Children's fantasy literature in Britain I. Lewis Carroll: Alice’s Highway to Puberty

Abstract

Este trabajo de fin de grado es un estudio sobre la evolución del personaje principal en la famosa novela del escritor Lewis Carroll: Alicia en el País de las Maravillas. El trabajo está redactado en inglés y se titula "Lewis Carroll: Alice's Highway to Puberty"

Although singular approaches to Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) have been taken, there might still be some aspects to be analysed in this novel. The aim of this dissertation is to give a deeper analysis on the evolution suffered by the main character, Alice, during her journey in Wonderland. To fulfil this task, this paper will analyse different aspects of the book. First of all, the author’s life will be introduced so that a closer approach on the image of Lewis Carroll can be provided. In this point the work of Lewis Carroll will be also presented as an ending to this section. Then, the paper will focus mainly on the novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and will try to explore a variety of opinions towards its characterization as literature for children and its place within the genre of fantasy where the specific characteristics of each genre will be introduced. After having gone through all these, the novel will be analysed on the basis of providing a physical and psychological portrayal of Alice since the book shows her not only as a child, but also as an adolescent. Within this section Alice’s changes from one psychological stage to another will be exposed, together with her irregular physical growth and shrinkage, in order to show how they affect her evolution through the story. Later, the identity conflicts suffered by Alice in her quest will be explored so that a final depiction of the protagonist can be reached. Lastly, a conclusion will be presented by enclosing all the information given above and labelling this novel as a really complex one.