Character Sketch - Alice in 'Through the Looking Glass'
ALICE
Alice is a seven-and-a-half-year-old little girl living in an upper-middle-class family in Victorian England. She is a very imaginative little girl who goes on a surprising adventure into the looking glass world. This journey is the biggest example of her active and vivid imagination which we later come to know is only a dream.
But, inspite of being only seven years old, we see some characteristics in her which are very unusual for a girl as small as her. Her relationship with her pet kittens is almost motherly as in the opening paragraphs of the book, we see her playing with her kittens and talking to them and she alternately scolds and fondles Kitty. She also imagines Kitty talking back and conducts a conversation with her and even tries to get her to play chess. This nature of hers can also be seen later in chapter seven, the lion and the unicorn, when she distributes the plum cake amongst the two and the lion claims that he got the smaller piece. Alice tries to calm him down and soothe him just like a mother would. But this can be seen in a different light as well. In the course of the whole story, we see her mentioning her sister and her nurse only once, but other than that, there is no mention of the rest of her family. This suggests that she is in some way very lonely and this forces her to seek animal companionship. She is clearly very fond of her pet kittens and is more close to them than her own family. This was probably very common at that time as parents used to hire nurses and governesses to educate their children and did not pay much attention themselves. She’s often seen daydreaming as well. In the first chapter, when she is scolding Kitty for her mischief and tells her that her punishments would be saved for Wednesday, she suddenly starts thinking that even she would be punished on Wednesday for all the mischief that she had caused during the week and wonders whether she would be sent to prison or would she be kept from having any dinner.
Alice is a seven-and-a-half-year-old little girl living in an upper-middle-class family in Victorian England. She is a very imaginative little girl who goes on a surprising adventure into the looking glass world. This journey is the biggest example of her active and vivid imagination which we later come to know is only a dream.
But, inspite of being only seven years old, we see some characteristics in her which are very unusual for a girl as small as her. Her relationship with her pet kittens is almost motherly as in the opening paragraphs of the book, we see her playing with her kittens and talking to them and she alternately scolds and fondles Kitty. She also imagines Kitty talking back and conducts a conversation with her and even tries to get her to play chess. This nature of hers can also be seen later in chapter seven, the lion and the unicorn, when she distributes the plum cake amongst the two and the lion claims that he got the smaller piece. Alice tries to calm him down and soothe him just like a mother would. But this can be seen in a different light as well. In the course of the whole story, we see her mentioning her sister and her nurse only once, but other than that, there is no mention of the rest of her family. This suggests that she is in some way very lonely and this forces her to seek animal companionship. She is clearly very fond of her pet kittens and is more close to them than her own family. This was probably very common at that time as parents used to hire nurses and governesses to educate their children and did not pay much attention themselves. She’s often seen daydreaming as well. In the first chapter, when she is scolding Kitty for her mischief and tells her that her punishments would be saved for Wednesday, she suddenly starts thinking that even she would be punished on Wednesday for all the mischief that she had caused during the week and wonders whether she would be sent to prison or would she be kept from having any dinner.