Previous
Isabella Tyson
The narrator is never named and their gender and relationship to Isabella is unknown—in fact, it’s not even completely clear that the narrator is human, since they are never visible, they never interact physically with the room, and Isabella seems not to notice them when she returns from the garden. Despite this lack of information, the entirety of the story is told through the narrator’s perspective. The narrator sits in Isabella’s drawing room and observes her and her home, both in the looking-glass and in their own imagination. Their opinion of Isabella is at times respectful and almost reverent. As the narrator looks at Isabella’s furniture, for example, they imagine her traveling bravely in the “most obscure corners of the world” to collect beautiful objects for her home. At other times, however, the narrator seems disdainful of Isabella, and they eventually come to the conclusion that, despite her material wealth, she has “no thoughts” and “no friends.” It is not clear what, exactly, causes these shifts in opinion, though it’s possible they are related to the narrator’s own feelings—awe or jealousy—about Isabella’s material wealth. Whatever this inconsistency comes from, it does help underscore the theme that appearances do not necessarily tell the entire story of who a character is. Though the narrator spends the entire story observing Isabella and her home, in the end, their observations may tell readers more about the narrator than about Isabella herself.
The Narrator Quotes in The Lady in the Looking Glass
The The Lady in the Looking Glass quotes below are all either spoken by The Narrator or refer to The Narrator. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
The Lady in the Looking Glass Quotes
People should not leave looking-glasses hanging in their rooms any more than they should leave open cheque books or letters confessing some hideous crime. One could not help looking, that summer afternoon, in the long glass that hung outside in the hall.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
But, outside, the looking-glass reflected the hall table, the sun-flowers, the garden path so accurately and so fixedly that they seemed held there in their reality unescapably.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Such comparisons are worse than idle and superficial—they are cruel even, for they come like the convolvulus itself trembling between one’s eyes and the truth. There must be truth; there must be a wall.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
And, whether it was fancy or not, they seemed to have become not merely a handful of casual letters but to be tablets graven with eternal truth—if one could read them, one would know everything there was to be known about Isabella, yes, and about life, too.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
If she concealed so much and knew so much one must prize her open with the first tool that came to hand—the imagination.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
It was her profounder state of being that one wanted to catch and turn to words, the state that is to the mind what breathing is to the body, what one calls happiness or unhappiness.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
At once the looking-glass began to pour over her a light that seemed to fix her; that seemed like some acid to bite off the unessential and superficial and to leave only the truth. It was an enthralling spectacle.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
People should not leave looking-glasses hanging in their rooms.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Lady in the Looking Glass LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
The Narrator Character Timeline in The Lady in the Looking Glass
The timeline below shows where the character The Narrator appears in The Lady in the Looking Glass. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
The Lady in the Looking Glass
An unnamed narrator advises that “people should not leave looking-glasses hanging in their rooms,” comparing this to leaving...
(full context)
The narrator, who is alone in the empty house, feels like a camouflaged naturalist who watches shy...
(full context)
...was reflected in the looking-glass until she “vanished, sliced off by the gilt rim.” The narrator presumes that Isabella went to pick flowers—perhaps an “elegant” convolvulus whose colorful blossoms are often...
(full context)
This comparison, the narrator reflects, shows how little anyone knows about Isabella—after all, a “flesh and blood” woman is...
(full context)
The narrator notes that the furniture in Isabella’s house seems to know her better than the people...
(full context)
Suddenly, the narrator’s musings are interrupted by a “large black form” that looms into the looking-glass, blocking the...
(full context)
The letters appear still and immortal in the looking-glass, and the narrator imagines that if one could read them, they would know everything about Isabella and even...
(full context)
This thought is a “challenge” to the narrator, who believes that, even though Isabella does “not wish to be known,” she “should no...
(full context)
The narrator describes the elegant shoes that Isabella is wearing down in the garden. At that moment,...
(full context)
The narrator believes that Isabella must be happy, given her many friends, her wealth, her extensive travels,...
(full context)
However, as Isabella snips a branch in the garden, the narrator imagines a little light falling on her face, allowing for more insight into her mind....
(full context)
The narrator compares Isabella’s mind to her room, with her thoughts moving through it like lights “pirouetting...
(full context)
...an acid would strip what is “unessential and superficial,” leaving “only the truth.” To the narrator, this new view of Isabella is an “enthralling spectacle.” Everything has “dropped from her”: the...
(full context)
The narrator sees “the woman herself.” In the “pitiless light” of the looking-glass, there is “nothing”: Isabella...
(full context)
The narrator warns again that “People should not leave looking-glasses hanging in their rooms.”
(full context)
