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Dramatic Irony
Chapter 5: Wool and Water
Explanation and Analysis—Crime and Punishment:
In Chapter 5, the White Queen argues that punishment makes people better, and that this is especially the case if the punishment takes place before a corresponding crime ever occurs. This strange idea is a paradox that makes sense given the rules of the Looking-Glass world, but Alice begins to recognize it as a fallacy as well:
“Were you ever punished?”
“Only for faults,” said Alice.
“And you were all the better for it, I know!” the Queen said triumphantly.
“Yes, but then I had done the things I was punished for,” said Alice: “that makes all the difference.”
“But if you hadn’t done them,” the Queen said, “that would have been better still; better, and better, and better!” Her voice went higher with each “better,” till it got quite to a squeak at last.
Alice was just beginning to say “There’s a mistake somewhere——,”
In the Looking-Glass world, many things are reversed. For instance, the White Queen reacts to things before they happen. This reversal of time means that a messenger is about to be tried and possibly executed "next week" for a crime he will commit "last week." Carroll is playing with verb tense and imagining that "last week" is in the future of "next week." According to the rules of a world where everything is a mirror image of the real world, all of this makes sense. The seemingly outlandish idea of executing someone for a crime they haven't yet committed is exactly how things would work in a mirror image of the English justice system. In this sense, what the Queen says about crimes and punishments is a paradox: it seems contradictory but makes sense on further inspection.
But the idea of a punishment preceding a crime still doesn't sit right with Alice. "There's a mistake somewhere—," she says. Even though the White Queen's justice system makes sense as a mirror image of the justice system with which Alice is familiar, the logic itself seems suspect to her. The Queen claims that punishments for past infractions surely made Alice better and that she would have been made better still if she had endured the punishments without even committing the crimes. This claim is a fallacy. It rests on the presupposition that punishment itself improves a person, regardless of the context. Alice can't quite get to the point of breaking down the Queen's logic in this way, but her discomfort invites the reader to break it down. By isolating this false assumption that punishment improves a person, Carroll also invites the reader to think critically about the justice system outside the Looking-Glass World. He does not straightforwardly condemn the idea of a retributive justice system, but he does raise the question of what it means for a punishment to fit a crime.
Related Themes:
