Different and identical worlds: "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland" and "Through The Looking-Glass"

Abstract

When one thinks about the concept of children's literature, many ideas will probably come to mind related to the topic. The literary genre of children’s literature, despite seeming simple from the outside, is more complex than many think. Being a genre that was established a long time ago, it has gone through many different periods in which standards and patterns were changing. But, it was in the Victorian era when children’s literature enjoyed its so-called “Golden Age”. It is called that way because it was at that time precisely when there was a great abundance in the works that were written. And, many of them are still popular today. The British author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, was one of the most recognized authors of that time. This essay will be devoted to two of the best-known works written by him: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. The purpose is to show as well as to understand how the two worlds, Wonderland and the Looking-Glass, that Carroll created in the books are constructed. To this end, certain aspects of both novels will be analyzed, specifically the different behaviours of the main character in one book and the other, the relationship of the main character with the inhabitants of both worlds, the language used in each book, and the two worlds themselves. Previous research done on this area has centered on the aspects dealt with in this essay in an independent manner, that is, no scholar talks about Wonderland and the Looking-Glass world at the same time comparing the character of Alice, her relationship with the inhabitants of each world, the language and the worlds themselves in one book and the other. Nonetheless, all the issues have been discussed separately by many different authors. The observations done to the previously mentioned sections indicate that Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland portray a fictitious world while Through the Looking-Glass resembles the real world.