Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There

In this 1872 sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice uncovers an eccentric land where the rules of society and education are turned around while, also, the meanings of words and proclamations are upended. When she travels through reality to the other side of the mirror, flowers and animals talk to her and chessmen bring her, as a pawn, into a chess game during which they conduct her down blind alleys and up against unsolvable predicaments. She meets Tweedledum and Tweedledee and Humpty Dumpty and learns about the Jabberwocky and the Walrus and the Carpenter as she moves down the chessboard to become a Queen. She finally reaches the end of the board when she is told by the White Queen "...it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place..." These dreamlike exploits are her refusal to accept a normal world that would pessimistically overpower her illusion of good fortune. And Lewis Carroll allows the reader to hide away a little hope when he writes "Life, what is it but a dream?"