Shadows in the darkness: Gothic and fairy tale elements in Victorian Children's Literature

Similar to the Gothic and fairy tales genres, Victorian Children's Literature pulls heavily from the darker aspects of society for inspiration. Despite this, research into the connectivity of the three genres is slim at best, most scholars choosing to look at the idealistic, Romantic elements instead. In the Victorian Golden Age of Children's Literature, the authors used aspects from fairy tales and the Gothic as a way to captivate their audience and educate them on social issues of the day. These authors took the elements and molded them to fit the messages they deemed essential for the era. The darker elements, taken from the fairy tale and Gothic genres, were used to entertain and educate readers, preparing them for the harsh realities of Victorian society. Four different authors from the era---George MacDonald (in The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdle), Lewis Carroll (in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), J.M. Barrie (in Peter Pan), and Frances Hodgson Burnett (in The Secret Garden and A Little Princess)---took these elements and morphed them into modes of reformation, teaching their readers how to use social reform as a method to correct the injustices they saw in their world. These authors focus on three aspects, within the Gothic and fairy tale genres, as methods to teach reform: Female Activism, the Educational Uses of Vice and Virtue, and Subversive Class Reformation.