Reflection in the Mirror

Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass is a seemingly nonsensical piece. However, its chaotic flow is well thought out and relevant. The illustrations were scrutinized by Caroll and the artist, which is interesting because some have odd designs and placements. Characters will be significantly mentioned in the text on the page but the illustration does not acknowledge them. The text itself structurally also forms around the images; they make up the page together. This is because as tough to understand athey may be sometimes, Collins wants the reader to recognize the contents of the image. Even if their purpose is a “brain break” for the rest of the story on the page, because this is a children’s book after all. The way that Collins has set up this novel alludes that he does not want the reader to correlate two subject matters just because they are placed next to or near each other. To rely less on context clues, and focus on matters individually in order to explore deeper. This allows the reader to truly analyze everything on every page of the novel. The lack of order and hierarchy of importance to the situations illustrated further drives the idea that the contents are random, while they are just truly meant to stand on their own. A looking glass—or mirror—is an ideal way to explore deeper into oneself. A person may recognize herself or she may not, but at some point there will be a look in the mirror that will be the first occurrence of self recognition. When Alice is playing with the two kittens in the beginning of Through the Looking Glass, the black kitten is the naughty and bad one whereas the white kitten is innocent and pure. Alice threatens the black kitty that if he is not good, “[she’ll] put [him] through into Looking-Glass House. How would [he] like that?” (Collins 119). Alice is using this consequence like it is daunting or difficult. The black kitten, the “bad” one, being put through the looking glass would be apparently an unpleasant, potentially frightening, experience if he had to reflect on himself. The contents of the novel are not random and they all surface back to the title’s main idea of deeper reflection.