Character guide

Alice

major

Also known as poor Alice, Queen Alice, Queen Alice IX

Alice arrives in Looking-Glass House as an outsider who can see and lift the chessmen no one else notices, then finds herself cast as a White Pawn in a game she barely understands. Her politeness and stubborn good sense clash with queens who live backward, flowers that shout, and twins who insist she is only a figment of a sleeping king's dream. Her willingness to keep asking questions and correcting crooked shawls is what carries the story forward.

White Queen

supporting

Also known as The Queen, White Queen, The White Queen

The White Queen first appears as a tiny chess piece scrambling up a fender to reach her screaming daughter Lily, then grows into Alice's traveling companion and eventual fellow queen. She is hopeless at dressing herself, all over pins, and cheerfully illogical about punishment that precedes the crime. Her backward memory and her talk of jam that can never be eaten today give Alice her first real lesson in the looking-glass world's upside-down rules.

Red Queen

supporting

Also known as the Red Queen

The Red Queen rules the chessboard Alice is crossing, issuing commands and corrections with the confidence of someone who has never been contradicted. She is impatient with Alice's ordinary logic, insisting that here it takes all the running you can do to stay in the same spot. Her brisk authority defines the game's stakes and pushes Alice toward the eighth square.

Humpty Dumpty

supporting

Also known as Humpty, VI Humpty Dumpty, Evidently Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty sits cross-legged on his wall, refuses to look at Alice, and treats every polite question as an impertinent riddle. He is vain about his name, his shape, and his mastery of language, boasting that when he uses a word it means just what he intends. His bristling, self-important conversation gives Alice her sharpest lesson in the looking-glass world's habit of making meaning arbitrary.

Tweedledum

supporting

Also known as IV Tweedledum

Tweedledum leads Alice to the sleeping Red King and, with his brother, calmly informs her that she would go out like a candle if the King woke. He is quarrelsome and quick to fury, stamping and tearing his hair when he finds his new rattle broken. His petty tantrum and his unsettling claim about reality together make the wood one of Alice's strangest encounters.

Tweedledee

supporting

Tweedledee finishes his brother's sentences and echoes his claims, triumphantly explaining that Alice exists only as part of the Red King's dream. He is cheerful, selfish, and quick to retreat, ducking under the umbrella the moment Tweedledum's temper erupts over the rattle. Together the twins embody the wood's disorienting logic, where identity and reality are up for debate.

White Knight

supporting

Also known as the White Knight, the poor Knight, the Knight

He arrives as Alice's last companion before the final stage of her journey, a grown-up who treats her as an equal and insists, with wounded dignity, that he has had 'plenty of practice' at riding even as he topples off repeatedly. His inventions — a head-first method for vaulting gates, a sugar-loaf helmet — are absurd and untried, yet he offers them with such earnest pride that Alice's exasperation keeps dissolving into laughter. His blend of incompetence and tenderness gives the book one of its warmest, strangest farewells.

Lion

minor

Also known as The Lion, the Lion

A majestic lion who fights the Unicorn for the White King's crown.

Unicorn

minor

Also known as Unicorn, the Unicorn, The Unicorn

A mythical creature who battles the Lion and befriends Alice.

White King

minor

Also known as The King, King

A forgetful king who relies on his messengers Haigha and Hatta.

Hatta

minor

The White King's other messenger, often seen eating hay.

Gnat

minor

Also known as the Gnat, The Gnat

A tiny insect who talks to Alice about looking-glass insects.

Rose

minor

Also known as the Rose

A talking flower in the garden who comments on Alice's appearance.

Kitty

minor

Alice's black kitten who is transformed into the Red Queen in the dream.

Dinah

minor

Alice's mother cat, mentioned as the mother of Kitty and Snowdrop.

Snowdrop

minor

Alice's white kitten who becomes the White Queen in the dream.

Lily

minor

Also known as the little Lily

The White Queen's daughter, a tiny flower-like girl.

Fawn

minor

Also known as the Fawn

A young deer who befriends Alice in the woods until they remember names.

Haigha

minor

The White King's messenger who hops like a kangaroo.

Sheep

minor

Also known as the Sheep

A shopkeeper who knits and rows a boat with Alice.

Frog

minor

Also known as the Frog, The Frog

A footman who delivers invitations in the looking-glass house.

Walrus

minor

Also known as The Walrus, the Walrus

A character in Tweedledee's poem who eats oysters with the Carpenter.

Carpenter

minor

A character in the poem who helps the Walrus eat the oysters.

Oysters

minor

Also known as O Oysters, the Oysters

The naive oysters who are lured and eaten by the Walrus and Carpenter.

Eldest Oyster

minor

Also known as The eldest Oyster

The wise oyster who warns the others but is ignored.

Feather

minor

A minor character mentioned briefly in the looking-glass world.

Monster

minor

Also known as The Monster, Monster

A vague threat mentioned in the poem 'Jabberwocky'.