Los Mil Reflejos de Alicia / One thousand reflections of Alice
(English version below)
Los mil reflejos de Alicia
Lo más fascinante de los sueños es la libertad de la que gozan para romper todas las leyes de la realidad; en los sueños todo es posible. Si los sueños son el espejo nocturno de nuestra vida diurna, es natural que su lógica sea inversa a ésta última.
Una obra esencial en la que podemos ver reflejado el mundo absurdo y delirante de los sueños es la constituida por las novelas de Lewis Carroll, Alicia en el País de las Maravillas y Alicia a través del Espejo. Mil veces hemos visto a Alicia reflejada en el arte y la cultura popular, como en el clásico animado de Disney. Los icónicos personajes que reinan el país de las maravillas y el mundo del espejo han cautivado a niños y adultos en todo el mundo. Yo tengo la impresión de que a los japoneses parece haberlos cautivado especialmente; me sorprende la cantidad de representaciones de que goza Alicia en el mundo del anime o el cosplay.
Cosplayers de personajes de Alicia
La fascinación nipona por Alicia y su retorcido mundo victoriano se refleja muy bien en sus diseños de moda y en el arte visual de muchas animaciones japonesas; por nombrar sólo dos ejemplos, Miyuki-chan in Wonderland y Alice in the Country of Hearts. Dos episodios de Card Captor Sakura también referencian a Alicia – de hecho, prácticamente todo anime que se precie de serlo contiene en algún momento alguna referencia a Alicia (de acuerdo, no es para tanto, pero casi). ¿Y qué decir de El viaje de Chihiro? Podríamos decir que Chihiro es el reflejo japonés por excelencia de Alicia, pues ambas niñas experimentan un viaje similar en un mundo onírico donde reinan chiflados personajes surgidos del folklore japonés e inglés, respectivamente.
Este personaje de Chihiro porta una máscara tradicional japonesa
El folklore británico aparece en Alicia en las muchas rimas infantiles que son recitadas paródicamente por los personajes, como cuando el Sombrerero recita Twinkle, twinkle, Little bat, referenciando la famosa canción Twinkle, twinkle, Little star o Estrellita. Un ejemplo representativo de un célebre personaje folklórico reflejado en Alicia es Humpty Dumpty, el huevo antropomórfico que, según los cuatro versos de la rima tradicional, se sienta sobre un muro, se cae, y ni todos los caballos ni los hombres del rey pueden recomponerlo.
En A través del espejo, Humpty Dumpty, sentado sobre su muro, discute semántica con Alicia. A través de este personaje Carroll discute el concepto del nombre y su relación arbitraria con la identidad. Humpty Dumpty cree que los nombres propios deben de connotar algo sobre su portador, por lo cual encuentra tonto el nombre de Alicia, que según él no tiene ninguna relación con su forma física. Además, siempre con sus alardes aristócratas, Humpty Dumpty presume que él le paga a las palabras para que signifiquen lo que él quiere que signifiquen. Con ello se demuestra lo arbitrario y relativo que es el lenguaje y el significado de las palabras.
Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty parodia las actitudes arrogantes de la aristocracia victoriana – es grosero con Alicia y le da a estrechar un solo dedo. En general, los personajes que conoce Alicia son parodias de la sociedad inglesa, como el Sombrerero Loco o La Reina de Corazones. El País de las Maravillas al que viaja Alicia en el primer libro no es sino una farsa de la Inglaterra victoriana repleta de juegos de lógica.
Por su parte, A través del espejo nos presenta un segundo viaje de Alicia hacia un mundo fantástico, esta vez al cruzar un espejo. Mientras que el primer libro utiliza la baraja inglesa como motor argumentativo, el segundo se basa en el juego del ajedrez, que por su disposición remite al motivo del espejo, ese motivo fascinante que tanto se ha usado en los discursos fantásticos como umbral que conecta realidad con fantasía.
La baraja de Alicia en Disneyland World
Para mí la obra de Carroll es una de las que mejor logran representar este motivo a través de la poética del disparate. A Carroll le fascina romper las convenciones lógicas, mediante el juego ingenioso con el lenguaje y la razón. Podríamos señalar muchas de sus técnicas como precursoras del movimiento surrealista. Basta remitirse a su Jabberwocky, uno de los mejores ejemplos del nonsense en la poesía inglesa, donde sobresalen los neologismos construidos a partir de mezclar el sonido y el significado de las palabras.
En el imaginario fantástico el espejo es uno de los objetos mágicos por excelencia y aparece en muchos cuentos de hadas tradicionales; el espejo mágico de la madrastra de Blancanieves le responde quién es la más bella del reino y en La bella y la bestia, es a través de un espejo que Bella puede ver el palacio de la Bestia desde su casa.
Espejito, espejito…
La naturaleza del espejo como un elemento que nos muestra la realidad directa pero inversamente lo dota de connotaciones sumamente sugerentes para el arte y la filosofía. Observamos el tema del espejo como elemento de fascinación desde el mito griego de Narciso, quien se enamora de su imagen sin saber que se trata de su reflejo en el agua. Es justamente por su cualidad reflectora que el agua tiene connotaciones simbólicas como la del conocimiento; en la mitología nórdica es gracias a que bebió del pozo de Mimir que Odín adquiere la sabiduría universal, aunque para ello debe paradójicamente perder parcialmente la visión al sacrificar su ojo derecho. Tal vez esto sea porque los conocimientos más elevados implican la renuncia de sentidos terrenales… o porque, como podemos leer en El principito, “sólo se puede ver bien con el corazón, lo esencial es invisible para los ojos”.
Espejo de agua en India
Es muy interesante comparar el tema de A través del espejo y The Matrix. Esta película incluye referencias a Alicia como el tatuaje del conejo blanco en el personaje de Trinity. La trama plantea que la realidad no es sino una simulación virtual proyectada por máquinas que han controlado a la humanidad. En A través del espejo el cuestionamiento de la realidad se manifiesta particularmente en la escena en la que los gemelos Tweedledee y Twedledum le muestran a Alicia al Rey Rojo, que todo el tiempo está dormido. Ellos le explican que el Rey está soñando con ella y que en cuanto despierte, ella desaparecerá. La idea de los gemelos rompe con la estabilidad de la realidad misma y de la identidad, ya que incluso las lágrimas de Alicia son artificiales y no son más que el producto de los sueños del Rey.
Tanto en The Matrix como en A través del espejo se combina el motivo del agua con el del espejo. Primero Alicia desea que el espejo sea de un material suave como gasa para poder atravesarlo y conocer cómo es “la casa del espejo”. Posteriormente, el espejo en efecto comienza a “derretirse”, y se convierte en una bruma brillante y plateada fácil de atravesar. Esta imagen fue retomada por los directores de The Matrix, aunque en el filme el mismo motivo del espejo como umbral aparece invertido, ya que en la novela de Carroll, Alicia atraviesa el espejo de la realidad a la fantasía y en el filme, es el espejo el que atraviesa al protagonista de la fantasía a la realidad, cuando Neo toca con los dedos un espejo y el cristal se convierte en un líquido pegajoso, brillante y plateado, que cubre todo su cuerpo hasta finalmente transportarlo a la realidad en la que que las máquinas mantienen conectados a los humanos a su realidad virtual.
Espejo líquido en The Matrix
En el mundo del espejo al que cruza Alicia, el reflejo aparece como motivo a través de varias inversiones de la realidad y de sus convenciones. La Reina Blanca sana sus heridas y experiencia dolor antes de que se lastime, además de poder “recordar” eventos del futuro; y el mensajero del Rey será sentenciado antes de que cometa un crimen. Es decir; el tiempo en el mundo del espejo no es lineal, los personajes siguen hacia adelante y sus eventos hacia atrás. Las direcciones espaciales también están invertidas, como cuando Alicia tiene que caminar “hacia el otro lado” para alcanzar a la Reina Roja, y al seguir un camino hacia adelante, se encuentra de nuevo al principio del mismo. El movimiento también se invierte; mientras más rápido se mueve, la distancia que se recorre es menor y viceversa.
El tema de los reflejos se ejemplifica en los personajes de Tweddledee y Tweeddledum. Los dos pequeños y gordos gemelos exhiben una simetría perfecta en sus movimientos e incluso en su conversación. Otras convenciones también aparecen invertidas de forma absurda, por ejemplo; cuando Alicia intenta cortar un pastel, éste se vuelve a unir inmediatamente. Los personajes le explican que allí primero se reparte el pastel y después se corta. Estas inversiones parecen satirizar lo arbitrarias que son las convenciones en el mundo real.
Personajes emblemáticos de Alicia, el Conejo Blanco y el Gato de Cheshire
Finalmente el ajedrez, juego predilecto en la Inglaterra victoriana, aparece como el motor argumentativo al ser un juego de reflejos por excelencia. La posición de las piezas está invertida y sus movimientos siguen una simetría de espejo. El ajedrez funciona además como una alegoría de la vida misma; un juego en el que fuerzas superiores determinan las acciones de las personas. Esto se muestra desde el principio cuando Alicia acaba de cruzar el espejo y se encuentra con un tablero de ajedrez sobre la mesa; las piezas de ajedrez están vivas pero a ella no la pueden ver ni oír y cuando Alicia las mueve, ellas creen que fueron movidas por algún fenómeno natural como una erupción volcánica. Sin embargo, cuando Alicia sale de la casa hacia el campo de ajedrez, es a ella a la que una fuerza extraña la mueve. Es decir; Alicia aparece primero como un poder divino que controla las piezas, pero después ella se convierte en la pieza controlada por el poder divino del autor de la novela. Este tema me resulta muy provocador porque me hace pensar, ¿qué tal si yo mismo fuera el personaje de un libro? Me viene a la mente la interesante novela El mundo de Sofía de Jostein Gaarder, la primera lectura que me acercó a la filosofía.
Ajedrez, juego de reflejos
Al presentar el ajedrez como motor argumentativo, se sugiere que existen fuerzas mayores que manipulan el destino de los individuos, que por consecuencia son las piezas en el juego del Universo… o sea que por mucho que sintamos y nos aflijamos, por muy reales que parezcan las lágrimas que lloramos, no somos más que piezas en el juego de la vida, ideas en el sueño de un soñador. Como señala Martin Gardner en Alicia anotada “Los sueños del Rey y de Alicia son paralelos. Alicia sueña con el Rey Rojo, que a su vez sueña con Alicia, que a su vez sueña con el Rey Rojo, y así sucesivamente, como dos espejos frente a frente.”
Somos el sueño de un soñador que a su vez es soñado por nosotros mismos. Somos la creación de un creador, creado a su vez por nosotros mismos. Piensen en esos espejos reflejándose mutuamente, esas imágenes se repiten una y otra vez... hasta el infinito.
¿Quién está ahí?
Ferdinandus
Fuente citada:
Lewis Carroll, Alicia anotada, edición de Martin Gardner, Askal, Madrid, 1998. (p.224)
Ferdinandus
One thousand reflections of Alice
The most fascinating thing about dreams is the freedom they enjoy to break all laws of reality; in dreams everything is possible. If dreams are the nocturnal mirror of our diurnal life, it's natural that their logic is the opposite of the latter.
An essential work in which we can see reflected the absurd and delirious world of dreams is that made up by Lewis Carroll's novels, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass. One thousand times we have seen Alice reflected in art and popular culture, as in Disney animated classic. The iconic characters ruling Wonderland and the Looking-glass have captivated children and adults all around the world. I'm under the impression that the Japanese seem specially captivated; it amazes me the amount of representations enjoyed by Alice in the world of anime and cosplay.
Alice in Wonderland cosplayers
The Japanese fascination with Alice and her twisted Victorian world is very well reflected in their fashion designs and the visual art of many Japanese animations; to name but a few, Miyuki-chan in Wonderland and Alice in the Country of Hearts. Two episodes of Card Captor Sakura also reference Alice - in fact, almost every anime which is worthy of the name makes a reference to Alice at some point (okay, I'm exaggerating but still). And what about Spirited Away? We could say that Chihiro is the Japanese reflection par excellence of Alice, as both girls experience a similar travel in a dreamlike world ruled by nutty characters derived from Japanese and British folklore, respectively.
No-face from Spirited Away wears a Japanese traditional mask
British folklore appears in Alice in the many nursery rhymes recited in a parodic fashion by the characters, as when the Mad Hatter recites Twinkle, twinkle, Little bat, referring the famous song Twinkle, twinkle, Little star. A representative example of a famous folkloric character reflected in Alice is Humpty Dumpty, the anthropomorphic egg that, according to the four verses of the traditional nursery rhyme, sits on a wall, falls, and all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put him together again.
In Through the Loocking Glass, Humpty Dumpty, sitting on his wall, discusses Semantics with Alice. Through this character, Carroll discusses the concept of name and its arbitrary relationship with identity. Humpty Dumpty thinks that all given names must connote something about their carrier, so he finds Alice's name silly, as according to him it has nothing to do with her physical shape. Also, always in his aristocratic displays, he flaunts about paying words to mean what he wants them to mean. This shows how arbitrary and relative is language and the meaning of words.
Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty parodies the arrogant attitudes of Victorian aristocracy - he's rude to Alice and shake hands with Alice with a single finger. In general, the characters that Alice meets are parodies of British society, as the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts. The Wonderland where Alice travels in the first book is but a fares of Victorian England, full of logic games.
As for Through the Looking-glass, this book presents a second travel of Alice towards a fantastic whorl, this time by crossing a mirror. While the first book uses the English deck as its leitmotif, the second is based on the Chest game, which because of its disposition refer to the mirror motive, that fascinating motive which is so used in fantastic discourses as the threshold connecting reality and fantasy.
To me, Carroll's work is one of the most successful in representing this motive through the poetry of nonsense. Carroll loves to break logic conventions through a clever play with language and reason. We could point at many of his techniques as precursor to Surrealism. Suffice it to refer to his Jabberwocky, one of the best examples of the nonsense in English poetry, where language stands out for the creation of neologisms by combining the sound and meaning of words.
In the fantastic imaginary the mirror is one of the magic objects par excellence and appears in many traditional fairy tales; the magic mirror of Snow White's stepmother says who is the most beautiful in the kingdom and in Beauty and the Beast, it's through a mirror that Belle can see the Beast's palace from her house.
Mirror, mirror…
As an element that shows us direct reality but inversely, the mirror has highly suggestive connotations for art and philosophy. We see the topic of the mirror as an element of fascination since the Greek myth of Narcissus, who falls in love with his image without knowing that it's his reflection on the water. It's precisely because of its reflecting quality that water has symbolic connotations as that of knowledge; in Nordic mythology it's thanks to the water drunk by Odin from the well of Mimir, that he acquires universal wisdom, though for that purpose he must paradoxically lose his vision partially by sacrificing his right eye. Maybe this is because the most high knowledges imply quitting earthly senses… or because, as we can read in The Little Prince, "it is only with the heart that we can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye"
A water mirror in India
It is very interesting to compare the issue of the reflection in Through the Looking-glass and The Matrix. This film includes references to Alice as the White Rabbit tattoo in the character of Trinity. The plot proposes that reality is but a virtual simulation projected by machines who have taken control of humanity. In Through the Looking-glass the questioning of reality is made manifest particularly in the scene when twins Tweedledum and Tweedledee show Alice the Red King, who's all the time sleeping. They explain to her that the King is dreaming of her and that as soon as he awakes, she will disappear. The twins' idea breaks with the stability of reality itself and identity, as even Alice's tears are artificial and they are nothing more than the result of the King's dreams.
In both The Matrix and Through the Looking-glass the water and the mirror motives are combined. First Alice wishes the mirror to be made of a soft material to pass through it and know how is the "mirror house". Then, the mirror starts indeed to "melt" and becomes a bright silver mist easy to pass through. This image was retaken by The Matrix directors, although in the film the mirror as a threshold motive is itself reverted, since in Carroll's novel Alice passes through the mirror from reality to fantasy and in the film, it is the mirror which passes through the protagonist from fantasy to reality, when Neo touches the mirror with his fingers and the crystal becomes a sticky, bright silver liquid that covers up the whole of his body until finally transporting him to the reality where machines keep connected humans in their virtual reality.
Liquid mirror in The Matrix
In the looking-glass world to where Alice crosses, the reflection appears as a motive through many reversals of reality and its conventions. The White Queen heals her wounds and experiences pain before she gets hurt, in addition to being able to "remember" future events; and the King's Messeenger will be sentenced before committing a crime. That is to say; time in the looking-glass world is not lineal, characters move forward and their events backwards. Spacial directions are also reverted, as when Alice has to walk "to the other side" in order to reach the Red Queen, and while walking forward, she finds herself at the beginning of the walk. Movement is also reverted; the faster she moves, the lesser is the distance she travels and vice versa.
The theme of reflections is exemplified in the characters Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Both small and fat twins display a perfect symmetry in their movements and even in their conversation. Other conventions appear reverted in an absurd fashion, for instance; Alice tries to cut a cake, which in turn put its peaces back together immediately. Characters explain that there you divide up the cake first and then you cut it. These reversals seem to satirize how arbitrary are conventions in the real world.
Emblematic characters from Alie, the White Rabbit and the Cheshire Cat
Finally, chess, a favorite game in Victorian England, appears as the leitmotif as it is a game of reflections par excellence. The position of the peaces is reversed and their movements follow a mirror-like symmetry. Chess works too as an allegory of life itself; a game where major forces determine people's actions. This becomes clear from the beginning when Alice just passed through the looking-glass and she finds a chessboard on the table; the pieces are alive but they can't see nor hear her and when Alice moves them, they think that they were moved by some natural phenomenon like a volcanic eruption. However, when Alice leaves the house towards the chess field, she is the one moved by a strange force. In other words, Alice appears first as a divine power who controls the pieces, but then she becomes the piece controlled by the divine power of the novel's author. This subject it's very provocative to me as it makes me think, what if I myself were a book character? Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World comes to mind, that interesting novel which was the first reading that introduced me to philosophy.
Chess, a game of reflections
By presenting chess as a leitmotif, it's suggested that there are major forces manipulating the destiny of people, who by consequence are the pieces in the game of the Universe… so no matter howmuch we feel and grieve, as real as our tears can seem, we are but pieces in the game of life, ideas in a dreamer's dream. As Martin Gardner points out in The Annotated Alice, the dreams of Alice and the Red Kind are parallel. "Alice dreams of the King, who is dreaming of Alice and so on like two mirrors facing each other".
We are the dream of a dreamer who is in turn dreamed by ourselves. We are the creation of a creator, created in turn by ourselves. Think about those two mirrors facing each other, those images repeated over and over...to infinity.
Who is there?
Ferdinandus
Quoted source:
Lewis Carroll, The Annoted Alice, editing by Martin Gardner, Askal, Madrid, 1998. (p.224)
The most fascinating thing about dreams is the freedom they enjoy to break all laws of reality; in dreams everything is possible. If dreams are the nocturnal mirror of our diurnal life, it's natural that their logic is the opposite of the latter.
An essential work in which we can see reflected the absurd and delirious world of dreams is that made up by Lewis Carroll's novels, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass. One thousand times we have seen Alice reflected in art and popular culture, as in Disney animated classic. The iconic characters ruling Wonderland and the Looking-glass have captivated children and adults all around the world. I'm under the impression that the Japanese seem specially captivated; it amazes me the amount of representations enjoyed by Alice in the world of anime and cosplay.
An essential work in which we can see reflected the absurd and delirious world of dreams is that made up by Lewis Carroll's novels, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass. One thousand times we have seen Alice reflected in art and popular culture, as in Disney animated classic. The iconic characters ruling Wonderland and the Looking-glass have captivated children and adults all around the world. I'm under the impression that the Japanese seem specially captivated; it amazes me the amount of representations enjoyed by Alice in the world of anime and cosplay.
Alice in Wonderland cosplayers
The Japanese fascination with Alice and her twisted Victorian world is very well reflected in their fashion designs and the visual art of many Japanese animations; to name but a few, Miyuki-chan in Wonderland and Alice in the Country of Hearts. Two episodes of Card Captor Sakura also reference Alice - in fact, almost every anime which is worthy of the name makes a reference to Alice at some point (okay, I'm exaggerating but still). And what about Spirited Away? We could say that Chihiro is the Japanese reflection par excellence of Alice, as both girls experience a similar travel in a dreamlike world ruled by nutty characters derived from Japanese and British folklore, respectively.
No-face from Spirited Away wears a Japanese traditional mask
British folklore appears in Alice in the many nursery rhymes recited in a parodic fashion by the characters, as when the Mad Hatter recites Twinkle, twinkle, Little bat, referring the famous song Twinkle, twinkle, Little star. A representative example of a famous folkloric character reflected in Alice is Humpty Dumpty, the anthropomorphic egg that, according to the four verses of the traditional nursery rhyme, sits on a wall, falls, and all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put him together again.
In Through the Loocking Glass, Humpty Dumpty, sitting on his wall, discusses Semantics with Alice. Through this character, Carroll discusses the concept of name and its arbitrary relationship with identity. Humpty Dumpty thinks that all given names must connote something about their carrier, so he finds Alice's name silly, as according to him it has nothing to do with her physical shape. Also, always in his aristocratic displays, he flaunts about paying words to mean what he wants them to mean. This shows how arbitrary and relative is language and the meaning of words.
In Through the Loocking Glass, Humpty Dumpty, sitting on his wall, discusses Semantics with Alice. Through this character, Carroll discusses the concept of name and its arbitrary relationship with identity. Humpty Dumpty thinks that all given names must connote something about their carrier, so he finds Alice's name silly, as according to him it has nothing to do with her physical shape. Also, always in his aristocratic displays, he flaunts about paying words to mean what he wants them to mean. This shows how arbitrary and relative is language and the meaning of words.
Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty parodies the arrogant attitudes of Victorian aristocracy - he's rude to Alice and shake hands with Alice with a single finger. In general, the characters that Alice meets are parodies of British society, as the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts. The Wonderland where Alice travels in the first book is but a fares of Victorian England, full of logic games.
As for Through the Looking-glass, this book presents a second travel of Alice towards a fantastic whorl, this time by crossing a mirror. While the first book uses the English deck as its leitmotif, the second is based on the Chest game, which because of its disposition refer to the mirror motive, that fascinating motive which is so used in fantastic discourses as the threshold connecting reality and fantasy.
Alice deck in Disneyland World
To me, Carroll's work is one of the most successful in representing this motive through the poetry of nonsense. Carroll loves to break logic conventions through a clever play with language and reason. We could point at many of his techniques as precursor to Surrealism. Suffice it to refer to his Jabberwocky, one of the best examples of the nonsense in English poetry, where language stands out for the creation of neologisms by combining the sound and meaning of words.
In the fantastic imaginary the mirror is one of the magic objects par excellence and appears in many traditional fairy tales; the magic mirror of Snow White's stepmother says who is the most beautiful in the kingdom and in Beauty and the Beast, it's through a mirror that Belle can see the Beast's palace from her house.
Mirror, mirror…
As an element that shows us direct reality but inversely, the mirror has highly suggestive connotations for art and philosophy. We see the topic of the mirror as an element of fascination since the Greek myth of Narcissus, who falls in love with his image without knowing that it's his reflection on the water. It's precisely because of its reflecting quality that water has symbolic connotations as that of knowledge; in Nordic mythology it's thanks to the water drunk by Odin from the well of Mimir, that he acquires universal wisdom, though for that purpose he must paradoxically lose his vision partially by sacrificing his right eye. Maybe this is because the most high knowledges imply quitting earthly senses… or because, as we can read in The Little Prince, "it is only with the heart that we can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye"
A water mirror in India
It is very interesting to compare the issue of the reflection in Through the Looking-glass and The Matrix. This film includes references to Alice as the White Rabbit tattoo in the character of Trinity. The plot proposes that reality is but a virtual simulation projected by machines who have taken control of humanity. In Through the Looking-glass the questioning of reality is made manifest particularly in the scene when twins Tweedledum and Tweedledee show Alice the Red King, who's all the time sleeping. They explain to her that the King is dreaming of her and that as soon as he awakes, she will disappear. The twins' idea breaks with the stability of reality itself and identity, as even Alice's tears are artificial and they are nothing more than the result of the King's dreams.
In both The Matrix and Through the Looking-glass the water and the mirror motives are combined. First Alice wishes the mirror to be made of a soft material to pass through it and know how is the "mirror house". Then, the mirror starts indeed to "melt" and becomes a bright silver mist easy to pass through. This image was retaken by The Matrix directors, although in the film the mirror as a threshold motive is itself reverted, since in Carroll's novel Alice passes through the mirror from reality to fantasy and in the film, it is the mirror which passes through the protagonist from fantasy to reality, when Neo touches the mirror with his fingers and the crystal becomes a sticky, bright silver liquid that covers up the whole of his body until finally transporting him to the reality where machines keep connected humans in their virtual reality.
Liquid mirror in The Matrix
In the looking-glass world to where Alice crosses, the reflection appears as a motive through many reversals of reality and its conventions. The White Queen heals her wounds and experiences pain before she gets hurt, in addition to being able to "remember" future events; and the King's Messeenger will be sentenced before committing a crime. That is to say; time in the looking-glass world is not lineal, characters move forward and their events backwards. Spacial directions are also reverted, as when Alice has to walk "to the other side" in order to reach the Red Queen, and while walking forward, she finds herself at the beginning of the walk. Movement is also reverted; the faster she moves, the lesser is the distance she travels and vice versa.
The theme of reflections is exemplified in the characters Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Both small and fat twins display a perfect symmetry in their movements and even in their conversation. Other conventions appear reverted in an absurd fashion, for instance; Alice tries to cut a cake, which in turn put its peaces back together immediately. Characters explain that there you divide up the cake first and then you cut it. These reversals seem to satirize how arbitrary are conventions in the real world.
Emblematic characters from Alie, the White Rabbit and the Cheshire Cat
Finally, chess, a favorite game in Victorian England, appears as the leitmotif as it is a game of reflections par excellence. The position of the peaces is reversed and their movements follow a mirror-like symmetry. Chess works too as an allegory of life itself; a game where major forces determine people's actions. This becomes clear from the beginning when Alice just passed through the looking-glass and she finds a chessboard on the table; the pieces are alive but they can't see nor hear her and when Alice moves them, they think that they were moved by some natural phenomenon like a volcanic eruption. However, when Alice leaves the house towards the chess field, she is the one moved by a strange force. In other words, Alice appears first as a divine power who controls the pieces, but then she becomes the piece controlled by the divine power of the novel's author. This subject it's very provocative to me as it makes me think, what if I myself were a book character? Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World comes to mind, that interesting novel which was the first reading that introduced me to philosophy.
Chess, a game of reflections
By presenting chess as a leitmotif, it's suggested that there are major forces manipulating the destiny of people, who by consequence are the pieces in the game of the Universe… so no matter howmuch we feel and grieve, as real as our tears can seem, we are but pieces in the game of life, ideas in a dreamer's dream. As Martin Gardner points out in The Annotated Alice, the dreams of Alice and the Red Kind are parallel. "Alice dreams of the King, who is dreaming of Alice and so on like two mirrors facing each other".
We are the dream of a dreamer who is in turn dreamed by ourselves. We are the creation of a creator, created in turn by ourselves. Think about those two mirrors facing each other, those images repeated over and over...to infinity.
We are the dream of a dreamer who is in turn dreamed by ourselves. We are the creation of a creator, created in turn by ourselves. Think about those two mirrors facing each other, those images repeated over and over...to infinity.
Who is there?
Ferdinandus
Quoted source:
Lewis Carroll, The Annoted Alice, editing by Martin Gardner, Askal, Madrid, 1998. (p.224) 
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