{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5131",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 5131,
    "subject": "In Looking-Glass Castle: Queening the Pawn",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2008-08-19T17:52:18+00:00",
    "last": "2008-08-19T17:52:18+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<1bf4dd40808191052n73076126se07c61f3dfef43f9@mail.gmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dave Tallman",
        "address": "davetallman at msn.com"
      },
      "date": "2008-08-19T17:52:18+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) In Looking-Glass Castle: Queening the Pawn",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "The main character of \"In Looking-Glass Castle\" is named Daisy. In \"Through\nthe Looking-Glass,\" Lewis Carroll gave a diagram that related characters to\nchess pieces. The name \"Daisy\" appears four times, for the four rook's\npawns.\n\nWhite Side\n----------\nTweedledee.....Daisy\nUnicorn........Haigha\nSheep..........Oyster\nW. Queen.......'Lily' (Alice)\nW. King........Fawn\nAged man.......Oyster\nW. Knight......Hatta\nTweedledum.....Daisy\n\nRed Side\n-------\nHumpty Dumpty..Daisy\nCarpenter......Messenger\nWalrus.........Oyster\nR. Queen.......Tiger-lily\nR. King........Rose\nCrow...........Oyster\nR. Knight......Frog\nLion...........Daisy\n\nDaisy herself may be a clone. She mishears \"the cistern got her\" for \"her\nsisters got her,\" which may indicate her fear of her fellow clones, or of\nher extreme feminist society in general. The \"Oyster\" also appears four\ntimes, for the bishop's pawns. Oysters relate to pearls, and the fat woman\nmentions the clone \"Pearl IV.\" Oysters are related to the fat walrus in the\npoem \"The Walrus and the Carpenter.\"\n\nIn \"Through the Looking Glass,\" Alice was the White Queen's Pawn,\n'Lily'.Which of the four pawns is the Daisy of this story? I suggest the\nmost interesting possibility is the Red King Rook's pawn, which starts in\nfront of the Lion. The fugitive man has long black hair and a beard, giving\nhim a lion's mane. The lion is a symbol of Christ, as in the \"Lion of the\nTribe of Judah.\" He offers to stay out of her way if she choses to believe\nhe isn't there.\n\nThe nursery rhyme \"The Lion and the Unicorn\" relates to the joining of the\nEnglish and Scottish coats of arms when James I became joint king of England\nand Scotland. Lions are a masculine symbol and unicorns are feminine. In\nWolfe's ideal world, we need both sides. The women-only country has a\ndeclining population, replaced only by clones. It is highly totalitarian,\nlike the country in Kafka's \"In the Penal Colony\" with it's hideous torture\nmachine that kills by inscribing words into its victims over and over. (That\nstory appears in \"Metamorphoses and Other Stories\", and it's probably no\ncoincidence that Wolfe began his own title with the word \"in\".)\n\nLike Alice, Daisy the pawn is given the opportunity to reach the castle (the\n8th rank) and become a queen, the companion of the king. Her fear and social\nconditioning make it impossible for her to accept the man. The former\ninhabitant, Jane, may have fallen in love with him (she has hidden well-read\nbooks by male authors) and committed suicide in the cistern because her\nsociety could never accept this. That is why the man says he is indirectly\nand unintentionally responsible for her death.\n\nPearl, the neighbor's clone, may be connected with the man also. In the\nstories of Guy de Maupassant there is one called \"Mademoiselle Pearl\" about\na woman who is chosen as Queen for Twelfth Night. The narrator finds out her\nstory, that she was a foundling and that there was an undeclared love\nbetween her and her host for many years. The Pearl in that story didn't kill\nherself, but she buried her appearance with an unattractive hairstyle and\nclothing.\n\nThe man woos Daisy with gifts, but she runs away to sea. But like the Red\nQueen, she runs as fast as she can to stay in the same place. The man (or a\nhallucination of him) follows her. It seems likely that she will drown\nherself at sea, because she cannot escape any other way."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}