A walk at a second hand market

"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. "










"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."

Fantasy or Reality?

Erin Wells '96 (English 61, Brown University, 1993)

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