Chapter Three: An Unlikely Mentor (Janusian Observation)
Through The Looking-Glass EXPLAINED
After meeting the Red Queen by walking in the opposite direction, Alice begins to describe to her new Mentor what the country looks like.
Alice's description doesn't go well at all. The Red Queen seems to be a very strict and harsh Professor. However, if you listen closely, you'll realize that the Red Queen is never wrong in the way she describes what she sees.
Janusian Observation
In her first conversation with the Red Queen, Alice becomes very confused. Alice tries to describe what the country looks like in her own terms while the Red Queen responds by describing what she sees in her own, contradictory, terms.
If you listen closely, you'll realize that the Red Queen is never wrong in the way she describes what she sees. The Red Queen's description of what she sees is simply based on what she herself has seen in the past.
Chess
The country is laid out like a chessboard.
A Pawn and a Queen, especially if they're on opposite teams, will describe the same scene differently, yet both be correct at the same time. After all, they are different pieces standing on completely different squares.
Many Authors throughout the ages have compared life to chess, but none have done it so succinctly and logically and comically as Lewis Carroll does in Through The Looking Glass.
Keep Your Friends Close…
From a chess perspective, the very fact that the Red Queen is helping a White Pawn is itself a contradictory or Janusian scenario. Why would a Red Queen help a White Pawn, an opposing chess piece, become stronger? Perhaps Lewis Carroll is indicating that, if we're patient, we can learn more from our enemies than our allies.
A basic understanding of chess will deepen your understanding of Through The Looking Glass. The Red Queen, the Walrus and the Carpenter, Tweedlee and Tweedledum, these are all chess pieces and they all act the same way chess pieces do in real life. For example, just like a Knight moves two squares in one direction and then one square to the side, so too does the Knight in Through The Looking Glass move forward and then fall off his horse over and over and over again.
Chess Knight and Movie
Alice is about to receive a crash course in Evolution and Creativity. In fact, the Red Queen is the embodiment of Evolutionary Creativity itself, using both Janusian Thinking and it's rival, the equally powerful Bisociative or Homospatial Thinking, to instruct Alice on the ways of this seemingly backwards world.
Through The Looking-Glass EXPLAINED uncovers the hidden algorithms that underlie Lewis Carroll’s greatest work. Along the way, you’ll learn how you can go from a Pawn to a Queen, just like Alice does.