Fourth Year Winner: Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

WRIT 4720, Print Culture and the History of the Book. Course Director: Dominique O’Neill

Abstract

First place for The Jan Rehner Essay Prize in the category of fourth year is awarded to the paper titled “Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. In this piece, the author does an exemplary job situating Wonderland in the ‘time, culture, and geography’ that it was created in. By giving life to Lewis Carroll as professor, clergyman and father, the author successfully draws the reader in to the awe-inspiring journey that was Wonderland – both in story and in publication – in mid-19th century Victorian England. As the author makes poignantly clear, Carroll was instrumental in pushing the genre of Children’s Literature beyond the moralistic instruction manuals that dominated the genre at that time. And through the character of Alice, Carroll brought to life a strong, opinionated young female heroine who challenged what was understood as acceptable behaviour for Victorian girls. The strength of the author’s analysis lay in their ability to weave primary and secondary source material into their narrative. In so doing, they successfully show how the character of Alice – and Wonderland itself – is as relevant today as it was over a hundred years ago.