Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Before children could enjoy fantasy children literature without worrying about anything else, the purpose of this literature aimed for infants was purely didactic. This was the case at the beginning of the XVIII century when philosophers such as John Locke, warned parents and teachers in his Some Thoughts Concerning Education book, not to tell stories with “Goblets and Goblins” to their students or descendants. (BRITISH LIBRARY)
Nevertheless, in a whole century infinite changes can happen. Before the mid-XIX century, even though the purpose of children literature continued being didactic, helped children became adults, (DAVID SANDNER) and even though, in England, fantasy was considered inappropriate due to moral, science …show more content…

Popular fantasy stories for children started to be published such as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) written by Lewis Carroll; Peter Pan and Wendy (1904) by J.M. Barrie; The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) by L. Frank Baum or The Wind in the Willows (1908) by Kenneth Grahame, among many others. This period can be considered as the Golden Age of Children Literature.
Some of these stories within the Golden Age of Children Literature have something in common: a closure of the story with a return to reality. Sarah Gilead divides these into three different categories:
1st category, The Return as Bildung -German noun that means “Education” or “Formation”-: “The return completes a history of psychic growth and interprets the fantasy narrative as a salutary exposure of forbidden wishes and emotions. [...] the formerly fragile or threatened ego returns as a more fully formed social entity” (Gilead 278) An example of this can be Dorothy in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. (Gilead …show more content…

ignoring its subversive force. This return simulates the closural effects of the first type but disrupts rather than smoothly concludes a linear socialization plot”(Gilead 278) Such as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. (Gilead 278)
3rd category, The Return as Tragic Ambiguity, “the return neither normalizes fantasy as socializing therapy for the protagonist nor rejects fantasy as fostering neurotic avoidance of social and psychic realities” (Gilead 278) This third type takes as example Peter Pan and Wendy by J.M. Barrie. (Gilead

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