How does chess shape Alice’s adventures in Through the Looking-Glass?

In Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll structures Alice’s journey around the logic and movement of a chess game. Unlike the chaotic, episodic nature of her previous adventures, this narrative is governed by the rules of a chessboard, with Alice entering the world as a pawn and progressing through the ranks as she moves across the landscape.1

The entire setting is conceptualized as a giant chessboard, where the characters Alice encounters—including the Red and White Queens—function as pieces that dictate the flow of her movement and interactions. This framework imposes a sense of progression on her journey, as she navigates the "illogical behaviour" of the world while attempting to reach the end of the board to become a queen herself. By utilizing the game as a structural device, Carroll transforms Alice’s exploration into a strategic sequence of encounters that mirror the formal constraints of a match.1