In Lewis Carroll‘s Alice Through the Looking Glass, Alice is a nine year-old female who leaves her private home into the unknown But, interpreting the novella through a feminist point of View shows that Carroll challenges the traditional patriarchal perception of gender by reversing gender roles In a patriarchal culture men cast as “rational, strong, protective and decisive Women as emotional (irrational), weak, nurturing and submissive”. However, Carroll successfully challenges the traditional view as he depicts women in his novella as shot-callers, decisive and rational, men as naive, weak and irrational. The portrayal of the White King as a naive and terrified male; the Red Queen as a dominant and rational female, clearly shows the reversion of gender roles in Carroll’s novella.
The White King is portrayed by Carroll as a naive, weak and terrified malei He is one of the main two characters that shows how Carroll has successfully managed to swap the traditional gender roles To begin with, in a patriarchal culture, men are always depicted as strong and protective However, the White King’s characteristics are reversed, He is naive and takes words literally. For instance, Alice and the White King were talking about Alice sawing nobody on her way to the town The White King takes the word ‘nobody’ literally and thinks that ‘nobody’ is a person. Alice says to the White King “I see nobody on the road”. The King replies to her “I only wish I had such eyes, to be able to see Nobody!” In addition, the White King is weak and terrified of the Unicorn.
He talks with the Unicorn in a nervous and shaking tone, “The White King replied rather nervously “You shouldn’t have run him over with your horn, you know. Moreover, while the Lion and the Unicorn were talking about the White King’s crown, the White King was trembling with fear, “’ What a fight we might have for the crown, now!’ the Unicorn said, looking slyly up at the crown, which the poor King was nearly shaking off his head, he trembled so much. In brief, the White King’s weakness and naivety illustration in the novella displays how Carroll has managed to invert gender roles. Due to the reversal of gender roles by Carroll, The Red Queen has been portrayed as a rational and decisive female. As a female, the Red Queen is expected to be illustrated as oppressed, programmed, submissive and weak by patriarchs.
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However, she is depicted as rational and strong. For instance, the Red Queen shows her rationality when she is talking to Alice and telling her how to behave “Always speak the truth — think before you speak”. In addition, the Red Queen sets the rules and controls if Alice can become a queen or not. Thus, showing her dominance and rationality “You can’t be a Queen, you know, till you’ve passed the proper examination. And the sooner we begin it the better”. Apart from that, the Red Queen‘s rationality appears once more in the novella as she teaches Alice how to play chess and explains to her to how to become a Queen, ”you’re in the Second Square to begin with, when you get into the Eighth Square you‘ll be a queen” Chess is a game that requires intelligence, and the Red Queen is smart enough to know the rules of it.
To conclude, the Red Queen is one of the characters that show how Carroll has successfully inverted the gender roles by empowering the females over the male Lewis Carroll has confronted the traditional views of gender roles in a patriarchal culture which states that men are more privileged than women A feminist interpretation of Alice Through the Looking Glass shows that Carroll had successfully swapped the gender roles of females and males Two of the characters that prove that is the White King and the Red Queen, Carroll inverts the expected formulation of gender roles by casting the White King as a naive, helpless and irrational male who takes words literally; the Red Queen as a dominant and rational female.
