Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Function as a Bildungsroman

I definitely had to look up the last word. It's 'a novel dealing with one person's formative years or spiritual education.'

The main points of the thesis are:

Introduction: The bildungsroman was a popular literary style in the late 18th century on to the 19th century and beyond. Such novels show how a young person comes of age through physical and psychological maturing.

Alice in Wonderland falls into this category. Alice does some growing up (literally and figuratively) during the story. She also develops into a 'feminist heroine.' She also gains confidence in herself when facing rather odd people and events.

Alice has an identity crisis, especially in the early part of the book. As she goes through the adventures, though, she becomes more sure of herself. For the person starting out the world she is in can be confusing. In this case it's basically because Alice has never been through anything like this at all. As her character develops, though, she is able to handle what happens better.

She is curious and 'fights gender roles.' She also defines herself as her own person. She tries to find thte logic in things early on but, finding almost no logic, eventually just accepts that.

The Identity Crisis and the Dangers of Emotions: Before she entered Wonderland her world consisted of things that 'appear completely explainable...where all questions have answers, where mysteries and paradoxes are simply puzzles awaiting inevitable solution.'

(Think about that for a minute and you realize just how much Alice accomplished during her time in Wonderland. She is only seven. She goes from a world where things make sense to a world where almost nothing makes sense including the people. Yet, she's able to get through all of that and develops a much stronger sense of self by the end of the trial scene.)

In the room with many doors Alice is not yet mature and she cries easily, undergoes size changes that make no sense and there's no one there to help her. Once she gets past that problem, though, you don't see her cry again. She's also not always looking for someone to tell her what to do. She's becoming a self-directed person.

Alice's Claim to Maturity by Being an Astute Player of Games: Alice goes from her crying in the tears scene to being able to handle herself quite well at the tea party. She even talks back to the Hatter and later she interrupts the Mock Turtle while he's trying to speak. In the trial scene she even talks back to the King when he talks about rule 42 (the answer to the universe and everything) and tells him if it's that important it should be the first rule.

The 'highest powers' in Wonderland no longer scare her and she is 'in absolute control, overpowering Wonderland.' All of this personal growth will carry through to her 'real' life.

The Cheshire Cat actually helps Alice in the story. Pretty much all of the other characters are outright nasty to her. They like to contradict her every chance they get.

A Feminist Heroine: Her social status in Victorian England would have been rather low. First, she was a child. Second, she was a girl. (Unfortunately the social status for females in the U.S. isn't much better than what Alice found herself in.)

She 'resists the system' and doesn't adhere to traditional gender roles.' A 'proper' girl would never have talked back to others like Alice ended up doing. (She also didn't need to hold the hand of a male character to lead her through Wonderland. She did it on her own.)

Women in the 19th century 'were prohibited to indulge themselves in curiosity.' Why? Curiosity leads to someone wanting to learn things. Knowledge is power and men wanted to make sure women didn't have any power. Alice, on the other hand, was curious about everything and was willing to keep going and, essentially, see what was going to happen next.

Alice's sister, on the other hand, seems to be part of the 'system.'

A major event is when Alice is still outside the house of the Duchess. She doesn't know what to do and the footman says 'Anything you like.' That gives her a major sense of freedom and so she enters the house.

Alice was also not into motherhood. She didn't really like the Duchess's baby, she didn't criticize the Duchess for how she treated the baby and she wasn't upset when the baby became a pig and it left her.

Main Alice in Wonderland index page