White Queen (Through the Looking Glass)
Encyclopedia
The White Queen is a fictional character
who appears in Lewis Carroll
's fantasy novella
Through the Looking-Glass
.
.
When Alice meets the Red Queen and joins the Chess game, she takes the place of a white pawn, Lily being too young to play. She does not meet the White Queen as a human-sized character until the Fifth Square. The White Queen lives backwards in time, due to the fact that she lives through the eponymous looking glass. Her behaviour is odd to Alice. She offers Alice "jam to-morrow
and jam yesterday - but never jam to-day." She screams in pain until, rather than because, she pricks her thumb on her brooch, and tells Alice of the King's messenger
who has been imprisoned for a crime he will later be tried for and perhaps (but not definitely) commit in the end. The White Queen, aside from telling Alice things that she finds difficult to believe (one being that she is just over 101 years old) says that in her youth she could believe "six impossible things before breakfast" and counsels Alice to practice the same skill. The meeting ends with the Queen seeming to turn into a bespectacled sheep who sits at a counter in a shop as Alice passes into the next square on the board. The Sheep is somewhat different from the Queen in terms of personality and gets "more like a porcupine
every time [Alice] looks at her" because she knits
with several knitting needles all at once. Two of these needles turn into oars when Alice appears in a boat, and then reappear in the Sheep's shop, where Alice purchases an egg, which becomes Humpty Dumpty
as she moves to the next square.
In Chapter 9, the White Queen appears with the Red Queen, posing a series of typical Wonderland/Looking-Glass questions ("Divide a loaf by a knife: what's the answer to that?"), and then celebrating Alice's promotion from pawn to queen. When that celebration goes awry, the White Queen seems to flee the scene by disappearing into a tureen
of soup
. Martin Gardner
's The Annotated Alice
points out that the White King is at the time in check from the Red Queen, and the White Queen's move is rather pointless, though characteristic of her stupidity. However, since neither side acknowledges the check, it is not technically illegal. Alice proceeds to "capture" the Red Queen and checkmate
the Red King, ending the game. The White Queen is not seen again, except as one of Alice's white cats, who Alice speculates may have influenced the dream.
, Penelope Wilton
and Brenda Bruce
.
In Sandra the Fairytale Detective, her name is Victoria because she is the Queen of Victory.
portrayed the White Queen (renamed "Mirana") in Tim Burton
's 2010 adaptation
alongside Helena Bonham Carter
as Iracebeth, the Red Queen; they are portrayed as sisters. The White Queen's soldiers appear in white armor inspired by chess pieces while The Red Queen's appear in armour made to resemble cards. Mirana's delicate exterior is reinforced by her habit of holding her hands gracefully at shoulder height in almost every scene in which she appears. But her black fingernail polish and the dark circles under her eyes, as well as her nonchalance about certain potion ingredients ("buttered fingers"), hint at a more complex character under the surface. Additionally, she is portrayed as a young woman with white blonde hair, a flawless complexion and air of elegance, grace and perfection.
In the movie, Iracebeth has banished her sister from "Underland" out of jealousy; Mirana, having taken a vow never to harm another living thing, is helpless to fight back and must wait years for the "Frabjous Day," when a "champion" will arrive and slay the Jabberwocky
, Iracebeth's fearsome pet. That champion arrives in Alice (Mia Wasikowska
), now a young woman, who initially thinks she is having a recurring dream. By the film's climax
, however, Alice accepts her destiny and slays the Jabberwocky, restoring rulership of Underland to the White Queen. Mirana banishes her sister and bids Alice goodbye. Despite her benevolent and kind attitude, Anne Hathaway remarks that on the inside, the White Queen is just as sadistic as her sister, if not more so, and has surrounded herself with a warm and calm atmosphere, out of fear she will not be able to control her true nature. This side to her character is hinted at after Alice remarks that Mirana cannot imagine the horror that goes on inside the Red Queen's castle, yet Mirana coldly assures her that she can. Mirana apparently is not above cruel punishment - such as having her sister exiled for the rest of her days with the Knave of Hearts unwillingly kept in Iracebeth's company for the rest of his life. Her clothes and persona are similar to those of the historical Scottish Queen Mary Stuart.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
who appears in Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
's fantasy novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
Through the Looking-Glass
Through the Looking-Glass
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is a work of literature by Lewis Carroll . It is the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...
.
Plot
Along with her husband the White King, she is one of the first characters to be seen in the story. She first appears in the drawing room just beyond the titular looking-glass as an animate chesspiece unable to see or hear Alice, the main character. The Queen is looking for her daughter Lily; Alice helps her by lifting the White Queen and King onto the table, leading them to believe they were thrown up by an invisible volcanoVolcano
2. Bedrock3. Conduit 4. Base5. Sill6. Dike7. Layers of ash emitted by the volcano8. Flank| 9. Layers of lava emitted by the volcano10. Throat11. Parasitic cone12. Lava flow13. Vent14. Crater15...
.
When Alice meets the Red Queen and joins the Chess game, she takes the place of a white pawn, Lily being too young to play. She does not meet the White Queen as a human-sized character until the Fifth Square. The White Queen lives backwards in time, due to the fact that she lives through the eponymous looking glass. Her behaviour is odd to Alice. She offers Alice "jam to-morrow
Jam tomorrow
Jam tomorrow or jam to-morrow is an expression for a never-fulfilled promise. It originates from Lewis Carroll's 1871 book Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There...
and jam yesterday - but never jam to-day." She screams in pain until, rather than because, she pricks her thumb on her brooch, and tells Alice of the King's messenger
Mad Hatter
Hatta, the Hatter is a fictional character in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the story's sequel, Through the Looking-Glass. He is often referred to as the Mad Hatter, though this term was never used by Carroll...
who has been imprisoned for a crime he will later be tried for and perhaps (but not definitely) commit in the end. The White Queen, aside from telling Alice things that she finds difficult to believe (one being that she is just over 101 years old) says that in her youth she could believe "six impossible things before breakfast" and counsels Alice to practice the same skill. The meeting ends with the Queen seeming to turn into a bespectacled sheep who sits at a counter in a shop as Alice passes into the next square on the board. The Sheep is somewhat different from the Queen in terms of personality and gets "more like a porcupine
Porcupine
Porcupines are rodents with a coat of sharp spines, or quills, that defend or camouflage them from predators. They are indigenous to the Americas, southern Asia, and Africa. Porcupines are the third largest of the rodents, behind the capybara and the beaver. Most porcupines are about long, with...
every time [Alice] looks at her" because she knits
Knitting
Knitting is a method by which thread or yarn may be turned into cloth or other fine crafts. Knitted fabric consists of consecutive rows of loops, called stitches. As each row progresses, a new loop is pulled through an existing loop. The active stitches are held on a needle until another loop can...
with several knitting needles all at once. Two of these needles turn into oars when Alice appears in a boat, and then reappear in the Sheep's shop, where Alice purchases an egg, which becomes Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty is a character in an English language nursery rhyme, probably originally a riddle and one of the best known in the English-speaking world. He is typically portrayed as an egg and has appeared or been referred to in a large number of works of literature and popular culture...
as she moves to the next square.
In Chapter 9, the White Queen appears with the Red Queen, posing a series of typical Wonderland/Looking-Glass questions ("Divide a loaf by a knife: what's the answer to that?"), and then celebrating Alice's promotion from pawn to queen. When that celebration goes awry, the White Queen seems to flee the scene by disappearing into a tureen
Tureen
A tureen is a serving dish for foods such as soups or stews, often shaped as a broad, deep, oval vessel with fixed handles and a low domed cover with a knob or handle. Over the centuries, tureens have appeared in many different forms, some round, rectangular, or made into fanciful shapes such as...
of soup
Soup
Soup is a generally warm food that is made by combining ingredients such as meat and vegetables with stock, juice, water, or another liquid. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling solid ingredients in liquids in a pot until the flavors are extracted, forming a broth.Traditionally,...
. Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner was an American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature , philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion...
's The Annotated Alice
The Annotated Alice
The Annotated Alice is a work by Martin Gardner incorporating the text of Lewis Carroll's major tales: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass as well as the original illustrations by John Tenniel...
points out that the White King is at the time in check from the Red Queen, and the White Queen's move is rather pointless, though characteristic of her stupidity. However, since neither side acknowledges the check, it is not technically illegal. Alice proceeds to "capture" the Red Queen and checkmate
Checkmate
Checkmate is a situation in chess in which one player's king is threatened with capture and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured...
the Red King, ending the game. The White Queen is not seen again, except as one of Alice's white cats, who Alice speculates may have influenced the dream.
In other media
The White Queen has been portrayed in various TV and film productions by actresses including Carol ChanningCarol Channing
Carol Elaine Channing is an American singer, actress, and comedienne. She is the recipient of three Tony Awards , a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination...
, Penelope Wilton
Penelope Wilton
Penelope Alice Wilton, OBE is an English actress.-Life and career:Penelope Alice Wilton was born in Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire, to a former actress mother and a businessman father. She is a niece of actors Bill Travers and Linden Travers and a cousin of the actor Richard Morant...
and Brenda Bruce
Brenda Bruce
Brenda Bruce was a British actress. She had a long and successful career in the theatre, radio, film, and television.-Early life:Brenda Bruce was born in Manchester...
.
In Sandra the Fairytale Detective, her name is Victoria because she is the Queen of Victory.
Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Anne HathawayAnne Hathaway (actress)
Anne Jacqueline Hathaway is an American actress. After several stage roles, she appeared in the 1999 television series Get Real. She played Mia Thermopolis in The Princess Diaries...
portrayed the White Queen (renamed "Mirana") in Tim Burton
Tim Burton
Timothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...
's 2010 adaptation
Alice in Wonderland (2010 film)
Alice in Wonderland is a 2010 American computer-animated/live action fantasy adventure film directed by Tim Burton, written by Linda Woolverton, and released by Walt Disney Pictures...
alongside Helena Bonham Carter
Helena Bonham Carter
Helena Bonham Carter is an English actress of film, stage, and television. She made her acting debut in a television adaptation of K. M. Peyton's A Pattern of Roses before winning her first film role as the titular character in Lady Jane...
as Iracebeth, the Red Queen; they are portrayed as sisters. The White Queen's soldiers appear in white armor inspired by chess pieces while The Red Queen's appear in armour made to resemble cards. Mirana's delicate exterior is reinforced by her habit of holding her hands gracefully at shoulder height in almost every scene in which she appears. But her black fingernail polish and the dark circles under her eyes, as well as her nonchalance about certain potion ingredients ("buttered fingers"), hint at a more complex character under the surface. Additionally, she is portrayed as a young woman with white blonde hair, a flawless complexion and air of elegance, grace and perfection.
In the movie, Iracebeth has banished her sister from "Underland" out of jealousy; Mirana, having taken a vow never to harm another living thing, is helpless to fight back and must wait years for the "Frabjous Day," when a "champion" will arrive and slay the Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky
"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense verse poem written by Lewis Carroll in his 1872 novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, a sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...
, Iracebeth's fearsome pet. That champion arrives in Alice (Mia Wasikowska
Mia Wasikowska
Mia Wasikowska is an Australian actress. After starting her career in Australian television and film, she first became known to a wider audience following her critically acclaimed work on the HBO television series In Treatment...
), now a young woman, who initially thinks she is having a recurring dream. By the film's climax
Climax (narrative)
The Climax is the point in the story where the main character's point of view changes, or the most exciting/action filled part of the story. It also known has the main turning point in the story...
, however, Alice accepts her destiny and slays the Jabberwocky, restoring rulership of Underland to the White Queen. Mirana banishes her sister and bids Alice goodbye. Despite her benevolent and kind attitude, Anne Hathaway remarks that on the inside, the White Queen is just as sadistic as her sister, if not more so, and has surrounded herself with a warm and calm atmosphere, out of fear she will not be able to control her true nature. This side to her character is hinted at after Alice remarks that Mirana cannot imagine the horror that goes on inside the Red Queen's castle, yet Mirana coldly assures her that she can. Mirana apparently is not above cruel punishment - such as having her sister exiled for the rest of her days with the Knave of Hearts unwillingly kept in Iracebeth's company for the rest of his life. Her clothes and persona are similar to those of the historical Scottish Queen Mary Stuart.