but they're bright and fun to think about—until he notes that the bread-and-butter-fly often dies when it can't find food. This shows that nonsense can be fun, but it can also allow a person to think about uncomfortable truths, such as the ubiquity of death and how nonsensical those deaths can be.
Themes
Literary Devices
After a moment of silence, the Gnat confirms that Alice doesn't want to lose her name. Carelessly, the Gnat suggests that it'd be convenient if she lost it, as Alice's governess wouldn't be able to call her for lessons. Alice says that the governess would just call her "Miss," but the Gnat says that if the governess said that, she could miss her lessons. He wishes that Alice had made the joke. Alice asks why and points out that the joke was bad. The Gnat begins to cry and sighs itself into nothing.
The Gnat's jokes primarily work with homophones, or words that sound the same but mean different things. This shows how flexible language can be when one fixates on the sounds that words make more than their meaning. This encourages readers to think more playfully about language, what it can do, and what kind of wordplay and nonsense is possible when one thinks about it like this.
Themes
Alice gets up and walks to a field with a dark wood on the other side. She reminds herself that she has to get to the Eighth Square and realizes that this must be the wood where things have no names. Alice chatters to herself about what it would be like to lose her name and be renamed until she reaches the edge of the wood. Under the trees, she can't remember her name, what trees are called, or where she is. A Fawn walks by and seems fearless. Alice calls out to the Fawn, but it backs away and stares at her. The Fawn asks what Alice calls herself, and Alice answers that she's not sure. The Fawn says that it'll tell Alice its name further on; it can't remember here.
This wood represents the potential for children to grow up to be anything. In the wood, with no knowledge of their names or where they are, Alice and the Fawn have the ability to become anything on the other side—Alice could, as she suggests, come out with a new name. This again elevates childhood over adulthood, as it indicates that children are more flexible and more adaptable than adults are with fixed identities.
Themes
Alice puts her arms around the Fawn's neck and together, they walk through the wood. In the open field beyond, the Fawn joyously remembers its name and then, in a panic, realizes that Alice is human and races away. Alice feels horrible, but she comforts herself with the fact that she now remembers her name. She comes to a road through the next wood and follows it. At the second signpost, she sees two signs pointing the same direction that read “To Tweedledum's House” and “To the House of Tweedledee.” Alice wonders if they live in the same house and decides to stop and ask them how to get out of the wood. As she comes around a corner, she comes face to face with Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
For Alice and the Fawn, learning their names isn't as positive as it might be for someone else: though Alice does now remember her name and, therefore, knows better who she is, she also lost the only friend she has in this world. For the Fawn, learning that Alice is human means that it's now terrified and just as alone as Alice is, something that's potentially less comfortable than it was to be nameless but in the company of someone else while in the wood.
Themes
