Alice in Blunderland: (Un)systems of Life and Language Beyond the Looking Glass
Alice in Blunderland: (Un)systems of Life and Language Beyond the Looking Glass

Summary/Abstract: If Through the Looking Glass (Carroll 1871) is a critique of the regimented structures of everyday life in post-industrial England, it simultaneously undercuts the loose manner in which language is used in that world. Beyond the Looking Glass, when Humpty Dumpty advocates unmitigated subjectivity in communicating through language, he stretches the arbitrariness in the use of the English language to its (il)logical extreme. Many of the Looking Glass creatures, extensions of Alice’s psyche, similarly communicate in bizarre English that is another version of the language of Alice’s world. Language is constantly interrogated in the text for not having been revamped commensurately with the overhauling of rules in other spheres of life, and seems slovenly amidst the progress made in science, technology and industry. Ironically, the discourse that censures the laxity of the English language runs as a counter narrative to the discourse indicting excessive disciplining and standardisation in Victorian England, and has the text reading against itself.

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