Banned Book: Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll

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Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll



                Alice has found herself on the other side of the looking glass. One moment she is peering through, trying to see if there was an actual fire in the fireplace, similar to the one on her side of the glass, and the next moment the glass has melted away. Alice expects she is quite alone in this looking glass house and her curiosity has caused her to wander around and see if there are differences between this world and her own. After conversations with chess pieces within the house she sets off for the garden where the extraordinary and unbelievable continues to happen. Then she begins her quest, to become a queen herself, by traversing through the woods to the other side. Along the way Alice meets many animals that can speak and many flowers that can too, some of which are helpful while others don’t have a clue.
                Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There is another fantasy novel by Carroll that explores the imagination of young Alice. Alice has once again drifted off into a land of her own vivid creation. She navigates through this world with the same trepidation and fascination that was evident in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. This world beyond the looking glass has the same unbelievable feel and movement as Wonderland but it’s much more confusing and not as enchanting. Alice is on a journey but the points between are so muddled that many times throughout the story it seems as if she has forgotten or lost her way. Carroll’s sequel is very much the same story simply set in a new atmosphere. Alice is in a land of her own creation and it is filled with unbelievable antics and questionable motives and characters. There was the addition of poetry through the story but most of that was nonsensical and simply added to young Alice’s confusion and frustration. The whimsy and flights of fancy weren’t as apparent in this second novel as it was in the first. I enjoyed it but nowhere near as immensely as I did the first novel.

                When I originally began this novel I hadn’t planned on including it under my “banned books” theme, because there is no evidence that I have been able to locate that would suggest that Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There was ever banned or challenged. This is surprising since the books are so similar and have so many of the same controversial aspects, most notably the presence of talking animals. I find it curious in the case the same way I found it curious with The Giver and Gathering Blue. In this case the first book was much more successful than the second book but similar themes were explored and yet only one was ever banned. I’m not sure what to make of either situation but I do find it extremely interesting and worth noting. 

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