Original scientific paper
Alice’s Journey Across the Globe into Mysterious Realms: The Significance of the Exotic Animals in Wonderland
Celia Brown
orcid.org/0000-0002-9615-2003
; Independent scholar and artist, Freiburg, Germany
Abstract
Contrary to the common view that Wonderland was sheltered from major world events, Carroll projects global trends onto his intrepid child explorer, allowing her to experience the expanding and shrinking effects of global dynamics. Emigration to the Antipodes stretches her body and the reader’s imagination beyond terrestrial limits into mysterious realms. Unbelievable animals became a reality in the context of world exploration, challenging the Victorians to extend their mental as well as their geographical horizons. The threat to the biblical divine order of animals unknown to Noah was augmented by the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species in 1859. Carroll, as a devout Christian, revived traditional views of animals as allegories of virtues and vices and as mediators between the world of spirits and the material world. Alice and Wonderland animals play roles as divine beings in a coded confrontation between contemporary scientific paradigms and magical belief-systems.
Keywords
animal symbolism; mythology; human-animal relationship; Darwin; spiritualism; Christianisation
Hrčak ID:
154124
URI
Publication date:
23.12.2015.
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