Analele Ştiinţifice ale Universităţii “Ovidius” Constanţa nr. 29/ 2018 nr 2
RĂU ADELINA - LOOKING AT ALICE’S DISPLACED IDENTITY IN LEWIS CARROLL’S ALICE’S
ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND AND THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS THROUGH A
POSTMODERNIST LENS
(pag. 34-43)
This paper aims to analyse Alice’s displaced identity in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass via a postmodern lens. To be able to argue whether Lewis Carroll’s portrayal of Alice and her journeys makes her identity postmodern we need to establish whether and, if so, to what extent it resonates with what postmodernism describes as identity. Language also becomes instrumental in construing aspects of the protagonist’s identity, including the way in which the narrator equipped Alice with a certain kind of thinking. Lewis Carroll manipulates both her appearance and musings in a playful and paradoxical manner. He makes his character grow or decrease – so that she may fit the places she travels to or enters – not once, but several times, yet the repetitive process seems to become random. Therefore, Carroll creates an artistic image comparable to the computer-assisted ones. On the virtual page’s canvas, he pastes an alternation of Alice’s sizes: one is her usual/normal size, one is small and one big, and he keeps switching between them according to the situation or places Alice is in. Lost in a strange world, Alice tries to find herself, to create a connection with the world that she used to know but from where she has escaped. Even though she fights to find herself (her true self) again, nothing seems to have any sense in this absurd world of wonders.
Analele Ştiinţifice ale Universităţii “Ovidius” Constanţa nr. 29/ 2018
RĂU ADELINA - THE DECONSTRUCTION OF LANGUAGE IN LEWIS CARROLL’S ALICE’S
ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND
(pag. 84-95)
Starting from the premise that postmodernism is a state of mind rather than a precise cultural period, this paper provides a lingustic deconstructive analysis of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The language used in the most important scenes are analyzed employing not only Wittgenstein’s and Sausurre’s deconstructive theories but also other postmodern concepts appeared long after Carroll’s novel, which makes the inquiry realatively audacious. Language becomes intrumental in costruing aspects of the protagonist’s identity, including the way in which the narrator equipped Alice with a certain kind of thinking. The double-coded narrative reflected both at the textual and identitary level are merged into one, thus augmenting the fluid character of the fictional text; Lewis Carroll manipulates both her appearance and musings in a playful and paradoxical manner. The freefloating signifiers and the language puns contribute to the blurring of the various boundaries within the text and to the arbitrariness with which the story unfolds.