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Differences Between Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

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At the mention of the name Alice, one tends to usually think of the children’s stories by Lewis Carroll. Namely, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are two classic works of children’s literature that for over a century have been read by children and adults alike. These two stories tell the tale of a young girl named Alice who finds herself in peculiar surroundings, where she encounters many different and unusual characters. Although Alice is at the centre of both stories, each tale is uniquely different in its purpose, characters and style.

Carroll first published Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1865, three years after he had first told the story to the young girl Alice Liddell and her sisters, …show more content…

Both of these stories are structured differently in the manner in which Carroll had written them. For Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, there is no direction to the story and one could almost place the chapters in any sequence and the story would still make sense. However, the opposite is true for Through the Looking Glass as Carroll clearly indicated at the beginning with the introduction of the chess game. This image of a chess board is fundamental to understanding the story in Through the Looking Glass and portrays a sense of logic and order to the reader. Throughout the story, the reader has a clear sense of direction as to where the story will go next and each chapter follows in sequence. Alice’s journey in the second story is to go from being a pawn to that of a Queen.

Carroll’s use of the chess board is also important in Alice’s transition to adulthood. Her journey across the chess board from being a pawn to reaching the status of Queen represents the growth of being a child to becoming an adult. This emphasis is conveyed primarily in Through the Looking Glass and Carroll conveys this through the encounters that Alice has with the various characters, mainly the Queens and the Kings. The Queen always seems one step ahead of Alice, similar to what a child feels in an “adult” world. Carroll continues to express the tyranny of adulthood through Alice’s encounters and journey. She soon learns that becoming a Queen was not all

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