Write a close analysis of this passage from Alice in Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass.

In Carroll’s classic novel “Through the Looking Glass”, relatively simple voice, language and structure are employed, owing to the text originally being written as a children’s book. This simplicity, however, contrasts starkly to the tales content, which is ambiguous and confusing at the best of times, and in this passage, filled with existential anxiety in its treatment of the nature of dreams and the questions this raises in regards to reality and identity, particularly for a young female. “If he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you’d be? ...You’d be nowhere. Why, you’re only a sort of thing in his dream!” says Tweedledee to Alice (Carroll 165). This quote suggests that reality is not objective and can be created in the mind of the individual, and therefore personal identity is also subjective – we are not the same person to others as we are to ourselves, which effectively means that multiple versions of ourselves exist. This is a worrying idea, especially to the undeveloped mind of a child. The above quote is also open to feminist interpretation, portraying the position of both women and children in Victorian society as hugely inferior to men. From a very young age, females are taught that they only ‘matter’ in terms of their appeal and desirability to men, a notion that plays into the idea of the ‘male gaze’. Alice is spoken to by the male characters Tweedledee and Tweedledum “contemptuously”, showing her subjugation as a female as well as the belief of male superiority of intelligence. Furthermore, the verbs used to describe the bothers’ communications (“exclaimed”, “shouted”, “cried”) are indicative of force and can arguably be seen as violent, adding a subtle tone of threat to their discourse. The quote “…you’re only one of the things in this dream. You know very well you’re not real” feeds into a similar idea; Alice is not seen as real unless men are thinking or dreaming about her – she is defined solely through others’ perceptions of her, rather than being depicted as an individual in her own right – she is reduced to a male fantasy. She is an unreal “thing”, utterly dehumanised, her feelings discredited because they don’t really exist. When she is told not to cry, because “there is nothing to cry about”, she is not only being told to passively accept her societal position as an object, but that there is nothing wrong with this inequality either. This is also an example of the silencing of the oppressed, a common theme in Victorian society, where children were encouraged to ‘be seen and not heard’. Alice realises arguing is no use, and accepts her inferior role, “So she brushed away her tears, and went on as cheerfully as she could.” Throughout the text, Alice is portrayed as an intelligent, questioning and playful character, but at the end of this passage she is seen to be repressing her misery and putting on a mask of cheer, almost as if she is preparing for her future life as a woman. Throughout this passage lies a sense of underlying darkness and dread which is particularly unsettling given its contrast to the outward displays of happy, childlike innocence. ““It’s coming on very dark. Do you think it’s going to rain?” asks Alice, suggesting an impending bleakness and suffering, in juxtaposition to the “sunny sky” mentioned in Carroll’s ending poem. Could this use of pathetic fallacy be implying the storm of adulthood, where childhood imagination is left behind forever, and replaced by the cruel realities of life? The negative connotations of coming rain reflects Alice’s anxiety and apprehension at finding herself in a world she does not understand (the mirror world), as well as foreshadowing her introduction into another world she does not understand (the adult world). ""You'd go out – bang! – just like a candle!” “, Alice is told by Tweedledum. This comparison reflects the insignificance, brevity and fragility of all human life, complementing the existential worries mentioned previously. However the candle, and particularly its flame, can be seen as an allegory for the short lived but pure, bright, burning experience of childhood, which is beautiful whilst it lasts, but which can be extinguished in a second. An anxiety about the passing of time, which is evident throughout all the Alice stories, could be viewed as an anxiety about the death of the child, giving way to the birth of the adult, a transition which can happen in the blink of an eye.