The Worlds Between, Above and Below: 'Growing Up' and 'Falling

The Worlds Between, Above and Below: ‘Growing Up’ and ‘Falling Down’ in Alice in Wonderland and Stardust by Mary-Anne Potter submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the subject English at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA Supervisor: Prof. Deirdre Byrne November 2012 DECLARATION I declare that The Worlds Between, Above and Below: ‘Growing Up’ and ‘Falling Down’ in Alice in Wonderland and Stardust is my own work, and that all the sources that I have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references. (Ms M. Potter) Student number 3251-495-6 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Deirdre Byrne of the University of South Africa, whose guidance both challenged and encouraged me in this endeavour, and whose patience and care throughout the process of writing and revising is truly appreciated as it enabled me to complete this work. I must also acknowledge the contribution made by Nicolette Geyer and Merisa Robbertze, who were invaluable allies during the proofreading process. My thanks go to Nicolette, for her meticulous attention to detail in helping me to prepare and polish this work, and to Merisa for her encouragement and support throughout 2012. Lastly, I would also like to express my love and gratitude to friends, work colleagues and family for their constant support and contribution to this work. I would specifically like to thank my father, Noel Potter, who instilled a love of literature in me from a very early age; and my mother, Elizabeth Mary Anne Potter (nee Channing) for her undying love and support, and for gifting me with the opportunity to fulfil my promise to her. This work is dedicated to my beloved Ouma and Oupa. ♥ ii ABSTRACT The purpose of my dissertation is to conduct an intertextual study of two fantasy texts — Alice in Wonderland by Victorian author Lewis Carroll, and Stardust by postmodern fantasy author Neil Gaiman — and their filmic re-visionings by Tim Burton and Matthew Vaughn respectively. In scrutinising these texts, drawing on insights from feminist, children’s literature and intertextual theorists, the actions of ‘growing up’ and ‘falling down’ are shown to be indicative of a paradoxical becoming of the text’s central female protagonists, Alice and Yvaine. The social mechanisms of the Victorian age that educate the girl-child into becoming accepting of their domestic roles ultimately alienate her from her true state of being. While she may garner some sense of importance within the imaginary realms of fantasy narratives, as these female protagonists demonstrate, she is reduced to the position of submissive in reality – in ‘growing up’, she must assume a ‘fallen down’ state in relation to the male. KEYWORDS Victorian womanhood Fairy tales Fantasy literature Portals Woman as ‘Other’ Growing up and falling down Self-alienation Neil Gaiman Lewis Carroll iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Declaration i Acknowledgements ii Abstract and Keywords iii Table of Contents iv Introduction 1 Chapter 1: The Self-Alienation of Alice and 18 Yvaine Chapter 2: The Dance of Victorian Society 67 and Fantasy Literature Chapter 3: The Rabbit-Hole, the Wall and the 109 Mirror Conclusion 144 Bibliography 152 iv INTRODUCTION The Victorian period presents the critic with a fascinating array of social polarities. For example, class divisions during the period inscribe a vast economic chasm between the pauper and the aristocrat; political divisions are evident in the conquest of empire and the right to self-determination, as seen, for example, in the desires for Irish Home Rule. The focus of my study falls on the polarity between growing up and falling down in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (1897)1 and Neil Gaiman’s Stardust (1999), as well as the filmic re-visionings of these works by Tim Burton (2010) and Matthew Vaughn (2007)2 respectively. Within these texts, growing up and falling down are symbolic actions that are strongly influenced by social expectation, and, in turn, have a strong influence on the central female protagonists: Alice in the Alice texts and Yvaine in Stardust. I have chosen to explore Carroll’s and Gaiman’s novels because they represent the Victorian context of their stories from unique perspectives, while, at the same time, incorporating the same symbolic actions within their narratives. For Carroll, his Alice texts are immersed in the spirit of the age in which they were penned. Gaiman, on the other hand, provides a retrospective of the Victorian age that is both aware of the historical 1 Following the convention adopted in the Annotated Alice (2000), I refer to the combined volume of Carroll’s works, entitled Alice in Wonderland, as ‘the Alice texts’. This includes Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass. I reserve the use of the title Alice in Wonderland for referring to the Burton film (2010). 2 I see these four fantasy texts in two categories – the two original printed narratives of Carroll and Gaiman; and the two filmic texts which are inspired by, or adapted directly from, the original printed narratives. 1 context and able to transcend its influence because of his novel’s postmodernist categorisation. Although Stardust was not written in the Victorian age, it is set within that period and depicts gender expectations that are rooted in Victorian times. Therefore, these novels, when analysed intertextually, provide a comprehensive understanding of how the actions of growing up and falling down influence the journeys of women in the Victorian period and in fantasy in general. In looking at their development as characters within a fantasy narrative, I will discuss key modes of gender socialisation that impact upon the characters as representatives of the Victorian age. I will also read these female protagonists as representatives of the larger social ideologies fostered by Victorian culture, and with echoes in present-day social mores. Gaiman highlights these issues more than one hundred years after the Alice texts were published. Yvaine’s sacrifice of herself not only indicates that women in the Victorian age should submit, but, since she is immortal, demonstrates that such social expectations are carried forward in time to the present day and beyond. The Alice character represented in Carroll’s Alice texts is an amalgam of several ‘Alices’ he had known – girl-children who had captured his imagination. The curious child who falls down the Rabbit Hole and through the looking-glass is imbued with elements of all their personalities, but none of these girl-children is more associated with the Alice texts than Alice Liddell. In Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, the precursor to Carroll’s published Alice texts, the final words surround a photographic 2 image of Liddell taken by Carroll himself. Donald Rackin’s essay, ‘Love and Death in Carroll’s Alices’, discusses the impact that the inclusion of this image has. He writes: Through the loving devotion of a brilliant and meticulous photographer, Alice here somehow defies Time – as if some mad inventor from Alice’s dream worlds had, with the magic of his words and art, found a way in her waking world to defy gravity and stop aging and death by means of an improbable Wonderland light-machine and some Looking-Glass Roman- cement. (1982:44-45) The adventures narrated in both Alice texts are initiated by the central protagonist’s own curiosity. In Alice in Wonderland, lured by a White Rabbit with a pocket watch exclaiming the lateness of the hour (Carroll, 1992:7-8), Alice falls down the Rabbit Hole and into Wonderland. Here, the strength of Alice’s developing logic, an intellectual capacity fostered in the real Victorian world above, is tested against the illogical and enigmatic thought-processes of Wonderland’s inhabitants. Alice’s own adaptability enables her to triumph over her nay-sayers, turning them into ‘nothing but a pack of cards’ (Carroll, 1992:97) and allowing her to return to the world above. In Through the Looking-glass, Alice’s musings about the house on the other side of the looking-glass once again gives her access to Wonderland. Her adventures take the form of a quest, moving through seven ranks before assuming the rank and authority of queen. However, Alice finds no sense of satisfaction in her rule, as logic is turned upside 3 down by the Red and White Queen. Queen Alice, frustrated by the world of chivalric quests undertaken by inadequate knights, and higgledy- piggledy nursery rhymes, whose meaning in the world above is undone in the world below, returns to the Victorian side of the looking-glass, wondering if what she had experienced was nothing but a dream. The fantastical world of Wonderland that Alice falls into and which she is eventually able to dismiss as nonsense is the very world that enables her to grow up and return to the real world, where she more readily accepts society’s design for her. Her journey into the world of fantasy and back into the socially regulated world of gender expectations forms the basis of analysis in subsequent chapters. Gaiman’s Stardust, though a retrospective of the Victorian age, manifests a strikingly similar process of gender socialisation within its narrative. Tristran Thorne is a young and ambitious man who, to win the hand of his beloved, Victoria, crosses the boundary wall between the Victorian town of Wall and enters into the fantastical realm of Faerie. His quest is to retrieve a fallen star, named Yvaine, who is thrust out of her position in the night sky by a stone cast by the dying Lord of Stormhold in order to initiate a quest of his own design.

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