The lone subjective mind can never understand what constitutes absolute
truth or reality. One
cannot escape how his opinions and his single point of view distort
and reshape reality,
transforming it into a personal reality. Lewis Carroll challenges this
personal reality in Through the
Looking Glass by using the genre of fantasy. He confronts the reader
indirectly through Alice. As
the foreign world through the looking glass disobeys Alice's established
views, so does it disobey
the reader's views. The Hatter's imprisonment serves as a good example
of this. The Queen
explains, "'He's in prison now, being punished: and the trial doesn't
even begin till next
Wednesday: and of course the crime comes last of all.'" (Through the
Looking Glass, p. 151)
Alice does not see the sense of this because, like us, she has the
reverse view of reality from the
looking glass people. She dislikes the idea that someone could be punished
for a crime they did
not commit, but to the Queen it makes perfect sense. This contrast
of perspectives causes the
reader to re-evaluate his own world, to question what he labels as
unfair. On our side of the
looking glass, people do occasionally get punished for something they
did not do. Children are
often reprimanded for a sibling's misbehavior. In countries with strict
governments, people who
raise the suspicions of the government can be put in jail before they
actually do anything to
warrant it. Carroll makes us see the multiple examples of injustice
in our own world by presenting
that same injustice in a different world where we can get a more objective
view of it.
Not only does perspective vary between individuals, it also changes
with age {Fantasy and
Conception of the Real (GPL), something evident evident in the following
passage:
Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she
said: "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice,"
said the Queen. "When I was your age, I
always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why,
sometimes I've believed as many as six
impossible things before breakfast. There
goes the shawl again!"
(Through the Looking Glass, p. 153). The Queen's
picture of reality includes more
and more "impossible things" as she gets older.
Alice, being from the other side of the
mirror, changes in the opposite way. As she
matures she comes to see more ideas as
fantasy. In this excerpt, Alice appears to
be stubborn and foolish for her disbelief. Back in
England adults would think of her as stubborn
and foolish for believing in fantasy. The
passage highlights the inconsistencies of
adults who tell you there is no monster under the
bed one moment and yet encourage their children
to believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth
Fairy. Carroll also uses the scene to make
fun of the Victorian quest for logic, reason, and
truth. Reality means an entirely different
thing to each person and to the same person at
different points in his life.