Parodies of Protocol in Through the Looking Glass
Katherine A. Lim - '98 (English 73, 1995)
"You look a little shy: let me introduce you to that leg of mutton," said the
Red Queen. "Alice --Mutton: Mutton --Alice." The leg of mutton got up in the
dish and made a little bow to Alice, and Alice returned the bow, not knowing whether to be
frightened or amused.
"May I give you a slice?" she said...
"Certainly not," the Red Queen said, very decidedly: "it isn't etiquette
to cut any one you've been introduced to. Remove the joint!" And the waiters carried
it off, and brought a large plum-pudding in its place.
"I won't be introduced to the pudding, please," Alice said rather hastily,
"or we shall get no dinner at all." [Through the Looking-Glass, Norton
Critical Edition, 200]
ocial convention, rules of etiquette, and authority are all parodied in this passage
from Through the Looking-Glass. The banquet Alice attends as a new Queen
demonstrates the strait-laced rituals of Victorian society, whose absurdities Carroll
mocks. The Red Queen's introduction of Alice to the leg of mutton and her obsession with
etiquette and proper manners to the point of depriving Alice of dinner are similar to the
stiff formality of the manners described in Lucien O. Carpenter's Universal Dancing
Master (1880).
Carpenter's exhortation, "Always recognize the lady or
gentleman...with becoming politeness [and] a salute or bow" is, indeed, followed to
the letter by the Mutton, who, to Alice's surprise, shows the outward signs of gentlemanly
gallantry but is in fact merely mimicking established procedures of protocol. The Red
Queen, in thinking that the mutton must literally not be "cut" -- a reference to
rules on the introduction of gentlemen to ladies -- comes across as shallow and
narrow-minded.
Here Carroll almost leads us to believe that Victorian social ritual merely
entails a primness with the stiffness of a starched cravat. But he does not stop there;
instead, he shows us the darker side of convention --the authority of the elite (here the
Red Queen, the Pudding, and the creatures in Wonderland) to criticize rudely the child and
others whom they perceive to be ignorant. For instance, the second time Alice tries to
carve a slice, the Pudding reacts with characteristic Wonderland pettiness: "What
impertinence! I wonder how you'd like it, if I were to cut a slice out of you, you
creature!" (201)
The Pudding's rudeness, however, pales in comparison to that of the Red Queen, who is,
as Robert Polhemus states, "the principal explicit authority figure in the book"
(Through the Looking-Glass, Norton Critical Edition). The Queen is alternatively a
straitjacketed governess type and a hypocrite with the manners of a wild animal; in the
banquet scene, she sharply scolds Alice for acutely observing the boo
By characterizing the
Red Queen in this manner, Carroll questions the "license to criticize" accorded
to contemporary figures of authority and reduces them to platitude-spouting automatons. It
is precisely the extremes of social convention and etiquette, Carroll implies, that
trigger this phenomenon and have invaded Victorian society, transforming it into a
farcical world of rude, hostile people reminiscent of the creatures in Wonderland.
Carroll's social commentary in Through the Looking-Glass does offer a note of hope. In the
end, Alice, sick of the confusion and chaos which ensues when the tableware and candles
fly around the room, finally summons the courage to challenge the Red Queen, to whom she
hitherto has been relatively subservient. In shaking the Queen into a harmless kitten,
Alice breaks the spell of the domineering, repressive authority figures circumscribed
within conventions of etiquette and manners.
If rigid social structure -- taken to an
extreme -- pigeonholes people into specific power relations (see the instructions on the
behavior of the lady and the gentleman), then stepping out of that circle to challenge
harmful authority helps restore order. Only when Alice
actively confronts the Red Queen can she free herself from the chaos of Wonderland.
