Return To Childhood In Fantasy On Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

In 1862, an Oxford mathematician, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, whose pseudonym was Lewis Carroll, created a story of a girl named Alice who fell down a rabbit-hole into a fantasy realm populated by talking playing cards and anthropomorphic creatures. This story, revised and published in 1865 with the title Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, ushered the "golden age of children's literature" in the second half of the nineteenth century in England. It has been popular and listed among the most influential books in the history of literature. Alice's fantasy journey not only entertains and amuses children, but wins the favor of the adult readers with its richness and complexity.This thesis sets out to explore the protagonist's fantasy journey into Wonderland which symbolizes adult's world and aims at seeking for the significance of the return from Wonderland. It consists of six parts, with four chapters coming between introduction and conclusion.Chapter One is a brief introduction of the concept of childhood and fantasy in Victorian literature. Section One presents the concept of childhood in Victorian literature. Growing out of Romanticism Movement, the concept of childhood in Victorian Age was born with a new attitude toward childhood and child. Child was regarded as good and pure while childhood was considered as an Edenic, blissful state, a time of innocence, imagination, play, and pleasure. Section Two presents the definition of fantasy and introduces J. R. R. Tolkien's theory on fantasy literature—"Secondary World" theory and the functions of fantasy. According to Tolkien, the Primary World in which we live is made by God, but people are dissatisfied with its bondage and then create an imaginary world—the Secondary World with their imagination. In the Primary World, everything exists as it is, but not all the reality can be seen by people, while the full Secondary World is created by the sub-creator, and inside it, according to the laws of this imagined world, everything the teller relates the reality. Fantasy appeals the reader mainly for its three functions: recovery, escape and consolation.Chapter Two focuses on the fantasy world created by Lewis Carroll and explores Alice's fantastical journey into Wonderland. At the outset, Alice, a seven-year-old girl is curious about growing up. Lewis uses dream as a magical portal to let his protagonist move easily and naturally from the Primary World to the Secondary World. Although it seems to be remote and separated in time and place or superimposed upon the real world, Wonderland is still a reflection of reality. That world in chaos and absurdity symbolizes adults' world where each creature stands for a certain adult's personality. Most of the creatures are rude, indifferent and always speak to Alice in an instructive tone. In Wonderland, Alice faces overwhelming confusions because she goes to different places and finds that everything is beyond normal. She desperately makes efforts and even changes her body size in order to enter a lovely garden full of "bright flower-beds" and "cool fountain" which turns to be an illusion. Finally, she is so disappointed at the corrupted Wonderland that she has a desire to reject it.Chapter Three is the main part of this thesis. It investigates the significance of the return from Wonderland. Like most of the children's fantasy works, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has a happy ending. The protagonist recognizes the real feature of Wonderland and returns back to her previous world. The return-to-reality closure hints that Alice returns to innocent childhood and nature. Since Lewis Carroll puts himself in the persona of Alice and explores his identifications with his child heroine, the closure also indicates the author's desire for returning to childhood. Carroll's inclination to child and childhood haunts him throughout his life. He makes friends with children and spends much of free time and creative energy devising ways of meeting and entertaining them. His life experience plays a huge part in his writing and attitude toward life. Carroll enjoys his happy childhood when their family live in the countryside. He finds happiness in writing poems or amusing his sisters and brothers in varied ways. But his adulthood sees him suffering from being lacking of self-confidence and disappointment with reality. He retreats into fantasy and children's world where he feels comfortable and happy. Carroll is also influenced by the romantic concept of childhood. The tendency of idealizing the beauty and virginal purity of little girls in Victorian England make it easier for Carroll to suppose that fondness for them was on a high spiritual level. In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, adults are despised and satirized for their absurdity and indifference while Alice, the representative of children, is described to be innocent and pure.Chapter Four analyses the significance of this fantasy to the readers. The overwhelming funny elements such as parodies, nonsense in this story amuse the readers at all ages. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland provides a temporal removal from reality. In this separation, the readers follow a little girl to leave the temporal world for a wonderful journey to fantasyland. During this journey they again experience the long journey of growing up and relive an old stage when they were innocent and pure. Alice's return to the safer image of childhood satisfies the reader's escapist impulse. This kind of escapism is not in a passive sense, in fact, it enables the reader to get consolation and engage the ordinary world with clearer insight and sharper perspective, even with renewed faith.In the guise of dreamlike fantasy, Carroll creates a Wonderland representing adults' world. He makes a comparison between absurd, rude adults and a curious, innocent child. At the same time, Carroll criticizes the adults for their ill treatment of child and ponderous didacticism. Alice's journey to Wonderland parallels her transition to adulthood and process of exploration of adults' world. After her fantastic adventures in Wonderland, Alice reconsiders the meaning of adulthood. Her awakening from Wonderland means her rejection of the adult world and return to childhood. Since Carroll identifies himself with the protagonist, Alice's returning from Wonderland underlies Carroll's spiritual return and his romantic concept of childhood—cult of children, love of nature and return to simplicity.