Through the Looking Glass
Through the Looking Glass displays all of the characteristics of menippean satire that Mikhail M. Bakhtin described. Menippean satire has six basic characteristics, the most common is the theme of a carnivalesque atmosphere. In the traditions of the European pre-lenten Carnival nothing is immune from caricature. Normal values are reversed, conventional points of view are turned upside down. Various figures may appear in disguise, as in a masquerade, or non-human figures may display the characteristics of human beings. In Through the Looking Glass, the looking glass world is extremely different from nineteenth century Victorian society. Lewis Carroll used menippean satire to disguise his feelings about his stuffy Victorian times. The Victorian ere had a strong gender hierarchy. Women were considered inferior. They had no brains, no opinion, and they always needed a man. Women never went on adventures, especially by themselves. Alice did not fit into the strict Victorian world. She was very adventurous and very opinionated. She didn’t want to leave the Looking Glass world until she had a chance to explore. “… If I don’t make haste, I shall have to go back through the Looking-Glass, before I’ve seen what the rest of the house is like.” (Carrol 138)
Throughout the story the queens always play the important roles, they are the ones that travel and run things. The kings fade off into the background. If they do show up into the story they are either having fainting spells or snoring away in the grass. In one of the first encounters Alice has in Looking-Glass world the chess pieces are very tiny and alive. Alice picks up the king to set him on the table and he went into hysterics and fainted. In Victorian society this was something only a woman would have done. The queen poked fun at him for his ways.
“The horror of that moment”, the king went on, “I shall never, never forget!”
“You will though,” the queen said. “If you don’t make a memorandum of it.” (Carroll 135)
Another example of the carnival theme is that of non-human figures having human characteristics. There is a garden of live flowers that completely surprise Alice. When Alice walked into the garden she spoke to the flowers, “I wish you could talk!”
“We can talk!’ said the Tiger-Lily,”when there’s anybody worth talking to…it isn’t really manners for us to begin you know.” (Carroll 140)
Animals also have human characteristics, they wear clothes and speak. Even the chess pieces are alive. The Looking-Glass world is set up like a huge game of chess, with all the rules and values of a chess game. “IT’s a great huge game of chess that’s being played all over the world – if this is the world at all, you know.” (Carroll 145) In a way Carroll is saying that life is set up like a game with certain rules that society sets up, if you don’t play strictly by the rules you are out of the game.
Menippean satire also uses irony and comic reversals in a playful but serious sense. Irony is the main mode of indirection used, the messages are somewhat concealed. There are many hidden messages in this book by Carroll. There are many criticisms used, especially on Alice and the way words are used. Carroll seemed to point out that the way we use words doesn’t always coincide with what the words really mean. His point is that we like to make the words mean whatever we want them to mean, like with Humpty Dumpty. He said words will mean whatever he wants them to, that’s what he’s paying them for. Carroll used a lot of word play to install humor into the story. A good example is with the White King.
“I see nobody on the road” said Alice.
“I only wish I had such eyes,” the king remarked in fretful tone. “To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance too! Why, it’s as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!” All this was lost on Alice. (Carroll 196)
Another example of Carroll’s word play is with the white night and Alice when they are discussing a song. They went through a long process of what the name of the song was called, what the name really was, what the song was called and what the song really was. It was very confusing. Other times when Carroll uses a lot of word play is in Alice’s conversations with the White Queen, the sheep, the gnat, and with Humpty Dumpty. “The chameleon type quality of the menippea requires a high level of reader participation. As with all forms of irony and satire which requires the reader to keep constantly in mind not only the overt text, but the various implied texts and counter texts, the menippea is very much an implicit genre.” (Thum 9)
Menippea also presents a generic mixture of different kinds of literature. Carroll mixes fiction with poetry and songs throughout the story. He brings the characters from poems and nursery rhymes to life. Alice meets the characters from poetry and stories that she knows. She knows the poetry so she knows sometimes what will happen before it really does. By the time the end of the story is getting near Alice is really getting sick of hearing poetry and songs from everyone that she meets.
The other three aspects are kind of inter-related. The one is the use of an unusual perspective, as in an alien from another planet. Another uses an altered state of consciousness to tell the story, as in a dream state. The last is the use of traveling to a different place and seeing new customs that create conflict with one’s own beliefs. With Alice these three aspects are blended. She is like an alien in a different world, yet she is also in a dream state because this story is really supposed to be a dream. Yet she also sees many things that create a conflict with her strict Victorian upbringing.
When Alice first enters the looking g lass house she isn’t even seen or heard. She encountered the chess pieces and wanted to help them, she spoke to the king, “But the King took no notice of the question: it was quite clear that he could neither hear nor see her.” (Carroll 134)
The dream part is hinted at through the whole story. A conflict arises as to whose dream it really is. The tweedle’s think they are all a part of the Red King’s dream.
“You’re only a sort of thing in his dream…if that there king was to wake, you’d go out-bang! – just like a candle!” (Carroll 167)
During the story Alice finds much that conflicts with her Victorian world. At the feast things get too out of hand for Alice and she tries to put an end to all the wild craziness, that’s when she wakes up.
Carroll used menippean satire to criticize his society. He obviously did not agree with all the rules of the Victorian world. Carroll masked his views by placing them in the form of a whimsical children’s story. Yet it is not merely a simple children’s story, it is a sophisticated satire which displays all of the characteristics of the menippea.
