While not as lighthearted as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass nevertheless occupies the same silly, nonsensical world as its predecessor. Through wordplay, pointless battles, and the fantastical, dreamlike setting, Through the Looking-Glass makes nonsense the norm—while also suggesting that attempting to make sense out of nonsense is a normal, if often futile, endeavor.
From the moment Alice crawls through the looking-glass and into Looking-glass World, the novel asks that the reader—and, for that matter, Alice—suspend their disbelief. Looking-glass World is one in which flowers talk, nursery rhyme characters and chess pieces come to life, and sheep knit while inexplicably shouting rowing terms. It's a world in which it seems like anything is possible. This unpredictable chaos, however, doesn't stop Alice from trying to make sense of the nonsense happening around her. Importantly, Alice recognizes that she doesn't have the knowledge or the skills to understand the inner workings of Looking-glass World, so she makes sure to ask questions of everyone in an attempt to fit what she sees into a framework that makes sense. Despite these attempts—as when Alice tries to figure out whether the thing around Humpty Dumpty's middle is a cravat around his neck or a belt around his waist—Alice is overwhelmingly unsuccessful in interpreting what she sees, but in some ways, this is exactly the point. There's no good way to interpret the book’s fantastical happenings or verbal nonsense—the job of the reader, and of Alice, is to take what happens in stride and enjoy it.
In many cases, Carroll uses nonsense to let readers in on jokes and poke fun at stuffy traditions or schools of thought that, upon closer inspection, look just as silly as the White Knight constantly falling off his horse. Anything, Carroll suggests, can look silly and contrived if one is willing to see it as such. Alice's conversation with Tweedledee and Tweedledum about the poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter," for example, pokes fun at circular philosophical arguments that have no one correct answer. Similarly, when the twins turn Alice's attention to the snoring Red King and suggest that Alice is just a dreamy figment of his imagination, Carroll gestures to some religious theories circulating in the Victorian era, most notably that all humans exist in God's dream. Situating this reference in a tale like Through the Looking-Glass, however, implies that while they may be fun to think about, such theories shouldn't be taken too seriously.
At several points, Carroll makes fun of formal education and academic ways of knowing. The Red Queen refers to the dictionary as "nonsense," while Humpty Dumpty suggests that since Alice read the nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty" in a book, it's equivalent to a history of England. Most tellingly, Humpty Dumpty decodes the poem "Jabberwocky" for Alice. "Jabberwocky" is a poem that, by many standards, is complete and utter nonsense; it never defines exactly what the fearsome and fictional jabberwock is, or tells the reader what a bandersnatch or a tum-tum tree are, and about half of the words in the poem aren't even real words. However, the poem also follows a familiar format, rhyme scheme, and meter that make it, at the very least, fun on an auditory level to read or recite. Through the poem (and through the nonsensical novel as a whole), Carroll makes the point that literature should be enjoyable, nonsense or not.
Humpty Dumpty's imperious and self-important interpretation of "Jabberwocky," however, reads as a still-relevant critique of seriousness, scholarliness, and holding up intelligence and formality over anything else. Decoding the poem allows Humpty Dumpty the opportunity to lord his knowledge over Alice, but much of the poem's meaning remains a mystery and it seems like Humpty Dumpty might even be making up his interpretation altogether. With this in mind, it's important to remember that Lewis Carroll and a few contemporaries invented the genre of nonsense literature. Prior to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, it was unthinkable that a talking sheep could exist outside of a simple morality tale—or, for that matter, that literature intended for children didn't need to have a “moral” to be meaningful or worth reading. With this, Carroll again makes the case that literature, whether it makes logical sense or not, should be fun—and that, if the reader so chooses, that can be one's final interpretation of a work.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Sense, Nonsense, and Language ThemeTracker
Sense, Nonsense, and Language Quotes in Through the Looking-Glass
"It seems very pretty," she said when she had finished it, "but it's rather hard to understand!" (You see she didn't like to confess, even to herself, that she couldn't make it out at all.) "Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas—only I don't know exactly what they are! However, somebody killed something, that's clear, at any rate—"
"Where do you come from?" said the Red Queen. "And where are you going? Look up, speak nicely, and don't twiddle your fingers all the time."
Alice attended to all of these directions, and explained, as well as she could, that she had lost her way.
"I don't know what you mean by your way," said the Queen: "all the ways about here belong to me—but why did you come out here at all?" she added in a kinder tone. "Curtsey while you're thinking what to say. It saves time."
"Have a biscuit?"
Alice thought it would not be civil to say "No," though it wasn't at all what she wanted. So she took it, and ate it as well as she could: and it was very dry: and she thought she had never been so nearly choked in all her life.
"It's something very like learning geography," thought Alice, as she stood on tiptoe in hopes of being able to see a little further. "Principal rivers—there are none. Principal mountains—I'm on the only one, but I don't think it's got any name. Principal towns—"
"Of course they answer to their names?" the Gnat remarked carelessly.
"I never knew them do it."
"What's the use of their having names," the Gnat said, "if they wo'n't answer to them?"
"No use to them," said Alice; "but it's useful to the people that name them, I suppose. If not, why do things have names at all?"
So they walked on together through the wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the neck of the Fawn, till they came out onto another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, and shook itself free from Alice's arm. "I'm a Fawn!" it cried out in a voice of delight. "And, dear me! you're a human child!" A sudden look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment it had darted away at full speed.
Alice stood looking after it, almost ready to cry with vexation at having lost her dear little fellow-traveler so suddenly.
Alice did not like shaking hands with either of them first, for fear of hurting the other one's feelings; so, as the best way out of the difficulty, she took hold of both hands at once: the next moment they were dancing round in a ring.
"I like the Walrus best," said Alice: "because he was a little sorry for the poor oysters.
"He ate more than the Carpenter, though," said Tweedledee. "You see he held his handkerchief in front, so that the Carpenter couldn't count how many he took: contrariwise."
"That was mean!" Alice said indignantly. "Then I like the Carpenter best—if he didn't eat so many as the Walrus."
"But he ate as many as he could get," said Tweedledum.
This was a puzzler. After a pause, Alice began, "Well! They were both very unpleasant characters—"
"Well, it's no use your talking about waking him," said Tweedledum, "when you're only one of the things in his dream. You know very well you're not real."
"I am real!" said Alice, and began to cry.
"You wo'n't make yourself a bit realler by crying, Tweedledee remarked: "there's nothing to cry about." [...]
"I know they're talking nonsense," Alice thought to herself: "and it's foolish to cry about it."
"Well, I don't want any to-day, at any rate."
"You couldn't have it if you did want it," the Queen said. "The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday—but never jam to-day."
"It must come sometimes to 'jam to-day,'" Alice objected.
"No, it ca'n't," said the Queen. It's jam every other day: to-day isn't any other day, you know."
"My name is Alice, but—"
"It's a stupid name enough!" Humpty Dumpty interrupted impatiently. "What does it mean?"
"Must a name mean something?" Alice asked doubtfully.
"Of course it must," Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh: "my name means the shape I am—a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost."
"Seven years and six months!" Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully. "An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you'd asked my advice, I'd have said 'Leave off at seven'—but it's too late now."
"I never ask advice about growing," Alice said indignantly.
"Too proud?" the other enquired.
Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. "I mean," she said, "that one ca'n't help growing older."
"One ca'n't, perhaps," said Humpty Dumpty; "but two can. With proper assistance, you might have left off at seven."
"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a knock-down argument,'" Alice objected.
"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."
"I always thought they were fabulous monsters!" said the Unicorn. "Is it alive?"
"It can talk," said Haigha solemnly.
The Unicorn looked dreamily at Alice, and said "Talk, child."
Alice could not help her lips curling up into a smile as she began: "Do you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too? I never saw one alive before!"
"Well, now that we have seen each other," said the Unicorn, "if you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you. Is that a bargain?"
Everything was happening so oddly that she didn't feel a bit surprised at finding the Red Queen and the White Queen sitting close to her, one on each side: she would have liked very much to ask them how they came there, but she feared it would not be quite civil.
"What impertinence!" said the Pudding. "I wonder how you'd like it, if I were to cut a slice out of you, you creature!"
It spoke in a thick, suety sort of voice, and Alice hadn't a word to say in reply: she could only sit and look at it and gasp.
"Make a remark," said the Red Queen: "it's ridiculous to leave all the conversation to the pudding!"
