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Before responding to the prompt below make sure you read the excerpt from Through the Looking Glass, and read the Lecture Notes. Don't forget to cite your information if it is coming from another source. Even if you are paraphrasing (putting information into your own words), you still need to acknowledge where you found that information originally.
Prompt:
One of the devices Carroll uses is to have characters confuse what each other say. For example, Alice mentions not knowing the proper way to address (to speak to) the white queen. However, the white queen understands Alice to have said a-dressing (meaning to put clothes on). What is another example of this confusion of understanding and how does the exchange between Alice and the White Queen reflect the qualities of a dream? (Be specific, make sure to explain how and why and use examples from the text to support your answers).
soap
As all my quandrous peers have so adhesively stuck the jam quote on the page already, I feel no need to apply more glue. You'll never get your jam. Ever. Which isn't so bad because to be honest jam sucks, but so does pro-bono work. In a world of perpetual tomarrows, there is always a a today, which is where we are. But then of course every other day is always the days in which you are not standing. When I read this, I even had trouble getting the laymen's terms of it, which is not often. It's about as rare as a time machine that actually works. Yeah. Time Travel class. But then I read it aloud and was all like. Oh. Yeah, I get that. The logic is pretty infallible actually. Leave it to the British. The jam, much like the cake, is a lie. But this is moving into the area of digression. To much digressing can be fatal. Consult your physician.
As it pertains to the being a dream. A sheep trans-animal progression of self is pretty dream worthy. As well as the chess-iness. Unless your Batman stuck in The Riddler's computer program. If this isn't a give away for you, then one, seek help, and two, the sheer quirky cleverness of the conversation is just too powerful to be real. A conversation happens too fast to come up with these things on the spot, one after another, just doesn't happen. Real conversations are much more lack luster.
Chris J
Carroll definitely likes playing with his words in order to confuse the reader. It gives the audience a sense of disconnect or a state of daze where you can’t quite get a footing on what’s really being said. With the line “The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday--- but never jam to-day.” Carrol I telling the reader about time and its various ways of expression based on states of being and desire. When Alice says that sometimes is must come to jam to-day the Queen responds with “its jam every other day and to-day isn’t any other day.” The process of wrapping her finger with plaster, while explaining her backwards brain, was very disconcerting and confusing somewhat like a dream. And when the queen began to bleed moments before the actually injured herself the surreal imagery really stepped it up. The queen later asks Alice to imagine impossible things and Alice protests but the Queen is adamant saying “when is was your age…I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” The last line we read are about the Queen squeaking with so much joy that she may have turned into a sheep. Very dream-like and very surreal, makes me want to read the rest of the book again.
Arielle
Lewis Carroll’s use of vocabulary in Through the Looking-Glass is the mechanism that makes what the characters say the most confusing and interesting. Throughout the story Alice isn’t quiet sure of what the Queen is referring to when she spoke about life being backwards and remembering things before they happen. In Alice’s world things only work one way… that she knew of. Alice was confused with many a thing the Queen had said, one of them being the conversation about jam. The Queen said Alice couldn’t have any jam if she wanted it because there were rules: never jam today, only jam yesterday and jam tomorrow. There was confusion in both Alice and the Queen’s understanding. Alice didn’t seem to believe in what the Queen had to say, she didn’t believe it was possible which became a form of a vision that wasn’t actually there- like in the end when Alice rubbed her eyes and opened them and the queen was gone and Alice wasn’t aware of what went on. She had no imagination like the queen did what she was younger.
Joe
Another example of the confusion between Alice and the queen is: `The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday -- but never jam to-day.'
`It must come sometimes to "jam to-day",' Alice objected.
`No, it can't, said the Queen. `It's jam every other day: to-day isn't any other day, you know.'
The example the queen is using is to demonstrate how the rule works, the example makes sense, but when it is applied literally, it becomes nonsensical (Lewis Carroll, you rascal!). Alice is also confused by the queen’s existence, as she lives and perceives time backwards. The queen says that one of the king’s messengers will soon be jailed for a crime he hasn’t committed yet, as she sees the future as the past and the past as the future. This is also illustrated when she begins to bleed, saying that she will soon prick her finger on her brooch. She flails around a bit and then her brooch becomes undone and she pricks herself on it. You could say that just about everything Alice encounters here is dreamlike, she is playing a cosmic game of chess as a pawn, technically, depending on her place and color on the board, the queen can be perceived as backwards. If you are the black side of the board, to you, forward will be towards the white side, as the white pieces approach, they are moving backwards to you, as that is the opposite direction of your forward. It also gets pretty dreamlike when the queens shrill voice gets higher and higher to the point that she becomes a sheep, and anthropomorphic one at that.
Cristina
In Lewis Carroll’s book Through the Looking Glass, Alice suggests to the White Queen she hire a lady’s-maid. The White Queen offers the position to Alice and tries to entice her with jam every other day, as payment. Alice states her dislike for the spread, “Well, I don’t want any to-day, at any rate.” The confusion begins when the Queen informs Alice she can’t have it today, only every other day: yesterday and tomorrow. Alice argues with common logic telling the Queen at some point the day will arrive for a jam payment, but according to the Queen’s logic it never does because every other day is any day but today; any given today. The Queen drops another bomb on Alice when she reveals her existence is in backwards time. The time loop created by all of this literary nonsense can make a reader feel as if they’re in a dreamlike state with no definitive beginning or end.
Wonwoong
The writer, Carroll, used a kind of wordplay as good examples for reversal time direction. In the wool and water, “The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday- but never jam today,” “It’s jam every other day: to-day isn’t any other day, you know.” This Queen’s words or ideas makes Alice to literately confuse what she is saying. It is related to a kind of idea of the fourth dimension and another dimension. In the lecture of "Through the Looking Glass" Venturini uploaded. There are good examples about the fourth Dimension. In Picasso’s Head of Woman painting, we can see a woman’s face, nose, and the back of her head simultaneously. I think Carroll wants to show the possibility of the fourth dimension by using literally wordplay and the idea of time backward and reversal world like a mirror. Moreover, in the end, Alice cannot make out what had happened at all like a dream. Alice traveled time backward while she met with the White Queen. Therefore, she does not remember whole thing she did before, because the past is the future and the future is the past in the world of White Queen. That is to say, Alice’s past memory does not exist anymore, after she came out of White Queen’s world.
Mike
Carroll does indeed use literary devices to confuse the story as a way to embellish Alice's surreal dream. One of the most effective ways Carroll confuses the reader is the way we begin to understand the White Queen's existence which is backwards. She does everything in reverse meaning she knows what is going happen because it was her past but she can't help it because it is a closed sequence of events meaning she must prick her hand with the pin (because it has already happened in the past). It also becomes quite confusing when the Queen begins to explain things. She uses different tenses of words but the way they appear in her life which is in reverse and this becomes hard to grasp at times, but makes for an interesting dialogue. For example, the Queen states "I haven't pricked it yet...but I soon shall–oh, oh, oh!'", in this conversation the queen is talking about how she is screaming because she is going to prick her hand, but hasn't pricked it just yet. It starts to confuse the reader, but starts to make sense once we come comprehension of living in reverse.
As mentioned previously, this confusions of comprehension helps to drive the narrative along in a surreal manner because it in many ways works against the way narratives are supposed to work. This confusion reflects a dream because it is a scene only imaginable. Dreams don't have to make sense and also don't always have to be continuous in narrative, but they only have to simulate a reality of infinite possibilities. This confusion helps to free the reader from the constraints of reality/rationality.
Julia
An example of a nonsensical, confusing conversation between Alice and the Queen is when they speak of believing impossible things. When Alice proclaims that she simply cannot believe that the Queen is so old, the Queen informs her that she would believe as many as 6 impossible things, all before breakfast, when she was Alice’s age. The Queen repeatedly interprets Alice’s statements as a game or frivolous joke instead of fact. The entire scenario is very dreamlike, in that the ordinary rules of reality do not apply. The Queen can “remember” the future as well as the past, and sounds completely insane as she babbles about jam every “other” day but never today, and how one can prevent tears by considering many things at once. She then bizarrely transforms into a sheep as she repeats that her finger, which she knew she would prick before she actually did, is better, better, bahh! It seems that dreams are often the source of such absolutely nonsensical story lines.
Andi
Another example of the confusion of understanding between Alice and the White Queen is when the Queen offers to hire Alice. She says that she will pay her with Jam every other day. The rule being, “Jam to-morrow and jam yesterday, but never jam to-day”. This confuses Alice because she says she does not want to have jam “to-day” or any day because she doesn’t like it. Alice does not understand the Queens’ logic, the fact that everyday is today and there will always be a tomorrow and yesterday to have jam, but jam is not allowed today. So since it will always be today, the Jam payment will never come and Alice will never have to eat it. This play on words and confusion really helps to push the idea of a dream. In dreams no one truly knows what is occurring everything is confusing and ephemeral, not knowing if things are moving forward or backward, right or left. This is also reflected when the queen begins to bleed before she is actually injured and then is injured. They are living out their lives from finish to start not from start to finish. Stuck in an endless loop that they can not break, once she is bleeding she cannot help the fact that she must get hurt.
Kelvin K
Lewis Carrol is a pen name. His real name is Charles Dodgson. It appears he wrote the "Alice in Wonderland", "Through the looking Glass", and "Jabberwocky". His writing's genres are mostly logic and fantasy. It is literary nonsense which makes audience confuse about character while reading. His world is full of dreaming world like the Alice in Wonderland like one girl's imaged world.
As for the example, relationship between Alice and White Queen (Majesty) is most confused moment which it brings some curiosity to look everything between two characters. Especially moment when Alice always involves some trouble like Cat(Jam) makes her Majesty become mad and dropping jam toward her face and smashing head. Those rabbit, king, and other character's amusing action toward their Queen and Alice was absolutely confused and interested. With this strange and unique sense help some motivation to understand different dimension with funny reaction. It brings most tension.
Also the exchange power by using Mushroom is most fantastic idea, I believe which it was very short amount of time but good enough to remember. Recently I figure that cartoon is not just a kid's watching. This anime is also effective for adults, too. Animation like this always memorable which it gives a memory to remember the time who we watched or where and when. This is symbol or key item to have time-travel for many people.
Yat
Alice was confused when the White Queen was talking backward during their conversation. The queen said, “The rule is, jam to-morrow, and jam yesterday- but never jam to-day.” Alice argued that it should be sometimes “jam to-day”, but the queen denied because she is living backward in time. This is very confusing to Alice because she never experienced such thing as living backward in time where the future is already in the memory and knowing what is coming to happen in the present. Following by the example of the queen where she was screaming that she was going to prick her finger soon and she had already seen the whole situation happened seconds ago before her finger really got pricked, and while she did, she didn’t scream at all because she already foreseen the situation, and she no longer had a “sudden physical reaction” that people will normally have because it wasn’t a surprise anymore. This living backward example of the White Queen reflects some qualities of dream as it makes it more animated and interesting in the story.
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