Analysis of Through the Looking Glass, Essay Example

Every literary work is not only a fictional piece of writing distinguished by the plot, beginning and ending, and a set of characters distinguishing it from all other literary pieces. It is a social and cultural product that reflects the nature of the writer, the beliefs and visions of his or hers reflected in words, and surely in the structural components of the language he or she chose for composing that work. Approaching any literary piece from the viewpoint of linguistic structuralism, the analyst should remember that the focus of analysis will be on the “system of relations that enables meaning to be produced and, reciprocally, one can only determine what are the pertinent relations among items by considering them as signs” (Culler 56). Therefore, the analysis from the structuralism perspective involves the identification of the human productions as having a meaning according to the underlying system of distinctions and conventions that make the meaning possible – analysis should be conducted from the viewpoint of institutional conventions’ impact on the formation of meaning.

The work Through the Looking Glass composed by a famous English writer Lewis Carroll; it is the continuation of the work Alice in Wonderland written several years earlier, and the topic of the prism through which reality is seen differently is sustained in the sequel as well. The book is reasonably regarded as one of the children’s favorite works around the world, though an adult may find a certain difficulty with understanding the contents and the main characters from the standpoint of common sense. This is the distinguishing feature of this work – Though the Looking Glass creates its own institutional conventions predetermined by the key metaphor used by Carroll in this book – the looking glass. The title of the book, and the setting of the story both presuppose that the reality in the world encountered by Alice is distorted and unusual, like any object seen by a person through the looking glass: some things seem larger, others – smaller, while some things even change their shape and seem to have a different nature. Similarly to these experiences of using the looking glass, Lewis Carroll designed the work Through the Looking Glass, as if violating the conventions of structuralism and establishing his own structure in the work through which the work has to be perceived, analyzed, and attributed with certain meaning.

It is necessary to note that the metaphor of a looking glass is extended from the title of the work to the whole contents thereof; Alice steps through the looking glass for the sake of finding the clearer and more reasonable world than that in which she lives. However, everything turns upside down, and she finds herself in a weird and ambiguous world with no clear meaning; the dominant themes determining the reality of the world behind the looking glass are chess and mirrors (Carroll). Hence, there is no clear-cut reality in the work; the experiences of the characters are vague, paradoxical, and contradictory, which sets the scene for Lewis Carroll’s creation of his plot.

The meaning is a central theme in the linguistic structuralism, since it is usually considered from the viewpoint of a system that determines its emergence (Culler 56). However, in the present work, one has to note that the system of meaning is a specific creation of Lewis Carroll; hence, the meanings are also determined by his fantasy and creative spirit. The present feature can be traced in the construction of connotations and denotations in the literary piece: an example can be found in the chapter of Through the Looking Glass titled “The Lion and the Unicorn” where Carroll uses a word without a denotation, but with a range of connotations. The present case is clearly an interesting one from the viewpoint of structuralism elicitation of meaning, since only words with a distinct ontological meaning may acquire certain situational connotations. However, as in the case with King asking Alice whether she sees the messengers sent out, and Alice replying that she can see nobody, the King’s reaction is specifically interesting: ““I only wish I had such eyes,” the King remarked in a fretful tine. “To be able to see nobody! And at that distance too! Why, it is as much as I can see real people by the light”” (Carroll 53).

The search for meaning through the prism of institutional conventions advised by Culler also suggests particular attention that needs to be paid to the issue of paradox present as a tool for conveying meaning in Through the Looking Glass. The ordinary set of actions and intentions does not work properly in the world in which Alice gets, even in geographical terms; in case Alice tries to get to some place and moves in its direction, it is strangely distanced from her. However, when she does opposite things like moving away from the object to which she wants to get, she succeeds in getting to it ultimately (Carroll 14). The present construction of reality in the work suggests that in case the physical reality is distorted and the physical laws accepted by all humans do not act in the world of Alice, then the meaning should also be perceived differently – not in accordance with the conventions in which the readers exist, but within the context of the world behind the looking glass.

Deriving the argument from the assumption, one also has to turn to the contradiction in meaning explicated in Through the Looking Glass, as noted by White (110). The goal of Alice, in contrast to the first book about her, is to become the queen; this goal is the reflection of the real-life contradiction, and the meaning of the queenship notion in Through the Looking Glass should be perceived from the perspective of the British contradiction regarding queenship that existed in Great Britain in 1865 (White 110). The case was about Victoria’s mourning over Prince Albert’s death in 1861 that caused intense public dissatisfaction, mainly due to the redefinition of queenship as a domestic issue, and focus of the Queen on “isolation in widowhood” (White 110). Hence, the contradiction in the real world that Carroll used in his fictional and fancy world was the call for awakening of the Queen and her return to the public affairs of the state.

As it becomes clear from the review of Through the Looking Glass from the viewpoint of linguistic structuralism, the meaning is indeed constructed around cultural and social phenomena. The meaning of certain words and phrases cannot be understood without referral to the proper system of institutional conventions through the prism of which it should be interpreted. At times, authors employ multiple systems of meaning, and the work of the analyst is to uncover the true reference point to restore the full complex of meanings and symbols to which they should be regarded.

Works Cited

Carroll, Lewis. Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc. 1999. Print.

Culler, Jonathan. ‘The Linguistic Foundation’.

White, Laura Mooneyham. ‘Domestic Queen, Queenly Domestic: Queenly Contradictions in Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass’. Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, 32. 2 (2007): 110-128.