Week 11 Reading Diary: Through the Looking-Glass

This week I chose to read the Through the Looking-Glass unit, which is taken from the Lewis Carrol novel Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. I've already read Alice in Wonderland. So I'm excited to read the sequel.

I like how this story starts out in a real house with a little girl who is pretending and slowly reality mixes with imagination.

There's a wonderful contrast between Alice's curiosity about the chess pieces and they way the chess pieces rationalize the things that happen to them because of Alice.

 

(Image Information "Hold White King" by John Tenniel, from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carrol,  1871).

I wonder if something happened in the omitted chapters that allowed the Looking-Glass characters to begin seeing Alice.

I was homeschooled. And when I was in highschool, my mom and I read the Jaberwocky poem. I enjoyed it as much today as I had back then. It reminds me of Dr. Seuss in that there are a lot of made up words, but I can still understand the story. Writing like that takes a real talent.

When Alice meets Tweedledee and Tweedledum, I like how she thinks about needing to shake both of their hands at once as to not hurt their feelings. It shows how mature she is.

In the movie Harriet the Spy, Harriet and her nanny recite part of the Walrus and the Carpenter poem to each other, and I always loved that part of the movie. So this is my favorite part of the poem:

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —
Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
And whether pigs have wings."

It's funny how despite Alice's maturity and thoughtfulness, Tweedledee and Tweedledum talk so much nonsense about her not being real that they make her cry. I think this is very illustrative of many people. We get ourselves so worked up over something that's not even a big deal that we forget that we're worried about something that might not even be worth worrying about.

This is such a funny visual: "All this time Tweedledee was trying his best to fold up the umbrella, with himself in it: which was such an extraordinary thing to do that it quite took off Alice's attention from the angry brother."

I find this part pretty funny because so many people do use words like this. "'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'" But what is the point of having a common language, if the words mean different things to different people?

Something I've thought about a lot during this semester's reading units is whether or not the nonsense in the stories is justified. Usually, I don't like it when characters do things for no reason. But I don't find myself upset by it in Through the Looking Glass. I'm wondering if that's because I'm familiar with Lewis Carrol as an author, and so, I knew to expect the nonsense.

I like what the White Knight says here, "My mind goes on working all the same. In fact, the more head downwards I am, the more I keep inventing new things." It's very true. I always have the best ideas when I'm driving or in the shower and can't write them down. Sometimes I think minds work best when they're occupied with something simple.

I like how the riddles in this books almost seem to make sense, but they don't quite. It's very entertaining to try to figure them out and then realize that they can't be understood.

Alice goes through the same thing I think. "Alice sighed and gave it up. 'It's exactly like a riddle with no answer!' she thought."

Even though Alice wakes up from this story and believes it to be a dream, I wonder if that is simply her way of dealing with such strange events. I wonder if it could have really happened to her.