{"id":654,"date":"2020-11-12T21:18:09","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T21:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/?p=654"},"modified":"2020-11-12T21:18:09","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T21:18:09","slug":"alices-adventures-in-wonderland-and-gullivers-travels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/2020\/11\/12\/alices-adventures-in-wonderland-and-gullivers-travels\/","title":{"rendered":"Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Gulliver’s Travels"},"content":{"rendered":"

I will be using Alice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland <\/em>to look at a book I read for another class this semester: Gulliver\u2019s Travels <\/em>by Johnathan Swift.\u00a0 <\/em>By comparing these two works, a pattern has emerged to me and I began thinking about the psychological implications of this pattern. Both Alice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland <\/em>and Gulliver\u2019s Travels <\/em>illustrate an emphasis on the importance of the physical size of the protagonist, as well as how their size impacts their environment.\u00a0 In Swift\u2019s work, the protagonist, Gulliver, travels to many new islands where he is either much larger or much smaller than its inhabitants.\u00a0 There were many instances when Gulliver was much larger than the people of Lilliput and he makes comments about being easily able to hurt them if he wanted to, or accidentally hurting them anyway due to his size.\u00a0 Alice deals with this problem repeatedly when she becomes extremely large and overtakes the rabbit\u2019s house, cries so extensively that she creates a large body of water that overtakes a bunch of animals, or even simply scaring a pigeon with her long neck, etc.\u00a0 As this pattern holds such a prevalent role in these two works, I wondered about the implications of this recurring theme.<\/p>\n

Whether it was the initial intention of the work at its publication, both books have become children\u2019s stories, either through slightly altered narratives, animations, live action films, etc.\u00a0 This affects the reading of these works because children often seek morals to understand these stories.\u00a0 In a study called, \u201cThe Psychological Significance of Children\u2019s Literature\u201d, Jacquelyn Sanders writes, \u201cLiterature can be of value in helping the child cope with and master those problems of importance in his life\u201d (15).\u00a0 In terms of Carroll\u2019s and Swift\u2019s narratives, the emphasis on size and how the body rapidly changes can be indicative of puberty, which many children struggle through, but it also holds larger significance.\u00a0As characters struggle to adapt to these physical changes, it seems to run parallel with fears about the uncontrollable factors of human nature.\u00a0 We may unintentionally hurt or scare someone or something because we don\u2019t grasp the severity of our actions, such as Gulliver does, or we may become overwhelmed with our emotions, similar to Alice\u2019s experiences.\u00a0 I also think these instances could perhaps shed light on the harmful ways humans seem to dominate over their natural environment.<\/p>\n

There are many threads to follow in tracking the meaning of this pattern.\u00a0However, I do not wish to become entirely absorbed in the psychological implications alone, because on their own, these works establish a comforting narrative for children.\u00a0 Using a hyperbolic comparison of size allows children, and general audiences, to immediately identify these works as fantastical narratives and let go of the stress of real life, even if perhaps, they are still learning new messages about their own reality at the same time.<\/p>\n

Sanders, Jacqueline. \u201cPsychological Significance of Children\u2019s Literature.\u201d The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, <\/em>vol. 37, no. 1, 1967, pp. 15-22.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/4305730?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I will be using Alice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland to look at a book I read for another class this semester: Gulliver\u2019s Travels by Johnathan Swift.\u00a0 By comparing these two works, a pattern has emerged to me and I began thinking about the psychological implications of this pattern. Both Alice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland and Gulliver\u2019s Travels … Continue reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Gulliver’s Travels<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3893,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138877],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2020"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}