THE "CHESS PROBLEM" IN THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS 



THEORETICAL CHECKMATING: 

AN ANALYSIS OF THE MANNER IN WHICH 

THE "CHESS PROBLEM" IN THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS 

RESISTS AND SUBVERTS CRITICAL INTERPRETATIONS 

OF THE NOVEL'S CHESS MOTIF. 

By 

GLEN DOWNEY, B.A. 

A Thesis 

Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies 

in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements 

for the Degree 

Master of Arts 

McMaster University 

© Copyright by Glen Downey, August 1992 



MASTER OF ARTS (1992) 
English 

MCMASTER UNIVERSITY 
Hamilton, Ontario 

TITLE: Theoretical Checkmating: An Analysis of the Manner in 
Which the "Chess Problem" in Through the Looking­
Glass Resists and Subverts Critical Interpretations of the 
Novel's Chess Motif. 

AUTHOR: Glen Downey, B.A. (McMaster University) 

SUPERVISOR: Dr. Joseph Sigman 

NUMBER OF PAGES: vii, 70 

iii 



ABSTRACT 

This thesis is essentially divided into two parts: the first three chapters 

form the section in which I critically examine a number of theories regarding 

Carroll's use of the chess motif in Through the Looking-Glass, while the fourth 

chapter deals with my own interpretation of the chess problem as a metaphorical 

device that serves to resist and subvert a superficial thematic interpretation of the 

text. Furthermore, because the thesis involves a significant amount of chess 

theory, three appendices have been included for the reader's convenience. 

The first chapter examines an article by Mr. Gerry Forbes for the 

Canadian chess forum En Passant, entitled "Lewis Carroll Teaches You How to 

Play the Sicilian", a piece which promotes the idea that Carroll was writing his 

novel as an opening treatise on the game of chess in the guise of a children's 

story. The thesis attacks Forbes' article on the basis that the author ignores 

Carroll's own chess problem, given at the novel's outset, while admitting to cite the 

text selectively and non-sequentially in an effort to prove his central hypothesis. 

The second chapter of the thesis focuses on Carroll's curious Dramatis 

Personae: a cast list of characters that the author eventually saw fit to replace with 

his "Preface to the 1896 Edition". I examine primarily the opinions of critics Martin 

Gardner and Francis Huxley, who persist in drawing associations between 

iv 



characters in the novel and the chess piece equivalents to which they were 

originally assigned by Carroll. Through an examination of the individual 

positioning, movement and behaviour of these characters, the thesis shows that 

the relationships Gardner and Huxley draw are consistently subverted by the chess 

problem. 

Chapter Three attempts to refute Gardner's idea that the apparent 

madness of the chess game is the result of the "mad logic" of Looking-Glass Land. 

The thesis demonstrates that the solution to Carroll's chess problem becomes 

perfectly logical when one accepts the game as a contest among its individual 

participants and not between two unseen entities who silently manipulate the 

Looking-Glass pieces. 

The concluding chapter sees my own interpretation of Carroll's chess 

problem as a symbolic device which reinforces and reveals the novel's underlying 

implications through a systematic refutation of its surface theme. Utilizing a 

metaphorical analysis of Alice's regimented pawn journey, her capturing of the Red 

Queen and subsequent checkmating of the Red King, I endeavour to illustrate that 

the novel is not about Alice's "victory" in making a successful dream-journey from 

innocence to experience, but rather, about the young girl's realization that the 

notions of freedom and independence she once associated with womanhood are 

illusory, existing only in the hearts of those who have not yet made her journey. 

v 



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Joseph Sigman for 

supervising my thesis on Carroll. Both his support and friendly criticism have been 

invaluable in helping me to bring this thesis to its present and final form. I would 

like to thank Professors Richard Morton and Graham Petrie for agreeing to be my 

readers and assisting me with necessary emendations to the text. I would also like 

to thank my parents, friends and colleagues for their understanding and support 

during the preparation, organization and defence of this project. 

vi 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION ........................................... 1 

CHAPTER 1 Forbes' Theory: Through the Looking-Glass 
As a Chess Treatise .............................. 8 

CHAPTER 2 Carroll's Dramatis Personae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 17 

CHAPTER 3 A Resistance to Gardner's "Mad Logic" Theory ......... , 36 

CHAPTER 4 The Metaphorical Implications of the Chess 
Problem ...................................... 52 

CONCLUSION ............................................ 60 

Appendix 1 Looking-Glass Chess . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 63 

Appendix 2 Algebraic Notation and Chess Terminology ............ , 65 

Appendix 3 Areas of Awareness for Looking-Glass 
Chessmen .................................... 68 

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 69 

vii 



Said Downey to 
Carroll, "Its time that 

I quarrel 
with 
Gardner 

and others, 
who've botched up 

your chess. 
While the critics 

acquit you, 
they never 

'fess up to 
the fact 

INTRODUCTION 

that their meddling 
has made quite a mess. 

Without rhyme or reason 
they commit 

acts of treason, 
by ignoring 

the point 
of your ingenious game. 

I c?\\ <\- {ft;""; ;r If ' 
"" .. ~"",.,,'.' ,/ ,,' \._1 

Sit back, its my turn! 
I'll have 

everyone learn 
that my "meddling" 

has not 
made me go 

do the same! 

1 



2 

When Lewis Carroll undertook to write the sequel to Alice's 

Adventures in Wonderland, he replaced the loose motif of the card game in his 

original tale with a more structured framework based on the game of chess. 

Indeed, Carroll went to the extent of formulating both a chess problem and its 

detailed solution as the basis for the individual actions and behaviours of specific 

characters in Through the Looking-Glass (please refer to Appendix 1, "Looking­

Glass Chess, both for a diagram of the problem as well as Carroll's descriptive 

solution). Unlike Wonderland, where our young heroine merely encounters 

characters that serve as representations of playing cards and the like, the plot of 

the Looking-Glass Landscape is structured around an actual chess position that 

is played out by its numerous inhabitants. 

An interesting debate that has recently surfaced among Carroll's critics 

raises the question of whether or not the chess problem actually makes any 

"sense" as a game, and if not, whether this incoherence can be reasonably 

justified. The lack of alternating turns between the two sides and the apparent 

discordance among the movements of the various pieces led Falconer Madan, in 

his Handbook of the Literature of the Rev. C.L. Dodgson (1962), to observe that, 

"the chess framework is full of absurdities and impossibilities ... Hardly a move has 

a sane purpose, from the point of view of chess" (Gardner AA 170). From 

Madan's rigid stance seems to have developed three streams of thought regarding 

Carroll's chess problem: (1) Mr. Gerry Forbes, a Carrollian critic and Candidate 

Chess Master, takes the extremist view of ignoring Carroll's specific problem in an 



3 

effort to interpret the whole novel as a treatise on the game of chess. (2) The 

critic and mathematician Martin Gardner is quick to discredit Madan's viewpoint 

and give a mark of approval to the chess problem. He does so, either by 

dismissing the apparent ecc_ .Itricity of Carroll's moves on the basis that they are 

the result of the madness of the Looking-Glass reality, or like the critic Francis 

Huxley, by incorporating suppressed material to argue his case (Le. Carroll's 

infamous cast list of characters, the Dramatis Personae). (3) Critics Richard Kelly, 

Alexander Taylor and John Fisher seem to take the most satisfactory approach in 

seeking an explanation for the chess problem's inherent curiosities. While Fisher 

searches for an answer to the problem's surface features, Kelly and Taylor appear 

to understand that Carroll's solution has a significance beyond itself, although their 

interpretations are not ones with which the present critic is entirely satisfied. It is 

evident that Carroll was deeply concerned about such diverse critical response to 

the chess problem, for in his preface to the 1896 edition of the novel, he included 

the following disclaimer in an attempt to defend himself against the criticism that 

was likely to surface: 

As the chess-problem ... has puzzled some of my readers, 
it may be well to explain that it is correctly worked out, so 
far as the moves are concerned. The alternation of Red 
and White is perhaps not so strictly observed as it might 
be, and the "castling" of the three Queens is merely a 
way of saying that they entered the palace; but the 
"check" of the White King at move 6, the capture of the 
Red Knight at move 7, and the final "checkmate" of the 
Red King, will be found, by anyone who will take the 
trouble to set the pieces and play the moves as directed, 



to be strictly in accordance to the laws of the game 
(Carroll CW 126). 

4 

It is the present critic's intention to examine closely the manner in which Carroll's 

chess problem both resists and subverts the interpretations of Gardner, Forbes, 

Huxley and others regarding the function of the chess motif in Through the 

LoOking-Glass, ultimately proposing the theory that the problem serves as a device 

which supports and reinforces the novel's underlying implications through a 

systematic rejection of its surface theme. 

The opening chapter of the dissertation deals with a theory that has 

its genesis in Gerry Forbes' intriguing article "Lewis Carroll Teaches You How to 

Play the Sicilian" (1986). This particular interpretation ignores Carroll's chess 

problem in an effort to demonstrate that the elements of chess in the novel serve 

as a treatise on a particular opening system of moves known as the Sicilian 

Defence. By using the text of Through the LOOking-Glass to examine a game 

played at the grandmaster level (Keres vs. Botvinnik, The Alekhine Memorial, 

Moscow, 1956), the author makes the inference that Carroll's genius might well 

have included a vast amount of theoretical knowledge about an opening system 

of moves that was held in general contempt at the time. Furthermore, an analysis 

of Forbes' approach seems to leave one with the task of addressing the delicate 

question of whether or not Carroll's use of the chess motif in Through the Looking-

Glass can be examined from the standpoint that it has nothing to do with the 

chess problem itself. The thesis endeavours to prove that this can not be the case 



5 

and that Forbes' interpretation is constantly resisted and subverted by the realities 

of Carroll's text. 

Early editions of Through the Looking-Glass were prefaced with the 

following cast list of characters: 

DRAMA TIS PERSONAE 

(As arranged before the commencement of the game.) 

PIECES 
Tweedledee 
Unicorn 
Sheep 

White 

W. Queen 
W. King 
Aged Man 
W. Knight 
Tweedledum 

PAWNS 
Daisy 
Haigha 
Oyster 
'Lily' 
Fawn 
Oyster 
Hatta 
Daisy 

Red 
PAWNS 
Daisy 
Messenger 
Oyster 
Tiger-Lily 
Rose 
Oyster 
Frog 
Daisy 

(Gardner MAA 161) 

PIECES 
Humpty Dumpty 
Carpenter 
Walrus 
R. Queen 
R. King 
Crow 
R. Knight 
Lion 

Although Carroll permanently replaced the Dramatis Personae with his "Christmas 

1896" preface, some critics still attempt to construe associations between 

characters in the story and the pieces or pawns that they are imagined to 

represent (these characters often have little or no relationship to the game of 

chess that is being played out on the Looking-Glass landscape). Naturally, Carroll 

saw that the Dramatis Personae would not be taken by critics in the simple sense 

that it demonstrated the story was about chess, but rather, in the erroneous sense 

that it served as a literal interpretation of the functions of specific characters with 



6 

regards to the chess problem. In Chapter Two of the thesis, we demonstrate that 

through an examination of their positioning, movement and behaviour, the 

characters of Carroll's Dramatis Personae (apart from those which are themselves 

chessmen, Le. 'Lily', the Red and White Knights, Queens and Kings) can be seen 

to resist the notions of both Gardner and Huxley that they serve to function in the 

capacities of the pieces or pawns with which the author initially associated them. 

Chapter Three examines yet another theory regarding the interpretation 

of Carroll's chess problem in Through the Looking-Glass. This theory sees the 

"madness" of the game as conforming to "the mad logic of the looking-glass world" 

(Gardner AA 172). This is the view of Gardner who, in attacking Madan's 

narrowmindedness about the chess problem, seems to go somewhat too far in 

asking the rhetorical question: "What else could one expect from the mad 

creatures behind the mirror?" (170). I would argue that the chess problem both 

resists and subverts Gardner's interpretation by demonstrating (1) that the 

madness of the Looking-Glass creatures' "exceedingly careless game" (170) is not 

entirely without sense and (2) that those parts of Carroll's solution which appear 

to be without sense (Le. the preponderance of moves for White, the leaving of the 

White King in check, etc.) are easily accounted for when one considers the 

inherent limitations of the so-called "mad creatures behind the mirror". 

Endeavouring to interpret the chess problem in Through the Looking-Glass, critics 

like Gardner are apt to succumb to the temptation of initially recognizing that the 

sequence of moves does not conform to those found in a normal or standard 



7 

game of chess and then hastily concluding that the madness of the chess problem 

is merely conforming to the madness of the Looking-Glass World. 

The dissertation's final chapter deals with my own interpretation of 

Carroll's employment of the chess problem in Through the Looking-Glass as a 

symbolic device which serves to reveal the novel's underlying thematic 

implications. Through a systematic refutation of the novel's commonly accepted, 

surface theme (that Alice's attainment of queenhood serves as proof of a 

successful dream-journey from the imprisonment and isolation of youth to the 

freedom and community of womanhood), the metaphorical implications of the 

chess problem expose Alice's futile quest as a regimented progression which, for 

the most part, deprives the young girl of the freedom to negotiate the paths of her 

own existence. The thesis examines the significance of Alice's pawn journey, her 

capture of the Red Queen and checkmating of the Red King in an effort to raise 

significant questions about the validity of a mere superficial interpretation of the 

text. For instance, what does it mean that Alice is forced to "capture" the Red 

Queen, a female figure of authority, in order to "win" the game for her side? Does 

this not make her attainment of womanhood come at the expense of womanhood? 

Furthermore, is it not significant that the powers that Alice attains in her 

transformation from a pawn into a queen prove fruitless, because the game soon 

ends? Finally, since Alice does not function in any sort of unison with the pieces 

on her "side" nor is aware of the ramifications of her actions in the game, is not 

her attainment of womanhood and maturity one which is ultimately gained through 

condescension and submission? 



CHAPTER 1 

Forbes' Theory: Through the Looking-Glass 
As a Chess Treatise 

A rather blatant misinterpretation of Carroll's use of the chess motif in 

Through the Looking-Glass has its genesis in an otherwise intriguing article by Mr. 

Gerry Forbes, entitled "Lewis Carroll Teaches You How to Play the Sicilian". 

Written for the periodical En Passant (#79, June 1986), the article involves an 

analysis of the story's concern with the game of chess. Forbes ventures down an 

apparently unexplored path by endeavouring to ignore Carroll's own problem, given 

at the novel's outset, in deference to viewing the work as an informative treatise 

for the chess aficionado on a particular opening system of moves, known as the 

Sicilian Defence. Characterized by the moves, 1. e4 c5, 2. Nf3 Nc6, 3. d4 

(please refer to Appendix 2 for a discussion of Algebraic Notation), the Sicilian 

Defence was in its embryonic stages during the time of Carroll's literary career and 

did not, "undergo serious examination until many decades later" (Forbes 43). It 

seems rather dubious to assume that Carroll was aware of the revolutionary 

opening at all, for as Forbes is forced to admit: "It is possible that the only 

evaluation available to Mr. Dodgson was that of Paul Morphy from his annotations 

of the MacDonnell - Labourdonnais games" (43). Even if Carroll did know of 

Morphy's annotations, these were so "abruptly dismissive" as to dissuade even the 

8 



9 

most courageous of theorists from any serious consideration of analyzing the 

Sicilian thoroughly (especially through an opening treatise written in the form of a 

children's story): 

[Morphy] says after 1. e4 cS, 2. f4: "The moves of 2. 
Nf3, or still better 2. d4, are those now generally 
recognized as best. The latter move is indeed so strong 
that it has gone far towards disabusing the public mind of 
that pernicious fondness for the Sicilian Defence" (43). 

Since Forbes readily admits that his interpretation of the novel requires both the 

careful selectivity and non-sequential citing of textual passages, I endeavour to 

demonstrate its lack of validity on the basis that a competent reading of Carroll's 

novel provides no concrete evidence to support the critic's dubious claims. I then 

turn my attention to the question of whether or not Forbes even makes sense to 

suggest such a theory when it ignores the existence of Carroll's own chess 

problem. 

To reinforce the validity of his hypothesis, Forbes investigates the 

relationship between the chess elements of the novel and a game played at the 

grandmaster level between Paul Keres and Mikhail Botvinnik (in which the latter 

essays the Sicilian Defence). The author chooses this particular game on the 

basis that it is, "far enough out of date .. .that [a] discussion of strategic features 

won't be obscured by a plague of topical variations" (43). If Mr. Forbes is 

prepared to defend his conviction that Through the Looking-Glass is Carroll's 

cleverly disguised treatise on the Sicilian Defence, it seems dubious for him to 



10 

introduce a piece of supporting evidence (the Keres - Botvinnik chess game) which 

only comes into being some eighty-five years after the fact. His contention might 

be somewhat more believable if he were to locate a game from Carroll's own time 

that employs the Sicilian Defence and demonstrate how its basic principles are 

elucidated by the text of Through the Looking-Glass. He would subsequently not 

be forced to rely on the excuse that, "it is unlikely ... any theorist could match the 

insight and brilliance of two of the world's top players, especially a century in 

advance" (4S). 

Forbes' central hypothesis, that Through the Looking-Glass serves as 

a treatise on the Sicilian Defence, rests on what the critic sees as the novel's 

representation of three distinguishing features which often characterize this 

opening system: (1) The White King's Knight and Black Queen's Knight's struggle 

over the d4 Square, (2) The weakness of Black's Pawn on d6 (or of the d6 square 

in general), and (3) The White Queen's Knight's struggle to control or influence dS. 

Forbes makes the same error as his more literary, critical counterparts (principally, 

Gardner and Huxley), in initially assuming that certain characters in the story are 

representative of specific chess piece equivalents and then subsequently 

demonstrating how their actions justify a somewhat unbelievable hypothesis. In 

examining the struggle over the d4 square by White's King's Knight and Black's 

(Red's) Queen's Knight, after the moves 1. e4 cS, 2. Nf3 Nc6, 3. d4 cxd4, 4. Nxd4, 

Forbes quotes the text (and follows this up with explanation) in an effort to show 

that these pieces are actually the characters of Tweedledum and Tweedledee: 



"Well, that square belongs to Tweedledum and 
Tweedledee" - The White KN and Black QN stage a 
battle for d4. While the White N seems to have 
established its superiority at the moment, we shall see 
later on that occupation of this square is not always best. 
By the way, you might have noticed that Alice has run off 
with the Black c-Pawn, and given up her dreams of 
becoming a Queen. But you didn't tell little girls things 
like that in Victorian England (44). 

11 

The difficulty with accepting Forbes' conjecture, that the Tweedle brothers are 

actually enemy Knights, is certainly two-fold. In an effort to convince the reader 

that Tweedledum and Tweedledee represent opposing sides, Forbes finds himself 

without any real evidence to support his inferences. Since both characters live in 

the same house (and thus, on the same square), it is fruitless to argue that they 

represent chessmen at all, based on the fact that no two pieces can ever occupy 

the same square at the same time during the course of a game. Furthermore, it 

makes even less sense to assume that pieces of opposing sides would live 

together under the same roof on the regimented Looking-Glass landscape. 

Secondly, the chess elements of Carroll's novel work towards demonstrating the 

process by which a Queen's Pawn travels up the length of the board and promotes 

to become an actual Queen. For this reason, writing a treatise on the Sicilian 

Defence would not work well with Carroll's plans when one considers that this 

particular opening system invariably sees the early exchange of White's d-pawn 

for Black's c-pawn. This means, as Forbes is forced to admit, that "Alice herself 

disappears at move three" (45). The present critic certainly sees no evidence in 

the text to suggest that Alice's mortal form disappears on the d4 square, only to 



12 

be replaced by a simulacrum which silently continues her journey up the d-file to 

queen hood. Forbes attempts to make up for such inconsistencies by claiming that 

"Carroll may have had difficulty adapting his 'analysis' to the 'plot' of the book" 

(45). However, this statement seems to point dangerously in the direction of an 

artistic deficiency on Carroll's part. 

In the character of Humpty Dumpty, Forbes sees Carroll's 

representation of Black's weak d6 pawn in the Sicilian opening system. His logic 

is based on the fact that this character eventually succumbs to his terrible fall, both 

in the novel as well as in the chess game between Keres and Botvinnik. However, 

a black pawn on d6 would impede Alice's progress to the extent that she could 

neither occupy nor pass through that particular square on the d-file (only one piece 

may occupy a given square at anyone time). In the novel, Alice crosses the 

brook into the d6 square without any difficulty at all, ensuring us that no enemy 

piece or pawn currently inhabits that square: 

"The egg seems to get further away the more I 
walk towards it. Let me see, is this a chair? Why, it's 
got branches, I declare! How very odd to find trees 
growing here! And actually here's a little brook! Well, 
this is the very queerest shop I ever saw!" 

* * * * * 
* • * * 

• * * * * 

So she went on, wondering more and more at 
every step, as everything turned into a tree the moment 
she came up to it, and she quite expected the egg to do 
the same (Carroll CW 191). 



13 

If, as Forbes contends, Humpty Dumpty is an enemy pawn, then Alice has no 

hope of ever occupying the dS square while the egg is stationed on his majestic 

perch. Humpty Dumpty does eventually fall, but only after his encounter with Alice. 

It makes little sense to assume that Alice, as the White Queen's pawn, has 

somehow managed to finagle her way past the Red Queen's pawn, and that in 

turn, this may be somehow responsible for the latter's subsequent fall or capture. 

Forbes further misinterprets Alice's meeting with Humpty Dumpty when 

he examines the position of the Keres - Botvinnik affair after the first seventeen 

moves of the game have been played out (1. e4 c5, 2. Nf3 NcS, 3. d4 cxd4, 4. 

Nxd4 Nf6, 5. Nc3 dS, S. Bg5 eS, 7. Qd2 hS, 8. BxfS gxfS, 9. 0-0-0 as, 10. f4 h5, 

11. Kb1 Bd7, 12. Be2 QbS, 13. Nb3! 0-0-0, 14. Rhf1 Na5, 15. Rf3 Nxb3, 1S. 

axb3 Kb8, 17. Na4 Qa7). Forbes analyzes the current state of the dS square by 

quoting Humpty Dumpty's definition of impenetrability: 

"Impenetrability! That's what I say!" 
"Would you tell me please," said Alice, "What that 

means?" 
"Now you talk like a reasonable child," said Humpty 

Dumpty, looking very much pleased. "I meant by 
'impenetrability' that we've had enough of that subject, 
and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you 
mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop 
her all the rest of your life" (Forbes 44). 

With his eighteenth move, Keres forges ahead with 18. f5!, a move that Forbes 

sees as a response to Humpty Dumpty's advice. However, this move has nothing 

to do with the Alice Pawn (Keres is moving his f-pawn, not his d-pawn) and so 



14 

Humpty Dumpty's comment is not directed at the piece which actually moves in 

the current chess game. Once again, the relationship drawn between the text and 

the game makes very little sense. 

The conclusion of the Keres - Botvinnik affair sees White winning the 

d6 (Humpty Dumpty?) pawn and Black's subsequent resignation, but this is not at 

all similar to the closing moments of the chess game in Through the Looking­

Glass. In the novel, the dream-game ends when Queen Alice captures the Red 

Queen during the "feasting and fun" of Chapter IX, not when Humpty Dumpty falls 

at the close of Chapter VI. Are we to assume that Carroll's analysis of the chess 

game ends somewhere in the middle of the novel, the last fifty-or-so pages merely 

being an attempt to round out the story? If Carroll was to write a treatise on the 

Sicilian Defence, I can not imagine that he would have permitted himself to go 

about it in such a distinctively loose fashion. Therefore, while we easily concede 

that the control and attainment of the d6 square is of vital importance in the Keres 

- Botvinnik game, it has very little to do (apart from being a square through which 

Alice passes) with the chess game that is played out on the Looking-Glass 

landscape. 

Forbes also seems to go wrong in his analysis of how Carroll is 

supposedly explaining the White Queen's Knight's control of the d5 square. The 

game continues: 18. f5! Be7, 19. fxe6 fxe6, 20. Rxf6! Rh7, 21. Rg6 b5, 22. Nc3 

Qc5, 23. Na2!, after which Forbes mingles a quote from the text with his own 

analysis: 



What is the N doing here - The Knight looked surprised 
at the question. "What does it matter where my body 
happens to be?" he said. "My mind goes on working all 
the same. In fact, the more head-downwards I am, the 
more I keep inventing new things". The new things here 
are an attack on a6 and a tempo [by a "tempo", Forbes 
means a gain in time] on the Black Q by Nd3. The same 
old thing is that from b4 the N once again watches d5 
(45). 

15 

The problem with using the White Knight's quotation in analyzing this 

position from the Keres - Botvinnik game stems from the fact that we know the 

Knight to be on an entirely different square (e7) when Alice confronts him. Even 

if we temporarily ignore Carroll's own chess problem, we know that Alice is on the 

d7 square when she meets up with the tumbling Knight. Nowhere in the text is 

there any evidence to suggest that the White Knight (whom Forbes believes to be 

the Queen's Knight, but is, in all probability, the King's Knight) ever finds himself 

on the a2 square. Once again, this is the sort of difficulty that arises when Forbes 

begins to dissect the text with such a marked abandon. 

If Forbes' approach to the novel's chess motif appears somewhat 

skewed, his ideas serve as the basis for a very interesting debate. Is it possible 

to look at the chess motif of Through the Looking-Glass with a complete disregard 

for Carroll's own chess problem? Forbes ignores it (or is, perhaps, ignorant of it -

this would explain a great deal), concentrating only on the evidence supporting his 

claim that the novel is an opening treatise. However, in doing so, Forbes 

overlooks certain crucial realities of the novel that might have altered his particular 

outlook. For instance, he sees Through the Looking-Glass as a tool for instructing 



16 

the "conscious" chess player (that is, one who can see beneath its concealed 

approach) on the finer points of the Sicilian defence. Carroll's own chess problem, 

however, concerns the strategy of queening a pawn, an idea which is the heart of 

the novel, but is nowhere to be found in Forbes' analysis. The latter admits that 

while Alice wins the game for her side in Through the Looking-Glass, she 

disappears at move three in the Keres - Botvinnik game, but he can offer no 

explanation for the discrepancy. Furthermore, his remark about not telling such 

things to Victorian girls seems to be a deliberate attempt to utilize wit in deflecting 

the reader's attention from his failure to provide an adequate explanation for his 

proceedings. Ultimately, Forbes' most damaging admission is that his selection 

of passages from Through the Looking-Glass have been taken, "selectively and, 

at times, non-sequentially" (45). This makes for an interesting, but certainly 

misinformative reading. 



CHAPTER 2 

Carroll's Dramatis Personae 

Lewis Carroll's quiet removal of the Dramatis Personae from later 

editions of Through the Looking-Glass, in deference to his Christmas 1896 

Preface, should have warned contemporary and future critics that any attempt to 

interpret specific characters in terms of their associated chess piece equivalents 

would be a exercise in futility. Through a close examination of their positioning, 

movement and behaviour, both in relation to the chess problem and the novel as 

a whole, the characters of Carroll's Dramatis Personae (with the exception of those 

who are themselves chessmen) resist and subvert the critical interpretations of 

Gardner and others, who see them as the literal representation of actual pieces 

in the Looking-Glass chess game. 

We begin our analysis of Carroll's Dramatis Personae by examining 

the difficulties of associating the character of the Fawn with the White King's Pawn 

in the game. Alice meets the Fawn near the end of Chapter Three ("Looking­

Glass Insects"), while she is making her way through the White Queen's Fourth 

Square (d4). If we erroneously assume, as Gardner does, that the Fawn 

represents a pawn which is now adjacent to Alice (Gardner MAA 211), then the 

former must be situated on either the White King's Fourth Square (e4) or the White 

Queen's Bishop's Fourth Square (c4). This follows from Alexander Taylor's 

17 



18 

argument that the chessmen "are always on the square next to [Alice] on one side 

or the other" (Taylor 100). However, it does not make sense to say that there is 

a White Pawn situated on e4, since the sleeping Red King inhabits this square 

throughout the course of Carroll's problem. Even with the liberties that the author 

takes in his solution to the chess game, he never goes so far as to place two 

pieces on the same square (unless, of course, a capture is taking place). 

However, it is just as pointless to argue that the White King's Pawn has made its 

way to c4, for a close scrutiny of the current position of Carroll's solution reveals 

that its progression to this square is clearly impossible. In order to make its way 

over to Alice, the King's Pawn (which begins a chess game on e2) would be 

required to make a series of two captures, the first of which would bring it to d3 

and the next, to c4. Since we have already established that two pieces can not 

occupy the same square, it must be assumed that the Pawn performs its first 

capture before the Red Queen makes her way to e2. We must further assume 

that the Red King (who sleeps throughout the course of the chess problem) is 

allowed to ignore the check given by this piece as the latter passes into d3. 

Finally, the King's Pawn would be required to capture another enemy piece in 

order to reach c4. If we accept that this Fawn/Pawn must capture two enemy 

pieces to put itself on the square next to Alice, is it then possible to discern who 

these victims are? Clearly, none of the Flowers who are linked with the Red 

Pawns are captured by this piece, as Alice talks with them at a time when the 

Fawn (as a Pawn) would have already passed by their sector of the board. 



19 

Presumably, this takes care of Red's King Pawn, Queen Pawn and Rook Pawns 

(respectively associated with the characters of the Rose, the Tiger-lily and two of 

the Daisies). The White King's Pawn can not have captured the Oysters, as we 

know that they are yet to be eaten by the Walrus and the Carpenter in 

Tweedledee's poem (this would eliminate the characters associated with the Red 

King's Bishop Pawn and Queen's Bishop Pawn). Alice learns of Humpty Dumpty's 

Messenger (the Red Queen's Knight Pawn?) and actually meets the Frog (the Red 

King's Knight Pawn?) later in the game, so neither of them could have been the 

subject of the Fawn's captures. The latter can also be said of Humpty Dumpty 

(the Red Queen's Rook?), the Carpenter (the Red Queen's Knight?), the Walrus 

(the Red Queen's Bishop?), the Lion (the Red King's Rook?), the Red King and 

Queen, and the Red Knight. Alice comes into contact with all of these characters 

after her encounter with the Fawn. Hence, there are no pieces in the game that 

the Fawn / (Pawn?) can possibly have captured to put her on c4. It thus makes 

little sense to argue that she has done so. 

What of the Fawn's personality and/or behaviour in the novel? Can 

we say unequivocally that this creature acts like the White King's Pawn in a game 

of chess? The Carroll ian critic Fred Madden draws a dubious and fragile linguistic 

association between the character of the Fawn and its supposed chess piece 

equivalent when he observes of this episode, "that Alice, a pawn, is here meeting 

a fawn, and that in Carroll's game of doublets the change of a single letter turns 

'pawn' to 'fawn'" (Gardner MAA 211). This is all well and good, but it fails to 



20 

explain why at no time during the Fawn's brief appearance in the novel does the 

character ever exhibit the characteristics of a pawn. The Fawn's personality 

seems much more akin to the marked aloofness exhibited by the Red Queen than 

anything or anyone else. For instance, when Alice tells the Fawn that she is 

unable to remember who she is, the latter replies with the rather cold rejoinder: 

"'Think again ... that wo'n't do'" (Carroll CW 163). Gardner's acceptance of the 

notion that Alice and the Fawn are not only of equal importance in the game, but 

also members of the same (White) side, fails to address adequately one very 

perplexing question: Why does the Fawn bound away from Alice after learning 

who she is? It appears that the creature is more concerned with Alice's identity 

as a human being than the identity she assumes as particular piece in the game 

of chess that is being played out: '''I'm a Fawn!' it cried out in a voice of delight. 

'And dear me! you're a human child'" (164). If the Fawn were a pawn in Carroll's 

chess game, it would distrust Alice only until it was able to determine whether the 

young girl was a member of the Red or White side (the reverse of what actually 

happens in the story). Finally, we might also mention that the manner in which the 

Fawn quickly flees from Alice upon discovering her true identity is most unlike a 

Pawn's movement: "A sudden look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, 

and in another moment it had darted away at full speed" (164). 

ConSidering the discrepancies that arise in examining the Fawn's 

positioning, movement and behaviour in relation to the chess problem, it therefore 

makes very little sense to interpret this character as the White King's Pawn in 



21 

Carroll's game. When Alice meets the Fawn, the latter is supposedly located on 

a square to which its chess piece equivalent could not possibly have progressed 

during the course of the game. When the Fawn initially meets Alice it trusts her, 

but then flees when it determines her true identity. This behaviour is completely 

uncharacteristic of a pawn, which is only at ease when it can determine that it is 

surrounded and supported by friendly pieces and pawns, and which is, given its 

inferior mobility, unable to escape a given situation quickly. 

We might now endeavour to point out the difficulties in associating two 

of the Oysters of the Tweedle twins' poem with White's Bishop Pawns in the chess 

game (or with the notion of pawns in general). According to Carroll's poem, the 

Oysters are described as "All hopping through the frothy waves, / And scrambling 

to the shore" (170). This indicates that the Oysters (including those that serve as 

White's Bishop Pawns) come out of the water only after being enticed by the 

Walrus and the Carpenter to do so. In Looking-Glass Land, the only bodies of 

water to be found (apart from the one on which Alice and the metamorphosed 

White Queen/Sheep find themselves in Chapter V ["Wool and Water"]) are the 

brooks that hOrizontally divide the chess board into ranks. If the Oyster bed was 

located somewhere on the d5 square, it is likely that Alice and the Sheep would 

have caught up with the "eldest Oyster" who remained behind when the others 

were led off to their infamous slaughter. Therefore, while it follows that the 

Oysters must inhabit one of these brooks, it is for this vel)' reason that they can 

not be a part of the chess problem. The difficulty arises from the fact that the 



22 

Oysters do not initially inhabit a particular square, but rather, exist between 

squares. How can they be considered White's Bishop Pawns when they not only 

fail to begin the game on their proper starting squares, c2 and f2, but they do not 

begin on any square at all? Furthermore, since in Carroll's chess problem, a pawn 

(like Alice) is only aware of things on either side of it, how are we to assume that 

the four Oysters (presumably, the Red and White Bishop Pawns) along with the 

Walrus and the Carpenter (the Red Queen's Bishop? and Queen's Knight?) are 

somehow situated on the board so as to be aware constantly of one another's 

presence during the course of their encounter. 

Can we even be sure that the Oysters (and for that matter, the Walrus 

and the Carpenter) are fixtures of the Looking-Glass Landscape? They come to 

us in a poem recited by Tweedledee, but it is nowhere confirmed in the text that 

these events occur on some portion of the giant chessboard: 

The sun was shining on the sea, 
Shining with all his might: 
He did his very best to make 
The billows smooth and bright-­
And this was odd, because it was 
The middle of the night (168). 

Since there is no indication, either in Alice's remarks when she first sees the giant 

chessboard landscape or in Tenniel's subsequent illustration, of any visible large 

body of water apart from the d5 square, the poem's mention of the "sea" appears 

to place the events of the poem outside the borders of Looking-Glass Land: "For 

some minutes Alice stood without speaking, looking out in all directions over the 



23 

country - and a most curious country it was. There were a number of tiny little 

brooks running straight across it from side to side, and the ground between was 

divided up into squares by a number of little green hedges, that reached from 

brook to brook" (150). If this is the case, then Carroll's Dramatis Personae lists 

six Pieces that are not to be found anywhere on the chessboard landscape of the 

Looking-glass world. 

Superficially, it seems quite logical to assume that Carroll intended 

Haigha and Hatta, characters who are incessantly endeavouring to satisfy the 

culinary needs of their eccentric King, to be White's Knight Pawns. However, 

because Alice meets these characters while she is on the White Queen's Sixth 

Square (d6), they would naturally be forced to occupy one of the two squares 

adjacent to her, c6 or e6 (Alice can not have fellow pawns inhabiting her square). 

In the current position of the chess problem's solution, the White King's station on 

c6 leaves only one available square (e6) for his two servants. Furthermore, in 

order for Haigha (the White Queen's Knight Pawn?) to get to e6 he has to make 

a minimum of three captures along the way (going from the b-file to the e-file), 

while Hatta (the White King's Knight Pawn?) must make a minimum of two (going 

from the g-file to the e-file). None of their captures can be of Red Pawns since: 

(1) the Oysters that supposedly represent Red's Bishop Pawns have already been 

accounted for (they have been eaten by the Walrus and the Carpenter), (2) the 

Daisies, the Tiger-lily and the Rose (by association: Red's Rook Pawns, King's 

Pawn and Queen's Pawn) are not within Haigha's or Hatta's range of capture, 



24 

being most likely situated on c2, and (3) the Frog (Red's King's Knight Pawn?) is 

yet to be encountered by Alice. Similarly, we know that even if Haigha and Hatta 

are really Knight Pawns, they do not capture the Red King (Alice eventually 

checkmates him), the Lion or the Red Knight (Alice is yet to meet them), Humpty 

Dumpty (the White King tells Alice that during this character's calamity, Haigha and 

Hatta were conveniently "both gone to town" [205]), or the Red Queen (Alice will 

meet her yet again at the coronation feast). This leaves the Walrus and the 

Carpenter (the Red Queen's Bishop? and Knight? - whom we can not even be 

sure exist in the Looking-Glass reality), the Messenger (the Red Queen's Knight 

Pawn? - to which the same applies), and the Crow (the Red King's Bishop?) as 

possible targets for capture. However, Haigha and Hatta would have to make a 

combined minimum of five captures to be anywhere near Alice when she meets 

them. With only four available pieces to be captured, this remains an obvious 

impossibility. We must finally ask ourselves how Haigha and Hatta can be pawns 

if the King has sent them into town and they are now returning. Their movement 

violates the fact that pawns can only travel in one basic direction (apart from when 

they capture an enemy piece) along the length of a chessboard. 

Completing the row of White's Pawns, Carroll's Dramatis Personae 

indicates that White's Rook Pawns are, in fact, two of the Daisies in the Garden 

of Live Flowers. We know, however, that the Garden of Live Flowers is on one 

of two squares, c2 or e2 (since Alice is on d2 and can only be aware of chessmen 

that are beside her). Of these, c2 seems the most logical choice since the Red 



25 

Queen inhabits e2 when Alice comes to find herself beside her. As the starting 

positions of White's Rook Pawns in a chess game are on the squares a2 and h2, 

it makes little sense to draw a correlation between these Pawns and the Daisies 

of the Garden. Pawns are simply unable to move in a lateral direction. 

Furthermore, how are we to expect that these flowers could have uprooted 

themselves on a2 and h2 and waltzed their way over to the centre of the second 

rank? Carroll never makes reference to the fact that anything in the Garden of 

Live Flowers has ever moved (or been transplanted, for that matter!). In fact, the 

author stresses the flowers' immobility. '''Silence, every one of you!' cried the 

Tiger-lily, waving itself passionately from side to side, and trembling with 

excitement. 'They know I ca'n't get at them!' it panted, bending its quivering head 

towards Alice, 'or they wouldn't dare to do it!'" (145). This lack of mobility is 

reinforced when the Rose first mentions the existence of the Red Queen: 

"'There's one other flower in the garden that can move about like you,' said the 

Rose. 'I wonder how you do it'" (146). 

We now turn our attention to the characters who are associated with 

the White Pieces in Carroll's chess game. Alice meets Tweedledum and 

Tweedledee (the Dramatis Personae gives them as White's Rooks) near the end 

of her progression through the Fourth Square. The Red Queen has previously 

warned Alice that this Square belongs to the curious twins, which seems to 

suggest that they both occupy the same square at once. Naturally, this disqualifies 

Tweedledum and Tweedledee from being chess pieces, as only one piece is 



26 

permitted on each square at a time. Furthermore, the presence of a rook on d4 

would have prevented Alice from making her way into this square in the first place. 

Understanding this, is it easier to imagine that the Tweedle brothers stand on 

opposite sides of our heroine? Again, this seems to be a problem. According to 

Carroll's diagram, the sleeping Red King permanently inhabits the e4 square. One 

of the Tweedle Rooks would have to share this square with the Red King, which 

makes as little sense as assuming that either Haigha or Hatta (as Knight Pawns) 

would share the c6 square with the White King. Another problem with the 

contention that the Tweedle brothers inhabit the squares on either side of Alice is 

found when one asks the question that Denis Crutch does in a lecture on Carroll's 

chess problem: '''If the Tweedle brothers are the two white rooks ... then who is the 

white rook on the first row of Carroll's diagram?'" (Gardner MAA 161). This Rook 

is certainly not one of the Tweedle brothers, as it does not remove itself from the 

King's Bishop's file and make its way to c4 before Alice reaches the d4 square. 

Furthermore, Tweedledum and Tweedledee act like Rooks only in the sense that 

they dress themselves up like fortresses before they do battle. However, the fact 

that they are supposedly both members of the same side in the chess game does 

not seem to arise when they step forth to contest against each other in ritualistic 

battle. Finally, there is no indication that the Tweedle brothers move in a lateral 

fashion, as they would if they were really White's Rooks. When the black Crow 

sweeps down upon them, they are merely described as taking "to their heels 

and ... out of sight in a moment" (Carroll CW 178). It further seems ridiculous that 



27 

two White Rooks, a very potent combination on the chessboard, should be so 

terribly afraid of a lone Red Bishop (the Crow's corresponding chess piece 

equivalent). 

While it seems superficially appropriate to see Haigha and Hatta as 

ideal choices for White Pawns, it seems even more fitting to associate the Unicorn 

with one of the White Knights. This character not only has the shape of a 

Staunton chess Knight, but it is locked in a perpetual battle with the Lion, 

presumably one of the Red Rooks. However, there is very little beyond these 

rather pedantic observations to warrant consideration of the Unicorn as White's 

Queen's Knight. First of all, the Unicorn does not mimic the movement of the 

other (and true) White Knight, whose numerous tumbles from his horse are much 

like a chess knight's L-shaped movement (Gardner AA 179). Secondly, the 

Unicorn is locked in a battle with the Lion for the White King's crown, even though 

it is a member of the White side and can not hope to gain anything by being 

victorious, as the monarch quickly assures Alice: "'Does-- the one-- that wins-- get 

the crown?' she asked, as well as she could, for the run was putting her quite out 

of breath. 'Dear me, no!' said the King. 'What an idea'" (Carroll CW 208). Finally, 

when Alice meets the White King, the latter mentions that he did not "send all the 

horses [to Humpty Dumpty's rescue] because two of them are wanted in the 

game" (204). Gardner correctly observes that the King does so because two 

horses are needed as steeds for the White Knights (Gardner AA 279). 



28 

Understanding this, it seems logical to ask the question that if the Unicorn is really 

one of the White Knights, why does it need a horse for a mount? It is a mount! 

Perhaps one of the most paradoxical associations that we find in 

Carroll's Dramatis Personae is the one existing between the character of the 

Sheep and the White Queen's Bishop of the chess game. The reason that the 

relationship is so perplexing stems from the fact that the Sheep is not a Bishop at 

all, but the metamorphosed White Queen who changes before Alice's eyes as the 

two cross together into the Fifth Square: 

"Then I hope your finger is better now?" Alice said 
very politely, as she crossed the little brook after the 
Queen. 

* * * * * 

* * * * 

* * * * * 

"Oh, much better!" cried the Queen, her voice 
rising into a squeak as she went on. "Much be-etter! 
Be-etter! Be-e-e-etter! Be-e-ehh!" The last word ended 
in a long bleat, so like a sheep that Alice quite started. 

She looked at the Queen, who seemed to have 
suddenly wrapped herself up in wool (Carroll CW 185). 

The only way to explain Carroll's initial relationship of the Sheep to a Bishop is that 

the transformed White Queen moves like one after she leaves the shop, travelIing 

from the c5 square to f8. This does not mean, however, that the Sheep is a 

Bishop or that Carroll saw it as one. He clearly implies that this is not the case in 

the instructions that accompany his chess diagram at the beginning of the book. 

Here he describes the third move of the problem (for pieces other than Alice) as: 



29 

"White Queen to Queen Bishop's Fifth (becomes Sheep)". Reluctant to let go of 

the relationship between Sheep and Bishop in Carroll's Dramatis Personae, Huxley 

attempts to salvage some kind of defence through a ridiculous linguistic 

association: "The Sheep is what happened when the White Queen cried, 'Oh, 

much better! ... Much be-etter! Be-etter! Be-e-e-etter! Be-e-ehh!' so that she at 

least starts off like a Bishop" (Huxley 28). Certainly, if the Sheep is a piece in the 

chess problem, it is the White Queen and not the White Queen's Bishop. 

With the association between the Aged Aged Man and the White 

King's Bishop in Carroll's chess game, we arrive once again at the problem of 

deciding whether or not a specific character actually exists in the reality of Looking­

Glass Land. The White Knight's song is given in the first person, which might 

perhaps indicate that he actually met this curious creature somewhere along his 

travels, but there is no proof of this in the text. Furthermore, he only claims that 

the tune is of his "own invention" and not necessarily the words which accompany 

it. If the Aged Aged Man is not a part of the Looking-Glass reality then it makes 

little sense to associate him with any piece in the chess game. Even if he is a part 

of it (which I would be very hesitant to admit), his movement and behaviour in the 

poem in no way confirm the validity of an association between himself and the 

White King's Bishop. As far as movement is concerned, the Aged Aged Man 

spends all of his time "A-sitting on a gate", unlike a Bishop, who is often found 

traversing the board in great stretches. With regards to this character's identity, 

Huxley feels that he has found a link in the following observation: "As for the Aged 



30 

Aged Man, he is not only the caricature of Wordsworth's Leech Gatherer, the 

incarnation of Resolution and Independence, but Carroll himself, for he dubbed 

himself by that phrase in the whimsical journal he wrote for Isa Bowman after she 

had visited him in Oxford (28). However, while the Aged Aged Man's muttering 

speech and general demeanour certainly pOints to Rev. Dodgson's self­

representation, it does not follow that this necessitates linking the character with 

a Bishop in the chess game. 

We now turn our attention to the characters who are associated, 

through Carroll's Dramatis Personae, with the pieces and pawns of the Red side. 

We begin with the Daisies, the Tiger-Lily and the Rose, who are respectively 

associated with the Red Rook Pawns, Queen's Pawn and King's Pawn. Since 

these particular Daisies begin on the a7 and h7 squares, they would not suffer 

from the same problem as their sister Daisies in having the impossible task of 

moving laterally across the board. However, they would have the problem of being 

required to make a successive series of captures in order to find themselves on 

either the c2 or e2 square. All in all, the Daisies (as Red Rook Pawns) would be 

forced to capture a total of seven enemy pieces and pawns in order to make their 

way to either c2 or e2, a ludicrous notion since it is evident that they have 

captured nothing when Alice confronts them in the Garden. If Alice is yet to meet 

any of the characters who are to be linked with the White side of Carroll's chess 

game, how could these supposed Rook Pawns have captured nearly half of the 

enemy force? The Tiger-lily and the Rose (if we are to associate them with Red's 



31 

Queen and King Pawns) would find it necessary to make a total of between one 

and three captures, possibly passing through squares occupied both by friendly 

and enemy pieces, all without having the slightest evidence of the ability to move. 

In examining the problems of associating two of the Oysters with the 

Red Bishop pawns, we discover that they face an additional dilemma beyond that 

of their White counterparts. The dilemma centres around the fact that these 

Oysters find themselves in the same camp as the two pieces which eventually 

consume them, namely the Walrus and the Carpenter (Red's Queen's Knight and 

Bishop). According to Carroll's poem, by the time the Walrus and the Carpenter 

are through with the Oysters, they have "eaten every one" (Carroll CW 172). By 

association, the Red Queen's Knight and Queen's Bishop have just accomplished 

the impossible feat of consuming their own Bishop pawns. Hence, we have not 

only demonstrated the difficulty in associating the Oysters with Red Pawns, but in 

further associating the Walrus and the Carpenter with members of the Red camp. 

There is no evidence to support that the Walrus and the Carpenter behave in the 

manner of the pieces they supposedly represent (and neither is there similar 

evidence in support of the Oysters). The Walrus acts like a Walrus and not a 

Knight. The Carpenter acts more like a Walrus than a Carpenter, but not at all like 

a Bishop! 

What of the Frog and the Messenger, the characters who are 

associated with Red's Knight Pawns? The Frog is certainly not a Pawn, since 

Alice meets him while she is standing on the d8 (Queening) square. Since Red 



32 

pawns begin a chess game on the seventh rank, it makes little sense to assume 

that the Frog has somehow moved both laterally and (perhaps even) backward 

from its starting position on g7 to end up on one of the squares near Queen Alice. 

Furthermore, the Frog does not act like a Pawn in any respect whatsoever, serving 

only to scold Alice away from knocking on the door marked with her name: '''What 

did it ask you?' 'Nothing!' Alice said impatiently. 'I've been knocking at it!' 

'Shouldn't do that - shouldn't do that--' the Frog muttered. 'We xes it, you know' 

Then he went up and gave the door a kick with one of his great feet. 'You let it 

alone,' he panted out, as he hobbled back to his tree, 'and it'll let you alone, you 

know.'" (238). The Messenger, who we must assume is the character in Humpty 

Dumpty's poem, has as little to do with a Red Knight Pawn as anything one could 

possibly imagine. The very fact that a messenger travels back and forth between 

two parties disqualifies it from being a pawn on the basis of its enhanced mobility. 

If, as the Red Queen tells Alice at the start of the latter's journey, "the 

Sixth Square belongs to Humpty Dumpty" (153), this removes any possibility of 

Humpty Dumpty being the Red Queen's Rook. Situated on the d6 Square, 

Humpty Dumpty would form an impenetrable barrier for poor Alice, who could 

neither capture the egg nor move past it because of her limited mobility as a pawn. 

From d6, Humpty Dumpty (as a Rook) would check the White King at c6, 

necessitating the latter's movement sometime during the course of the game. We 

know, however, that the White King never moves from its station on c6 because 

Carroll does not tell us so in his diagram at the beginning of the story. There can 



33 

thus be no enemy rook on dS. In fact, the dS square must be vacant of any piece 

for the simple reason that the White Queen's movement from c5 to fB requires that 

she pass over the d6 square unhindered (dS is a square on the c5-fB diagonal). 

The above helps us in understanding that the Lion can not be one of 

the Red Rooks either, as a misinterpretation of Carroll's Dramatis Personae might 

perhaps indicate. As the Red King's Rook, the Lion would not only face the 

difficulty of sharing a single square of the chessboard with three enemy pieces (the 

Unicorn, Haigha and Hatta!), but it would be placing a permanent check on the 

White King at cS, once Humpty Dumpty falls from his perch. Furthermore, Alice 

would be unable to effect the checkmate that ends the game because this piece 

would be interposed between her and the Red King. We know from the Nursery 

Rhyme that "The Lion beat[s] the Unicorn all around the town" (20B), and this 

might perhaps be explained as the superior force of a rook exerting itself on the 

inferior mobility of a knight, but to draw such associations for the sake of 

explaining the relative strength of these individuals is ludicrous at best. In the 

present episode, the Unicorn seems to get the better of it anyway: "'I had the best 

of it this time?' he said to the King, just glancing at him as he passed. 'A little -

a little,' the King replied rather nervously. 'You shouldn't have run him through 

with your horn, you know'" (210). 

The last character whom we wish to examine is the curious Crow, 

whose quick descent upon the unsuspecting trio of Alice and the Tweedle brothers 

seems to mimic the long range diagonal powers of the Bishop piece with which it 



34 

is linked. However, this is where even the remotest of associations abruptly end. 

We simply do not know enough about this character to consider seriously Huxley's 

ambitious assumption that the Crow is both the Red King's Bishop in Carroll's 

chess game and also somehow linked with the White Queen as well: 

We can now deduce that the White Queen 
screams like the whistle of a steam-engine because she 
is a ghost on a well-trimmed board - the kind Carroll used 
to play chess on, in fact, when travelling by railway. But 
whose ghost is she? 

That of the Crow, for a start, which left its 
footprints on the face of the Aged Aged Man: for after it 
comes like a cloud, along comes the White Queen, 
'running wildly through the wood, with both arms 
stretched wide, as if she were flying ... ". Of course, the 
Crow is a Bishop in the chess game, and its move has 
alarmed the White Queen who then removes to another 
square (Huxley 164). 

What square is this Crow / White Queen / Red Queen's Bishop supposed to be 

attacking anyway? If Tweedledum and Tweedledee "belong" to the Fourth Square 

(d4), does the Crow land on this Square to frighten away the curious pair. This 

seems unlikely, as a Red Bishop on d4 would prevent the White Queen's eventual 

push to c5, a square which she soon occupies. As a Bishop, the Crow would also 

prevent Alice's eventual checkmate of the Red King because it could interpose 

itself on e5 when the Red Queen is captured. 

Certainly, Gardner is reasonably correct in saying that Carroll's 

relationships between the characters of his novel and their associated chess piece 

equivalents are made, "for no discernible reason" (Gardner MAA 161), although 

this does not prevent the critic from occasionally falling victim to his own 



35 

observations. It is evident that Carroll's Dramatis Personae is merely the author's 

attempt to demonstrate that his novel is based on a chess problem that mayor 

may not conform to specific rules of the game. The author's eventual removal of 

it in deference to his 1896 Preface confirms the fact that he realizes its inherent 

potential to confuse readers into drawing aSSOCiations between characters and 

chess pieces, which he did not otherwise intend. However, there are still critics 

who fall into the very trap that Carroll desired his future readership to avoid. For 

instance, Gardner tells us that it is wise to ignore the confusion of the Dramatis 

Personae, but instructs us that the relationships still exist: 

Carroll replaced it [the Dramatis Personae] with his 1896 
Preface. Removing it was wise because it only adds 
confusion to the chess game ... 

... [this is directly followed by] The arrangement of the 
words in the starting position of a chess game makes it 
easy to identify each piece and pawn (161). 



CHAPTER 3 

A Resistance to Gardner's "Mad Logic" Theory 

With reference to Carroll's chess problem, Gardner has observed that 

the apparent "madness" of the game's solution conforms to "the mad logic of the 

looking-glass world" (Gardner AA 172). While he argues that Madan has been too 

critical in his attack upon the problem, Gardner seems to be equally unfair to 

Carroll in passing off the complexities of his chess game without examining the 

possibility that the author's solution of moves merits serious examination. I would 

argue that the Looking-Glass chess problem can be seen to resist and subvert 

Gardner's dubious interpretation if the game is examined from a perspective which 

is capable of explaining all of its perceived curiosities (Le., the missing of simple 

mates, the lack of coherence among the pieces, etc.). 

Although Gardner's idea seems superficially reasonable, we must 

understand first and foremost that there is a great deal more sense in Carroll's 

solution than for which he is often given credit. What Alexander Taylor applies to 

Alice's inability to function in unison with the other White pieces can be said of all 

the game's competitors: 

It would be ... iIIogical for a pawn [or a Knight, Rook, King 
or Queen] which can see only a small patch [or 
incomplete portion] of the board to understand the 
meaning of its experiences. To understand one's part in 

36 



a game of chess, one would have to be aware of the 
room and the unseen intelligence which is combining the 
pieces. Deprived of any such knowledge, the chess-men 
have to explain things as best they can. Nor is this a 
game between two players. To have made it that would 
have been tantamount to a confession that he believed 
in two separate and opposite Powers above us (Taylor 
228). 

37 

If we accept Taylor's line of reasoning then we must think of Carroll's chess game, 

not as a contest between two opposing entities (the "White player" and the "Red" 

player), but as a struggle between individual pieces, each with a restricted sense 

of its own surroundings. Hence, Alice and the other pieces in the game are only 

able to act on what their inherent limitations allow them to understand (please refer 

to Appendix 3 on the "Areas of Awareness for Looking-Glass Chessmen"). Taking 

this under consideration, we shall now examine the solution to Carroll's chess 

problem, move by move, in an attempt to demonstrate that the various actions of 

the pieces are not merely conforming to the madness of the Looking-Glass realm, 

but have a very precise logic of their own. 

The first actual move of Carroll's chess problem is the Red Queen's 

journey from e2 to h5 (1 .... Qh5), as we must suppose that the White side has 

relinquished its turn by allowing Alice to appear suddenly on the d2 square. The 

Red side's move appears to be weak since it allows an obvious mate in three by 

White: 1 .... Qh5??, 2. Ng3+!, Ke5 (if Kd4 or Kd3, White simply plays 3. Qc3#) 3. 

Qc5+, Ke6, 4. Qd6#. It seems that if Carroll wishes to illustrate the Red Queen's 

departure from Alice then 1 .... Qa6+! is a far better try than Qh5. On 1 .... Qa6+!, 



38 

the Red Queen harasses the White King stationed on c6 and indirectly aids her 

own King. White will inevitably be required to create a shield from attack with its 

Qc1 or face the dismal prospects of enduring perpetual check from a superior 

position. However, 1 .... QhS is not merely played for the reason that its inherent 

madness conforms to the madness of the Looking-Glass World, nor is it made 

because Carroll misses 1. Qa6+. We must understand the Red Queen's 

somewhat limited scope from her outpost on e2. On e2 she can only see three 

of the remaining seven pieces on the chessboard landscape: Alice on d2, the 

sleeping Red King on e4, and the mysterious White Rook on f1. The Red Queen 

does not immediately capture Alice on d2 or the White Rook on f1 because it is 

likely that one or more of these pieces is protected by a friendly piece (and, in fact, 

both are protected by the White Queen stationed on c1). The Red Queen also 

knows enough to stay away from d1 , e1, f2 and f3, squares on which she can be 

immediately captured by the Rook (and also e3, where she can be captured by the 

Alice pawn on d2). This leaves g4, hS, d3, c4, bS and a6 as the only logical 

alternatives for the Red Queen's move. Of these, hS and a6 would be seen by the 

Red Queen as the safest, for although chess pieces control less squares when 

they are at the edge of the board, here there are fewer directions from which they 

might be attacked. Furthermore, the Red Queen is evidently ignorant of the White 

King's location and so 1 .... QhS is a very logical move in an otherwise hopeless 

position. 



39 

Instead of checkmating Red with the three move combination 

mentioned above, Alice moves for the White side to d4 (2. d4). This move seems 

to be a clear blunder as it allows Red time to play 2 .... Qg6+, after which might 

follow 3. Nd6, Kxd4 and poor "Alice" is lost to the marauding Red King. Red also 

appears to have the interesting (although, obviously, still losing) 2 .... Qxf5?!, and 

after 3. Rxf5, Ne7+!?, 4. Kd6?! Nxf5+, 5. Kc5, Nxd4, and Alice is prey to the Red 

Knight. However, 2. d4 is quite an understandable move when one considers that 

only two of the White pieces can possibly know that the Red Queen has just 

played to h5 (that is, Alice and the White Rook). The White Rook does not appear 

in Carroll's novel and never gives any indication that it is going to move throughout 

the course of the problem. Furthermore, we can assume that if the Red Queen 

"vanishes", as Alice seems to think, then the Rook might not see the monarch 

pass by on its journey through the f3 square to h5. Hence, it is likely that only 

Alice really knows it is White's turn to take action: "Alice began to remember that 

she was a Pawn, and that it would soon be time for her to move" (Carroll CW 

153). After the Red Queen makes her curious departure, Alice is left unaware of 

any other piece on the board, as c2 and e2 (the squares which form Alice's limited 

"area of awareness") are now both empty. The reason that Alice moves to d4 

(and not d3) is due in large part to the Red Queen's previous instructions: "A 

pawn goes two squares in its first move, you know. So you'll go very quickly 

through the Third Square - by railway, I should think - and you'll find yourself in the 

Fourth Square in no time" (153). 



40 

With 3. Qc4, the critical observer might immediately question Carroll's 

knowledge of the game in permitting the White side to move again before Red is 

able to respond to 2. d4 (if it was Red's move then 2. . .. Qe6+ or ... Qe8+ would 

probably offer the most reasonable chances). However, are there any Red pieces 

that have seen Alice move to d4? From h5, the Red Queen's area of awareness 

does not include either the d3 or d4 squares. The Red Knight only maintains 

control over the e7, f6 and h6 squares and is thus unaware of Alice's movement. 

The Red King does overlook d3 and d4, but the fact that he is asleep rules out the 

possibility that he is aware of Alice's movement. It is therefore quite simple to 

understand why the White side makes two moves in a row. 

We might further ask ourselves why the White Queen moves to c4 and 

not to one of a number of seemingly superior alternatives. For instance, 3. Qb1 # 

is checkmate as the Red King has no escape squares. The Alice Pawn on d4 is 

immune from capture as the White Knight on 15 protects it. The d5 square is 

guarded by the White King, the e5 square is guarded by the White Pawn (Alice), 

and the f3, f4, f5, and d3 squares are guarded by either the Queen on b1 or the 

Rook on f1. The only other square, e3, is guarded by the White Knight. Similarly, 

3. Qc2# is checkmate for the same reasons as those given above; the White 

Queen is merely choosing another square along the b1-h7 diagonal. The move, 

3. Qe3#, is also mate. The White Queen cannot be captured as she is protected 

by the Knight on f5. Finally, there are moves by other White Pieces which also 

seem to be winning. The Knight move, 3. Ng3+ ?!, while dubious (Since there are 



41 

three (!) mates on the board) at least wins the helpless Red Queen through a 

forking check at g3. The bizarre 3. Re1 +?, essentially a poor move, is winning 

after 3 .... KxfS, 4. ReS+!, skewering the Queen. If instead, Red plays 3 .... Kf3, 

(Note: on 3 .... Kd3, 4. Re3# is mate), 4. Qe3+, Kg4, (if 4 .... Kg2 then S. Qg3#! is 

mate), S. Qe4+, KgS, (if S .... Kh3 then 6. Rh1# is mate), 6. Rg1 +, Kf6 (forced), 7. 

QeS, Kf7, S. Rg7+, KfS, 9. QbS+, QeS (forced), 11. RxgS, KxgS, 12. QxeS, Kh7, 

13. Qf7 +, KhS, 14. Qg7#. Why then does the White Queen move to c4? Before 

Alice moves to d4, the White Queen is aware of three pieces on the board: Alice, 

on d2, the White Rook, on f1, and the White King, on c6. The Queen's movement 

to c4 is merely a reaction to Alice's disappearance from the d2 square. The White 

Queen (like her Red counterpart) knows that Alice can only move a maximum of 

two squares on her first move. On c4, the White Queen will either be beside Alice 

(if she has moved to d4), or, at the very least, supporting her advance (if she has 

moved to d3). The White Queen does not attempt to effect checkmate at b1, c2, 

or e3, because from c1, she cannot hope to know what square the Red King 

inhabits. Finally, we must assume that she moves at this point because she reacts 

"so fearfully quick" (quicker, at least, than someone like the Knight on fS). 

With 4. QcS, White deprives Red of its turn once again, causing critics 

like Madan to rail against the apparently, building madness. However, there is no 

evidence to suggest that any of the Red pieces on the board are aware of the 

White Queen's previous move to c4. From hS, the Red Queen's broad scope 

(which extends up and down the h-file, along the fifth rank to fS and along the e1-



42 

g4 and g6-e8 diagonals) does not afford her the opportunity of noticing the White 

Queen's movement, as the c2, c3 and c4 squares are not within the former's area 

of awareness. The Red Knight (who currently exemplifies the motto "grim on the 

rim") overlooks e7, f6 and h6, and is thus unaware of the White Queen's 

movement. The Red King extends his range of influence over the squares, d3, d4, 

dS, e3, eS, f3, f4, fS, and so he is equally unaware of any movement by the White 

Queen (or of any piece for that matter, as he sleeps throughout the course of the 

novel/game). Hence, it makes a great deal of sense that the White side retains 

its privilege to move, since the Red pieces have apparently failed to realize what 

is happening. 

In sallying forth with 4. QcS, White appears to miss several forced 

wins. Both 4. Qc2#, the elegant 4. dS!?+, KeS (forced), S. Qd4# and the bizarre 

4. Ng3+, Ke3 (forced), S. Qc3#!! are apparently neglected. Furthermore, with 4. 

QcS, White also fails to take advantage of the Ng8 which is lying en prise. Lastly, 

4. QcS breaks the mutual protection of White's major pieces, removing the only 

defender of the Rook on f1. Regardless, 4. Qc5 is certainly a logical move for the 

White Queen. She has no desire to capture the Knight on g8 because she does 

not know if it is being protected by a friendly piece. Furthermore, she is still 

unaware of the location of either the Red King or Red Queen, because Alice's 

presence on d4 shields her from the first, and her own outpost on c4 prevents her 

from noticing the second. On cS, the White Queen likely hopes to find where the 

rest of the enemy pieces are located. 



43 

By advancing up the d-file, Alice now plays S. dS. Whether or not she 

is aware of it, she takes advantage of the fact that the Red Pieces are ignorant of 

the previous 4. QcS (so once again, it makes sense that a piece on the White side 

moves). With S. dS, White naturally misses: S. Qc2# (winning the game), S. 

Ng3+, Ke3, 6. Qc3#ll, Nd6+ (winning the Queen), and QdS+ (winning the Knight). 

Even the bizarre S. Rf4+?!, Kxf4, 6. OeS+, Kf3, (on 6 .... KgS??, 7. Ng7! or Ng3! 

wins the Queen), 7. Qg3+, Ke4, S. QxgS, KxfS, 9. QdS+, Kg6, 10. QxhS, KxhS, 11. 

dS! is seemingly neglected. However, the move S. dS makes a great deal of sense 

when one considers that Alice is merely trying to keep up with the advancing White 

Queen. Alice knows the location of the Red King, but is in no position to capture 

him. She never tells the White Queen his location, probably because the Queen 

never asks. 

The White Queen now moves to fS (6. QfS), missing mate at e3 and 

d4 - but the fact that her knowledge of the current position is so poor warrants 

such a response. On the surface, this move seems dubious in that apart from 

missing mate, it also loosens the protection of the Alice pawn, although Red, in 

such an inferior position, requires further help from White in order to win it. After 

6 .... Qg6+, 7. Qd6, Qxd6?, White must not play the dismal S. Nxd6?? for it loses 

Alice to S .... Ne7+!. Rather, White should not bother to interpose with the Queen, 

but simply play 7 .... KcS!, as no opponent is eccentric enough to give away his 

Queen to win a pawn, with S .... Qb6+ ??!, 9. Kxb6, (forced) KxdS. The move, 6. 

QfS affords the White Queen her first opportunity to spot the Red King (as she 



44 

passes through the e-file at e7), while moving ever closer to the Red Knight to 

determine whether or not it is protected by an enemy piece. 

Alice now makes White's sixth move in a row, playing 7. d6. We 

might ask why the Red Knight on g8 does not decide to move, as he must 

certainly see the White Queen pass through the e7 square. The problem facing 

the Knight is that he knows the White Queen is now positioned on f8, guarding all 

of his escape squares, that is, e7, f6 and h6. Thus corralled, he remains where 

he is. It appears that White has a much better series of moves in 7. Qb4+, Kd3 

(on Ke5, 8. Qd4 mates), 8. Qd4+, Ke2, 9. Qd1#! or even 7. Rf4+!?, Kd3 (if Kxf4, 

8. Ng7 dis +, wins the Red Queen!) 8. Qa3+, Ke2, 9. Qe3+, Kd1, 10. Rd4+, Kc2, 

11. Qd2+ and mate-in-two. However, Alice progresses to d6 immediately after the 

White Queen/Sheep disappears from the c5/d6 region, and this subsequently 

blocks the White Queen's ability to return to b4. Furthermore, 7. Rf4+ is not 

possible as the Rook is left in the dark as to what is going on. 

White plays 8. Qc8, neglecting the capture of the Red Knight, and the 

win resulting after: 8. Qg7 (threatening 9. Qd4#) ... Qe8+, 9. d7, Qa8+, 10. Kd6, 

Qd5+, 11. Kc7, Qc5+, 12. Kd8, Qb6+, 13. Ke8, Nf6+ ?!, 14. Qxf6!!, Qxf6, 15. Ng3+, 

winning the Red Queen and the game. The move 8. Qc8 is entirely logical, 

however, as the White Queen is still unaware of the Red Queen's current location 

(the former may flee the Red Knight because she fears an eventual discovery 

attack). With this move the White Queen passes through the e8 square (a square 

in the Red Queen's area of awareness) and so comes to understand the position 



45 

of all the remaining Red pieces on the board. This is yet another consecutive 

move for the White pieces, but it is really no surprise as Alice's 7. d6 is played 

without the knowledge of any of the Red pieces (none of the Red pieces presently 

holds influence over the d6 square). The sole paradox of B. QcB is that Alice is 

able to see the Queen as she scurries across the countryside: 

For a minute or two Alice stood silent, watching 
him. Suddenly she brightened up. "Look, look!" she 
cried, pointing eagerly. "There's the White Queen 
running across the country! She came flying out of the 
wood over yonder-- How fast those Queens can run!" 

"There's some enemy after her, no doubt," the 
King said, without even looking round. "That wood's full 
of them" (210). 

Carroll temporarily foregoes limiting Alice's small scope, apparently for the 

purposes of foreshadowing her near future acquisition of power as a Queen. If 

this is indeed the case, then Alice sees the White Queen as she passes through 

dB on her way to cB. This hypothesis is more or less confirmed by the fact that 

the White King does not see the Queen's movement to cB (he is described as not 

bothering to look around - but this merely cloaks the fact that he could not see the 

Queen even if he did look!). Alice's new found powers will soon eclipse his own, 

as the young girl begins to understand: "'But aren't you going to run and help 

her?' Alice asked, very much surprised at his taking it so quietly. 'No use, no use!' 

said the King. 'She runs so fearfully quick. You might as well try to catch a 

Bandersnatch!'" (210). 



46 

We now come to the last in a series of eight moves in a row by White. 

The curious 9. d7 neglects the immediate wins afforded by 9. Qe6+, Kd3, 10. 

Qe3+, Kc4 (Note: if 10 .... Kc2, then 11. Rc1 +, Kb2 (forced), 12. Qc3+, Ka2, 13. 

Ra1 I), 11. Rc1 +, Kb4, 12. Qb6+!, Ka3 or Ka4, 13. Ra1 #, or 9. Ng3+, Ke3, 10. 

Qe6+, Kd3, 11. Nxh5, followed by QxN as the Knight is trapped). The move, 9. 

d7? also allows the bad but irritating 9 .... Qxf5??!, 10. Rxf5, Ne7+, 11. Kc7, Nxf5 

++/--. We might wonder why Alice (and not the Red Queen or Knight) moves at 

this point, but this is easily explained by examining the current position of the 

board. Although the White Queen's journey to c8 does cut through the Red 

Queen's area of awareness, the latter has a couple of reasons for remaining on 

h5: (1) The Red Queen may suspect that the White King is somewhere on the 

fifth rank (and not the sixth) and that this is the reason why the White Knight has 

not played a Royal Fork at g3. If the White King were on the fifth rank, a Knight 

move would expose him to capture. The Red Queen may believe that by 

stationing herself on h5 she is maintaining a pin on the f5-Knight which does not 

actually exist. (2) The Red Queen can not know for certain whether the White 

Queen has moved to d8, c8, b8 or a8, let alone whether or not the latter has 

effected some sort of check on the Red King. Keeping this in mind, the Red 

Queen might not feel she is in any position to move. The Red Knight does not 

move at this point because the White Queen's movement to c8 does not cut 

across e7, f6 or h6 (thus, he must assume that it is still White's turn). When Alice 

spots the White Queen running for c8, she is already in the process of moving 



47 

through the Sixth Square and does not bother to consider whether she is playing 

out of turn. 

Although entirely lost, the Red pieces finally take the opportunity to 

move by playing 9 .... Ne7+. This seems dreadful, for even with the bizarre and 

hopeless 9 .... Qxf5??!, Rxf5, 10. Ne7+, or the equally losing 9. Qg6+, Red shows 

more life than with the text move. However, 9 .... Ne7+ makes sense from the 

standpoint that it follows a few basic principles of chess. The Red Knight doubles 

the number of squares over which it holds sway by transferring itself to e7. At e7, 

the Red Knight overlooks cS, c6, d5, f5, g6 and gS, a total of six squares 

(compared with only three while it was stationed on gS). By moving into Alice's 

scope, the Red Knight attempts to frighten the young girl by threatening her 

capture (a capture which he cannot actually effect), temporarily halting White's 

progress in queening its d-pawn. The move also checks the White King and 

"royally" forks both King and Queen, the sole drawback being that the White Knight 

(of whom the Red Knight is obviously unaware until the latter has completed his 

move) guards the e7 square. 

White plays a very sound move with 10. Nxe7. However, Red is so 

lost that White need not have even played this move, since after 10. Kc5?!, Nxf5 

(if NxcS, 11. dxcS=Q wins easily), 11. Qc6+1, Ke3, 12. Qe6+ and White regains the 

Knight. Hearing screams of "Checkl" from his crimson counterpart, the White 

Knight feels compelled to remove the threat from e7, and subsequently, aid in 

ushering the Alice pawn to dS. The White Knight is not so ludicrous as he may 



4S 

seem in crying "Check!" himself, for although he does not effect a check, his 

inability to know the current position of the Red King makes this an honourable 

gesture (for if he does have a check on e7, he is nobly warning the opposing 

King). 

Although the Red Queen must have noticed the White Knight's 

movement from the f5 square, the fact that he is crying "Check!" prevents her from 

taking any action. The Red Queen does not have influence over e7, and could 

therefore do nothing to prevent what she only must assume is an actual check by 

the White Knight (she does not know whether or not the Red King has awaken and 

moved to a square on which he could be harassed). Thus, the Red side is 

prevented from moving as White retreats its Knight to f5. Unfortunately, the White 

Knight does not know enough about the position to understand that a superior 

move is 11. dS=Q, since it meets 11 .... Qh6+ with 12. QAd6!. 

With 12. dS=Q, Alice finally reaches the dS square and, amid pomp 

and ceremony, becomes a cherished Queen. Since this move is made at the 

same time as 11. Nf5 (Alice waves goodbye to the Knight and then jumps over the 

remaining brOOk), the Red Queen is deprived of her move. By the time the White 

Knight has returned to f5, Alice has her crown. While 12. dS=Q seems to be a 

very strong move (as it gains White a second Queen), Alice's decision to "Queen" 

exposes the White pieces collective lack of fully understanding the position, since 

either 12. Ng3+! winning the Red Queen, or 12. QeS+, exchanging Queens and 

promoting Alice on eS with check are far superior: 12. Ng3+!, Ke3, 13. Nxh5, Ke2, 



49 

14. Ng3+, Ke3, 1S. Qe8+ (not 1S. d8=Q stalemate!), Kd3, 16. d8=Q+, Kc3, 17. 

Qe1 +, Kb3, 18. QAdS+, Ka4, 19. QaS#, or 12. Qe8+, Qxe8, 13. dxe8=Q+, Kd3, 

14. Rd1+, Kc2, 1S. Qe2+, Kb3, 16. Nd4+, Kb4, 17. Qb2+, Kc4, 18. Qb3+#!' 

However, Alice's move is neither "without a sane purpose" (as Madan might 

comment), or "reflective of Looking-glass madness" (as Gardner would point out), 

but simply a move that is perfectly logical for a young girl who (1) does not fully 

grasp the position of the pieces on the board and (2) is overwhelmed by her desire 

to become a Queen: 

'and now for the last brook, and to be a Queen! How 
grand it sounds!' A very few steps brought her to the 
edge othe brook. 'The Eighth Square at last!' she cried 
as she bounded across, 

* * * * * 

* * • * 
* * * * * 

and threw herself down to rest on a lawn as soft as 
moss, with little flowerbeds dotted about it here and 
there. 'Oh, how glad I am to get here!' (229). 

When the White Knight temporarily leaves its outpost on fS to capture 

the Red Knight, the Red Queen has an opportunity to peer down the length of the 

fifth rank. Seeing no enemy King, the Red Queen naturally realizes that she did 

not previously hold the White Knight in a pin. Needing to find the enemy King (and 

uncertain as to what fate has befallen the Red Knight), the Red Queen makes her 

way to the Eighth rank with 12 .... Qe8+. However, when she begins her move, it 

is likely that the Red Queen does not know of Alice's queening. Although she 



50 

checks the White King on c6, the Red Queen exposes herself to capture by Alice, 

who has just recently gained her additional powers. 

It seems that White's only decent response to 12 .... QeS+ is to capture 

the Red Queen on eS, but White to move plays 13. Qa6, which is illegal since the 

King is left in check! Seemingly forced is 13. QAxeS+, Kd3, 14. Qa6+, Kc3, 15. 

QAe3+, Kb4, 16. Rb1 #. This move has aroused the consternation of authorities 

like Fisher, who are hesitant to defend Carroll on such a matter, "There is no 

explanation ... why the White Queen, in its final move, ignores the check by the 

Red Queen on the White King" (Fisher, 87). What Fisher fails to realize is that 

there is a very logical explanation for 13. Qa6. When the White Queen disappears 

into the soup (represented by the move 13. Qa6), this action is done without the 

apparent knowledge of the Red Queen. The Red Queen is present in the castle 

when the White Queen disappears, but there is no evidence to suggest that she 

notices what happens. If she does not see the White Queen vanish, then she can 

not know that White has, in fact, moved. This explains why White is permitted to 

leave its King in check. If the Red pieces are not aware that an illegal move is 

being made, then they must naturally suffer for their own ignorance. Finally, 

although Fisher does express concern over the fact that the White King is left in 

check, he acknowledges Rev. Ivor LI. Davies research among the chess books 

listed in "The Catalogue for the Sale of Carroll's effects held after his death" (SS): 

Scrupulous research by Davies among the contents of 
these volumes has revealed variations of play prominent 
in Carroll's day yet alien to the game as it is known 



today, variations that...annul the need for the tired, facile 
explanation that the topsy-turvy logic of a Looking-Glass 
world would have demanded a zany upheaval of the rules 
of the game. Walker's Law XX states: 'When you give 
check, you must apprize your adversary, by saying aloud 
"check"; or he need not notice it, but may move as 
though check were not given.' Why had White ignored 
the check by the Red Queen on his King? Davies 
reminds us that on the arrival of the Queen at King one, 
the Queen had explained to Alice, now her equal on the 
final rank, 'Speak when you're spoken to!'. Since on her 
arrival no one had spoken to her, the Red Queen could 
not break her own stipulation by volunteering 'check' 
herself (88). 

51 

We now reach the final move in the solution, which sees Alice 

capturing the Red Queen and checkmating the Red King (14. QAxe8#). The Red 

King has no escape squares since Alice controls the e-file, the White Rook guards 

the Hile, the White Knight protects against movement to d4, the White King 

watches over d5, and the White Queen overlooks d3. Only now do we realize the 

importance of the "illegal" move 13. Qa6, which guards the Red King's final escape 

square. If Alice immediately captures the Red Queen with 13. QAxe8+ then the 

Red King would be forced to wake up and move to d3. However, if the Red King 

wakes up it might spell the end of Alice, who finds herself in constant fear of this 

throughout the course of the story. 



CHAPTER 4 

The Metaphorical Implications of the Chess Problem 

The final chapter of the thesis deals with my own interpretation of 

Carroll's employment of the chess problem in Through the Looking-Glass, as a 

symbolic device that reinforces and reveals the novel's underlying implications 

through a systematic refutation of its surface theme. I shall argue that specific, 

metaphorical aspects of the chess problem directly subvert the notion that Alice's 

attainment of queen hood is proof positive of a successful dream-journey from the 

imprisonment and isolation of youth to the freedom and independence of 

womanhood. Rather, the implications of Carroll's chess metaphor serve to reveal 

three disturbing elements about the nature of Alice's dream-journey: (1) The first 

of these is that Alice is essentially a victim, both of the Looking-Glass game in 

which she currently finds herself as well as the one she has likely begun playing 

on the other side of the mirror. (2) Alice's condition within the game is not 

imposed by an entity which exists outside of the Looking-Glass reality, but by the 

society of creatures within that reality. (3) Alice's regimented progression, her 

capture of the Red Queen and subsequent checkmate of the Red King do not 

bring victory to her side, but only serve to mark Alice's sobering realization that her 

attainment of symbolic womanhood comeswithout the freedom and independence 

expected. 

52 



53 

By examining Alice's acceptance of her lowly position in the chess 

game, I wish to demonstrate how the metaphorical implications of Carroll's problem 

reveal that the young girl is victimized, both by the Looking-Glass contest as well 

as the realities of her own waking existence. Initially, Alice appears thrilled at the 

prospects of participating in the chess game: 

'I declare it's marked out just like a large chess­
board!' Alice said at last. 'There ought to be some men 
moving about somewhere - and so there are!' she added 
in a tone of delight, and her heart began to beat quick 
with excitement as she went on. 'It's a great huge game 
of chess that's being played - all over the world - if this is 
the world at all, you know. Oh, what fun it is! How I wish 
I was one of them! I wouldn't mind being a Pawn, if only 
I might join - though of course I should like to be a 
Queen, best' (Carroll CW 150). 

While Alice's excitement is certainly directed at becoming a Queen, the most 

powerful piece on the chessboard, she likely accepts the role of a Pawn because 

the relative strength of this piece in the game is equivalent to her social pOSition 

on the other side of the Looking-Glass. Furthermore, Alice's own society has 

invariably flooded her conscious and subconscious reservoirs with the idea that 

she should aspire to emulate the pawn-like virtues of servitude, humility and the 

earning of merit through achievement. We recall that a pawn must serve the 

needs of the stronger pieces in the game and can only merit promotion itself by 

traversing the entire length of the chessboard. Just as Alice must heed the rules 

that govern her limited movement throughout the course of the Looking-Glass 

contest, so must the young girl's previous social conditioning influence her initial 



54 

acceptance of this lowly position. However, we must also understand that Alice 

bears a measure of responsibility for selecting such an inferior piece to begin the 

game. Conceivably, she could have chosen to be a Knight or Rook, for instance, 

as a mark of rebellion against her own conditioning (and hence, her failure to do 

so is not entirely excusable). Alice thinks that the Red Queen is offering her a 

grand opportunity to play, because the former is either unwilling or unable to 

recognize the extent to which society has influenced her ability to choose. 

The unalterable course of her journey along the d-file of the 

chessboard, her inability to return to those squares from which she has come, and 

her attainment of Queenhood through requisite passivity and submission (because 

of an inherent lack of solidarity with the other White pieces), all demonstrate that 

Alice's symbolic progression from youth to adulthood is one of isolation as well as 

inevitability. This sense of controlled order forces Kelly to observe: 

Alice is literally a pawn in a game in a dream. She may 
believe she is in control of her movements and thoughts, 
but the reader, with a broader perspective, recognizes 
that her freedom is an illusion, that she is manipulated by 
the strict rules of a game and by the dreaming King (Kelly 
94). 

The difficulty I find with Kelly's reasoning lies in his notion that the sense of 

determinism and order which isolates and controls Alice is the work of either the 

Red King, or an "unseen chess master" (94), who manipulates the pieces. 

Whereas the critic believes that the Red King's dream is proof that he controls the 

actions of the pieces in the Looking-Glass chess game, I think it is much more 



55 

reasonable to see the dream as evidence that the players share a measure of 

responsibility, both for their own condition as well as the conditions of others. For 

instance, by sleeping throughout the course of the game, the Red King neglects 

helping the members of his camp (the Red Queen and Knight) and leaves himself 

exposed to capture. As far as the notion of an "unseen chess master" is 

concerned, the novel certainly does not place the burden of responsibility for 

Alice's regimented condition on a single, external entity. Have not the characters 

of the Looking-Glass society, like those of so-called "normal" society, imprisoned 

themselves within their own sense of order? The existence of a being who quietly 

manipulates the pieces brings with it the dangerous implication that the Looking­

Glass society (or any society, for that matter) is not to be held accountable for its 

own condition. 

Once Alice has decided to accept her pOSition as a pawn in the game, 

she is destined to travel the length of the chessboard and become a Queen. The 

young girl sees her progression as an achievement, but the absolute surety of the 

Red Queen's initial instructions to her in the Garden of Live Flowers clearly 

demonstrates that the Looking-Glass creatures' handling of the chess game has 

made Alice's attainment of queen hood something of a certainty: "- the Seventh 

Square is all forest - however, one of the Knights will show you the way - and in 

the Eighth Square we shall be Queens together, and it's all feasting and fun!" 

(Carroll CW 153). As a pawn in the Looking-Glass chess game, Alice's 

progression along the length of the d-file has a predetermination about it which 



56 

exceeds even that of an ordinary pawn. Since the young girl's area of awareness 

extends only to chessmen that stand on either side of her (and not those who are 

in a position to be captured), Alice never has the opportunity to make her way to 

any of the other files on the board. This fundamental inability to make a conscious 

choice in determining a particular course of events not only deprives her of making 

important decisions about where she stands in the game, it further prevents her 

from fully comprehending the nature of her experiences. The Railway passengers' 

discussion of economics, the Red Queen's instruction on manners, and the 

linguistic lessons of Humpty Dumpty each serve to represent, in symbolic fashion, 

a part of the sometimes enlightening, sometimes confusing, but essentially, 

predetermined set of childhood experiences. Sadly, Alice's forced journey as a 

pawn along the length of the d-file does not allow her to avoid this bombardment 

of social conditioning. 

Coupled with the idea that Alice is confined to a specific sector of the 

board is the added notion that she can never return to squares from which she has 

come. At the outset of Chapter VIII, Alice considers returning to the d4 square in 

order to wake up the Red King: '''I've a great mind to go and wake him, and see 

what happens!" (214), but there is the sense that this wish to go back can not be 

fulfilled. Just as a pawn is fated never to return to a square which it has left, so 

is Alice similarly fated (if not in her dream-journey then certainly in her own life) to 

move forward into the trials of puberty and adulthood without a chance ever to 

return to those "happy Summer days gone by". The significance of Alice's remark 



57 

about going back to wake up the Red King is that she quite obviously thinks such 

a journey is possible, even when it is clearly not. Alice does not have the freedom 

to return, but she does have the illusion that she is free to return. Ultimately, her 

attainment of queenhood and the subsequent chaos of her coronation feast dispel 

such illusions and make her dream-journey soberingly complete. 

Lacking a solidarity with the other White Pieces in the chess game, 

Alice is forced to act with passivity and submission as she moves throughout 

Looking-Glass Land towards the queening square. As a result, her attainment of 

queen hood does not come to symbolize a gain of power, but rather, a gradual 

giving up of power. The perennial Eve, Alice fails to find the freedom and 

independence that she has always associated with figures of authority (like the 

Red Queen), but only the knowledge that such freedom is a dream. It is this 

sudden realization that drives Alice to the border of her senses at the close of her 

own Looking-glass dream-journey: '''I ca'n't stand this any longer!' she cried, as 

she jumped up and seized the tablecloth with both hands: one good pull, and 

plates, dishes, guests, and candles came crashing down together in a heap on the 

floor" (244). Kelly sees Alice's attainment of queenhood as the gain of "a great 

new power through the freedom of movement" (Kelly 104). However, both Alice 

and the reader come to the realization that this new freedom proves useless 

because the game soon ends. Alice has given up the illusion of freedom for the 

knowledge that she is not able to possess it. 



58 

Another aspect of the chess problem that subverts a superficial 

thematic interpretation of the novel involves Alice's capture of the Red Queen and 

her subsequent checkmate of the Red King. Tweedledum and Tweedledee warn 

Alice that she is only a thing in the Red King's dream and that she will go out like 

a candle if he wakes up: 

"And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you 
suppose you'd be?" 

"Where I am now, of course," said Alice. 
"Not you!" Tweedledee retorted contemptuously. 

"You'd be nowhere. Why, you're only a sort of thing in 
his dream!" (Carroll CW 173-4). 

We might consider that the Red King dreams of Alice because she represents the 

state of youth to which he can never return Uust as Alice dreams of Looking-