Feminist Revisions of Lewis Carroll’s Alice Stories in Contemporary Children’s Fantasy Literature
Introduction
Contemporary feminist revisions of Lewis Carroll’s Alice stories resist the oppression of the Alice-figure through the girl adventurer’s empowering relationship with food. In Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1872), Carroll humiliates Alice by "making her lose her mental capacity and control of her body, and subjecting her to unlimited power from creatures that would normally be inferior to her."1 Alice suffers greatly in Wonderland, and a great deal of her suffering has to do with her relationship with food. In contemporary children's fantasy literature inspired by Carroll's Alice stories, the same power mechanisms used to oppress Alice in the original novels are actively resisted. Girl adventurers refuse to be controlled, and find empowerment in their use of food to resist oppression and encourage equality.
Alice’s relationship with food disempowers her in three key steps: the loss of her agency; the loss of her identity; and the loss of her humanity. The three steps of Alice’s disempowerment overlap and sometimes occur simultaneously. For example, when Karen Coats argues, "Carroll has so designed Alice’s adventures that she is never in control of who she is or what she does,"2 she notes that Alice loses her identity and agency due to the same mechanisms of power, Carroll's control. One key mechanism of control is with transformative food. By 'food' this paper refers to consumables, and thus also refers to drinks. Food changes Alice's body without her informed consent, controlling Alice by denying her knowledge and bodily autonomy. With the changes to Alice's body, she loses who she once was and begins to become something else entirely. When Alice enters into a cannibalistic food chain, she loses her very humanity. Carroll uses food to maintain a great deal of control over his child protagonist, and Alice is unable to maintain her agency, her identity and even her humanity.
This paper compares three works of contemporary children's fantasy with Carroll's Alice stories in order to demonstrate how feminist revisions of the Alice-figure have used food to empower girl adventurers and resist oppression. For the purposes of this study, feminism is defined within intersectionality theory: feminism fosters both "women’s empowerment and conditions of social justice"3 in resistance to "the differential ways in which different social divisions are concretely enmeshed and constructed by each other"4 within a system of oppression. One way feminist literature can resist the intersectional systemic oppression of women is through revisionist writing. Adrienne Rich defines a feminist revision as "the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction" and a "refusal of the self-destructiveness of male-dominated society."5 I do not consider revisionist writing to exclusively consist of adaptations and retellings. The primary texts of this paper are original works of children's fantasy, but each feature clear similarities with Carroll's Alice stories. In all three works, the adventurer is an Alice-figure, a girl who enters into a dangerous, magical world where food is directly related to a system of power and oppression. In each case, the Alice-figure's resistance uses food in a way that critically revises Carroll's Alice stories.
To begin, this analysis compares Alice's loss of agency to Neverfell's rebellious behaviour in Frances Hardinge's A Face Like Glass (UK 2012). Second, Alice's loss of identity is compared with the redefinition of social identities in Suzanne Collins' Gregor the Overlander (USA 2003). Finally, while Alice engages in cannibalism and loses her humanity, in Tahereh Mafi's Furthermore cannibalism is resisted through means that prove self-worth (USA 2016). Carroll's Alice is an oppressed girl in literary history, and, as Amy Crawford argues, "women have been misrepresented in literature" but "a new identity and a feminist future can be created through revision."6 In all three feminist revisions, the mechanisms that disempower Carroll’s Alice are reintroduced, resisted and overcome.
Agency and Frances Hardinge's 'A Face Like Glass'
Frances Hardinge's A Face Like Glass is a feminist revision of Carroll's Alice stories in which the girl protagonist uses food to resist being controlled. In Wonderland, "every mouthful of food comes [with a] certain loss of physical control"7 for the protagonist. Food is used to control Alice, in turn limiting her agency. Carina Garland argues that the male author (not the historical person, but rather the author-function) attempts to:
"suppress and control Alice's agency so that Carroll can desire and own her. This control, and the anxieties Carroll has surrounding female sexuality and agency, are expressed via representations of food and appetite within the text."8
In Caverna, the setting of Hardinge's novel, the protagonist Neverfell uses food to rebel against the city's oppressive elite when they attempt to control her. Hardinge's feminist revision takes back the Alice-figure's agency in order to dismantle social systems of control, and critique those in power.
The use of food to control Alice’s body begins immediately upon her entering Wonderland. When Alice lands at the bottom of the rabbit hole she is given the instruction "DRINK ME" from a bottle, and then "EAT ME" from a cake.9 Alice follows these instructions despite her lack of appetite: "the male author doesn't acknowledge the heroine's hunger and has her consume without appetite, this being an attempt to maintain her purity by separating her appetite and consumption."10 When Alice learns that food will change her, she attempts to use food to have control over her own body. Instead, Alice is provided instruction but no knowledge, limiting her agency. For example, when Alice tells the Caterpillar she would like to be larger, he responds, "One side [of the mushroom] will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter."11 This information does not empower Alice: "Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, trying to make out which were the two sides of it […] it was perfectly round."12 Alice does not know the power of each piece of mushroom she grabs, and how they will change her body. Garland argues:
"It is important that Alice is excluded from knowing in Wonderland […] Alice eats in Wonderland because the male author and the male characters direct her to. […] She eats without desire and without knowledge."13
When Alice eats the mushroom in her attempt to reclaim her body, her neck grows disproportionately long and a pigeon accuses her of being a snake. Alice's encounter with the pigeon contributes to the loss of her identity, as discussed below. Despite her best efforts, Alice is unable to fully control her own body in Wonderland. Instead, food takes over Alice's body and limits her agency.
In Hardinge's A Face Like Glass, the Alice-figure, Neverfell, uses food to reclaim her agency. When Neverfell, like Alice, follows a rabbit through a hole, she enters the underground city of Caverna. In Caverna people have to purchase each of their facial expressions, choosing how to express their emotions intentionally. Amid the many assassination attempts (and successes) among Caverna's elite, controlled facial expressions function to veil the city's chaos with a false peace. Neverfell, who emotes naturally, cannot control her facial expressions in the same way as the other members of Caverna, making her a risk to the carefully controlled system of power. While the wealthy elite can lie convincingly, Neverfell's face is like a looking glass, mirroring her thoughts and intentions. Neverfell is forced to resist those who attempt to use her face for political purposes, refusing to be owned or controlled. Instead, Neverfell uses food to break rules, expose lies and protect those who are most oppressed by Caverna's system of power.
When Neverfell is brought to a Court banquet, the elite Childersin family try to control her in order to use her for political gain. Prior to her arrival at the banquet, Neverfell is given a long series of prohibitions: "Don't sneeze, don't point at anybody with your little finger, don't scratch your left eyebrow, don't angle your knife so that it reflects light in somebody's eyes."14 Any minor action on Neverfell's part may be misconstrued as a signal for assassination and violence, limiting her agency at the banquet considerably. The food at the banquet is "dangerously extraordinary", with fantastic effects such as giving hallucinations, changing thinking or memory, and so on.15 Neverfell and the banquet attendees are only meant to react to the food as is appropriate for its effects and nothing more.
When one of the banquet attendees is poisoned and killed, he is hastily dragged away without anyone else reacting. Maxim Childersin, the patriarch of his wealthy family, explains: "Making a fuss would be far more disastrous. The death will look like a heart attack, and they cannot suggest it is anything else without casting aspersions" on the host, the Grand Steward, leader of Caverna.16 The elite control their reactions in order to maintain a false sense of peace among rivalling families in an unending battle for power. Yet Neverfell, with her naturally emoting face, is unable to hide her horror. She realizes "her reaction had not gone unnoticed."17 Neverfell's natural reactions not only point out the chaos and death among the elite's power plays, but also emphasize the fallacy of the intentional calm exhibited during moments of crisis. While the elite may want to mourn the death of their relatives, they are controlled by a system of power that prohibits them from doing so. But Neverfell reacts to murder regardless of social customs, her uncontrollable face pointing out how those who can control their faces are being controlled by a greater system of power.
At the Court Banquet it is not only Neverfell's face that demonstrates her uncontrollability, her actions also demonstrate her agency. When a servant accidentally spills a drop of wine, Neverfell remembers, "making the smallest mistake was worth more than a servant's life."18 In this moment Neverfell realizes the servant will be executed for spilling a drop of wine. Neverfell uses this knowledge to take back control and save a life. Neverfell knocks over the glass of wine and hides "the spilt drop before anybody else could see it."19 Neverfell’s intentional act to save a life resists the mealtime rules of the Court Banquet. Susan Grieshaber argues, "the construction and operation of mealtime rules are techniques of discipline through which young children in the family context are normalized and regulated" especially in regards to gender.20 By resisting mealtime rules, girls resist their domestic role within a system of patriarchy.21 In a society of frequent assassinations, Neverfell's resistance to mealtime rules creates chaos. No one at the banquet knows why Neverfell knocked over the glass, assuming it was a signal but with no idea what it was for or who instructed her to give it. Neverfell's "action had torn a hole in the beautifully woven fabric of the banquet, a hole in a dozen conversations."22 The false peace maintained when a banquet attendee is murdered is torn down when Neverfell saves a servant from execution. Neverfell, in making decisions outside of Maxim Childersin’s instructions and Caverna's social customs, refuses to allow the classist and patriarchal power to control the lives (and deaths) of both herself and others.
When both Carroll's Alice and Hardinge's Neverfell are presented with food, they are given instructions on what to do. Alice, despite receiving vague or no knowledge, follows the instructions she is given. Alice's body is changed without her informed consent, in turn leading to a change in her identity. While a system of power controls Alice, Neverfell resists the system of power attempting to control her. Neverfell uses her knowledge to break social customs. She cannot be controlled, and it is her uncontrollable nature that breaks down a false sense of control in a chaotic society of frequent assassinations. Neverfell's resistance to the social practices of the elite at the Court banquet demonstrates a feminist revision of the Alice-figure. Whereas Alice's agency is limited by her relationship with food, Neverfell uses food to reclaim her agency and resist a system of power and oppression. In A Face Like Glass, Frances Hardinge demonstrates the power girls can find when they refuse to do as they are told.
Don't sneeze, don't point at anybody with your little finger, don't scratch your left eyebrow, don't angle your knife so that it reflects light in somebody's eyes.
Frances Hardinge, A Face Like Glass. London: Macmillan, 2012, 121.
Identity and Suzanne Collins' 'Gregor the Overlander'
In Suzanne Collins' feminist revision of Carroll's Alice stories, Gregor the Overlander, the Alice-figure, Boots, rejects social hierarchies and uses food to redefine identities within a framework of equality. Carroll's Alice, in an effort to gain self-control, attempts to conform to the hierarchical expectations of British Imperialist identity. Nancy Armstrong argues that Carroll "link[s] the colonial venture to the appetite of a little girl."23 Alice tries to adhere to an identity of imperialist superiority through her controlled relationship with food. Yet the carnivalesque world of Wonderland invalidates Alice's constructed superiority, making it impossible for her to maintain a consistent identity. In Collins' novel there is a clear social hierarchy of species in the world of the Underland, and at the bottom of this hierarchy are the crawlers, giant talking cockroaches. When a team of questers set out to save Boots' kidnapped father, the majority of questers are unwilling to include or respect the crawlers. Boots, rejecting social hierarchies, uses food to not only include the crawlers in the team, but to break down the Underland's hierarchy within the group and instead establish a team of equals. While no one in the team expects any wisdom from Boots because she is a toddler, she uses food to resist social expectations in the Underland.
Alice's loss of control over her body leads to a loss of control over her identity. When Alice shrinks to three inches high, she has an existential crisis. When the Caterpillar asks her who she is, she responds, "I hardly know, Sir […] I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then."24 The change that food has had on Alice's body has also changed her identity. In an attempt to fix this, Alice eats the Caterpillar's mushroom, but instead of her body growing to its usual height, her neck grows disproportionately long and a pigeon confuses her for a serpent.25 The pigeon is worried that Alice will try to eat its eggs, and when Alice clarifies that she is not a serpent but a girl, she is unable to convince the pigeon of this because girls, too, eat eggs.26 Armstrong argues that this scene demonstrates a destabilizing of Alice's identity, where food has muddled the distinguishing markers of girl and serpent.27 Alice, having been controlled by food, attempts to regain control of her identity by controlling her appetite. Alice begins "nibbling one side of the mushroom or another, and this behaviour stabilizes the body that appetite has disfigured […] The girl's ability to master appetite tells us" that she belongs among the upper classes of Imperial Britain.28 Alice not only adopts the tastes of the privileged upper class, but as one embodying an Imperialist identity, Alice attempts to impose British superiority over the people of Wonderland.
When Alice conforms to the identity of the Imperial British upper class, her attempt to position herself as superior over those in Wonderland is what ultimately leads to the loss of her identity. When Alice sees that the Hatter, Hare and Dormouse are having tea at a large table, they attempt to exclude her from the Tea Party, crying, "No room! No room!"29 Alice rejects this, arguing, "There's plenty of room" and joins the Tea Party.30 While one might argue that Alice resisting the desires of the male attendees of the Tea Party is an act of feminist resistance, I argue her actions are a gesture of Imperial-era colonialism, uninvited and believing herself superior. James R. Kincaid argues that while the Hatter, Hare and Dormouse are dedicated to joy and the comic life, Alice is an enemy whose elementary concerns, prudence and desire for order are disruptive and destructive.31 Alice's interrupting questions at the Tea Party demonstrate how she has positioned herself as superior to the other three, insisting that conforming to British upper-class norms is more logical and productive than Wonderland's practices. Helena Margaret Tuomainen argues that specific practices related to the consuming of food are products and reflections of culture, and that colonial changes to food practices function to weaken "kin group solidarity, undermining indigenous culture and lifestyle, including food habits."32 Yet Alice’s attempts to establish the superiority of her Imperial British upper class identity by undermining the Hatter, Hare and Dormouse fail. Instead of listening to Alice, the other three rebuke and ridicule her, in turn positioning her as inferior. As Margaret Boe Birns argues, at the Tea Party, Alice transforms "from prim schoolmistress to chastened schoolgirl."33 Alice's attempts to maintain her identity by conforming to the appetites and norms of those high in Imperial Britain's social hierarchy fails in Wonderland. Without her identity, Alice descends into the chaos of Wonderland and loses her very humanity.
In Collins' Gregor the Overlander, the Alice-figure, Boots, rejects social hierarchies and uses food to redefine identity within a framework of equality. When two-year-old Boots falls through a grate in her apartment building's laundry room, her brother, Gregor, follows her into the Underland. While Boots is not the protagonist of Collins’ novel, she functions as the text’s Alice-figure. Like Alice, Boots is the girl adventurer who falls into the strange underground world, and it is her use of food that shapes the interpersonal relationships in the text. In the Underland, Boots and Gregor learn that giant talking rats have kidnapped their missing father, and a team is assembled to rescue him. According to a prophecy, more members of the team must first be found from each of Underland’s giant talking species. Initially, Gregor worries about bringing his toddler sister with him on their quest, worrying she will be harmed, but ultimately brings her so they will not be separated.34 Gregor and the others do not consider Boots able to contribute to the quest, bringing her only out of obligation. Instead, Boots proves herself to be vital to the team's success, using food to break down social hierarchies and unite the different species of Underland.
Other than human beings, Underland is populated by giant, talking rats, bats, spiders and cockroaches. The cockroaches, known as crawlers, being weak and non-violent, are not believed to have any social value. In one scene, the humans Henry and Luxa joke that in battle crawlers are only useful as something to throw at their enemies.35 When the team of questers attempt to find two crawlers to join their quest and fulfill the prophecy, the crawlers refuse to join them. Both the humans and the rats oppress the crawlers, and, fearing the rats more, the crawlers feel no need to help the humans. Henry angrily responds that the crawlers do not think with "reason or consequence" arguing, "They are the stupidest creatures in the Underland! Why, they can barely even speak."36 Henry has no problem expressing these ideas in front of crawlers. Crawler identity is openly and commonly constructed as weak, useless, unreasonable, unwise and stupid. Like Boots, the crawlers are not believed to be useful, and are only invited to join the quest in order to fulfill the prophecy.
Boots does not treat the crawlers as lower in the social hierarchy, but instead uses food to include them as equals. After Vikus and Solovet, two influential humans, go to speak with the crawlers about joining the quest, the questers prepare to eat. Two crawlers, Temp and Tick, remain with the questers when Boots invites the two crawlers to join their meal. This creates "An awkward social moment. No one else had thought to invite the roaches. Mareth had not prepared enough food. Clearly it wasn’t standard to dine with roaches."37 While Temp and Tick decline Boots' invitation to eat, they agree to join the quest because of her inclusive gesture.38 Without Boots, the team would not be able to gain crawler members and fulfil the prophecy. Later, the questers share a drink. When Boots is handed the drink, Gregor expects her to finish it. Instead, "she poured out two little puddles",39 the first of which she designates for the crawlers and the second of which she designates for the bats. By sharing this human drink with cockroaches and bats alike, Boots not only resists Gregor's expectations of her as a toddler, but she also resists social hierarchies and prejudices by treating every quester equally. Claude Grignon argues:
"Consuming food and drinks together may no doubt activate and tighten internal solidarity; but it happens because commensality first allows the limits of the group to be redrawn, its internal hierarchies to be restored and if necessary to be redefined." 40
It is important, then, not to confuse the consuming of food and drinks together as a successful end of crawler oppression in the Underland. What is important is Boots' agency in broadening the definition of her role in the group, and broadening the limits of the group's membership. Self-definition and redefinition of social identities is, as Patricia Hill Collins argues in the context of intersectional feminism, a means of questioning "the credibility and the intentions of those possessing the power to define."41 Boots, intersectionally oppressed because of her age and gender, is able to not only establish her own identity as wise and useful, she is also able to call into question the social systems of power that expect less of both herself and the crawlers. Boots uses food to resist oppressive social constructions of identity, and redefine both her own and the crawler's identities within the group of questers.
In both Carroll's Alice stories and Collins' Gregor the Overlander, outsiders use food to establish their relationship with the natives of an underground society. Carroll's Alice attempts to ideologically colonize Wonderland in her attempt to establish her Imperial British upper class identity as superior. Alice fails to maintain her identity when her attempts to establish her superiority at a Tea Party are mocked, and her British manners are condemned. Alice is left without a fixed identity as she continues on her adventures into the chaotic world of Wonderland. While an argument could be made that Collins' Boots attempts to ideologically colonize Underland as well, Boots does not intentionally attempt to establish her ideologies as superior to those of Underland. Boots is not enacting the aims of a colonial venture. Instead, Boots treats the crawlers as equals because she genuinely values them. By using food to reframe the team of questers as equals, Boots establishes her identity as a valid contributor to their quest. In Gregor the Overlander, Suzanne Collins demonstrates the power girls can find when they refuse to be defined by others.
They are the stupidest creatures in the Underland! Why, they can barely even speak.
Suzanne Collins, Gregor the Overlander. New York: Scholastic, 2003, 156.
Humanity and Tahereh Mafi's 'Furthermore'
In both Lewis Carroll's Alice stories and Tahereh Mafi's Furthermore, a girl named Alice travels into a dark world of cannibalism. While Carroll's Alice pursues cannibalism in Wonderland, in turn losing her humanity, Mafi's Alice proves her value in the ways she resists and overcomes the cannibals of the land of Furthermore. In the Alice stories, as Michael Parrish Lee argues, "Carroll gives us a world in which subjects and objects are not essentially different and where everything and everyone is potentially on the menu."42 Anyone in Wonderland can be eaten, no matter how sentient, blurring the distinctions between 'person' and 'food'. While Carroll's Alice accepts the blurring of the distinctions between people and food, Mafi's Alice not only refuses to eat any living thing, but fights to protect herself and others from being eaten themselves. In the primary world of Furthermore, Ferenwood, Alice is not believed to have magic, and thus she is not believed to have any social value. In the secondary world of the text, the titular Furthermore, Alice proves her value by saving herself and her friend Oliver from being eaten by cannibals without using any of her magic. In this feminist revision of Carroll's Alice stories, Mafi's Alice-figure resists cannibalism in a way that proves her social value.
The final step of Alice’s disempowerment in Carroll's Alice stories involves the use of food to take away Alice's humanity. When Alice's attempt to regain her self-control by demonstrating her Imperialist British upper class identity fails, she begins to lose her humanity. As Zoe Jacques argues:
"Carroll works to erase the boundaries between human and animal in many of Alice's magical encounters, and his fantastical creatures often challenge Alice's humanistic beliefs in her own superiority in a manner which dehumanizes the heroine."43
Alice’s failed attempt to establish her identity as superior to those of Wonderland ultimately leads to her dehumanization. This serves a thematic purpose: Parrish Lee argues the Alice stories "attempt to reconcile the Victorian destabilization of discrete 'human' and 'animal' categories facilitated by evolutionary theory with an increasingly commodified culture where everything and everyone seem potentially consumable."44 Alice's descent into cannibalism is thus in part a symbolic representation of the commodified culture of Victorian Britain. The loss of Alice's humanity, then, has a thematic function as a social critique. Carroll's text benefits from transforming the girl protagonist from subject to object. As Margaret Boe Birns argues, through cannibalism, "Wonderland invites the reader to participate in the same compelling regressions found not only in its creatures, but in Alice herself."45 Alice's participation in cannibalism results in her regression from subject to dehumanized object.
By the end of the Alice stories, Alice has descended into the chaos of Carroll's fictional world and lost her humanity. Kiera Vaclavik argues, "death is constantly threatened in Wonderland"46 and killing the sentient becomes a frequent and typical occurrence for Alice. Alice intentionally engages in an act of cannibalism at a royal banquet at the end of her time in the Looking-Glass. Cannibalism in this context is not the eating of one’s own species, but is rather understood here as the eating of other sentient beings. When Alice is introduced to a leg of mutton at the royal banquet, she is told she cannot eat the mutton because "it isn't etiquette to cut any one you've been introduced to."47 At this feast, food is sentient: "The feast enacts a radical and pervasive unraveling of the division of the human and the inhuman."48 Alice immediately requests not to be introduced to the pudding, intentionally choosing to ignore the personhood of the food so that she may eat it. When the Red Queen introduces Alice to the pudding anyway, Alice calls out "'Waiter! Bring back the pudding!' and there it was again in a moment like a conjuring-trick" and then she "cut a slice and handed it to the Red Queen."49 When the pudding is saved from being cut and eaten, Alice uses her power as a queen to intentionally harm and eat the pudding.
While one might argue that Alice's use of power demonstrates her feminist empowerment, asserting her human superiority over the sentient food, it is the specific type of cannibalism that Alice engages in that dehumanizes her. Shirley Lindenbaum argues that anthropologists have identified many different kinds of cannibalism, two of which I argue are especially relevant here: endocannibalism and exocannibalism. Endocannibalism involves the "eating of someone from within the group […] for group renewal and reproduction."50 When Tweedledee and Tweedledum tell Alice the story of the Walrus and the Carpenter, and how they eat the Oysters52, they are telling a story of endocannibalism. As Boe Birns argues, "the creatures in Wonderland are relentless carnivores, and they eat creatures who, save for some outer physical differences, are very like themselves, united, in fact, by a common 'humanity.'"52 The Walrus, Carpenter and Oysters are all members of the same group, people of the Looking-Glass world, and the Walrus and the Carpenter eat the Oysters to renew their strength. The cannibalism that Alice engages in is different from the cannibalism of the other people she has encountered. Alice engages in exocannibalism, "eating someone from outside the group […] as an act of aggression."53 While Alice has been crowned a queen of the land of the Looking-Glass, she is not a member of the Looking-Glass group. Alice is a colonial outsider and intentionally chooses to cut into the sentient, an act that is outside of the customs of Looking-Glass food culture. When Alice cuts the pudding, it responds, "'What impertinence! […] I wonder how you'd like it, if I were to cut a slice out of you, you creature!'"54 The pudding identifies the loss of Alice's humanity by calling her a 'creature'. Alice's intentionally violent, inhumane, cannibalistic behaviour has resulted in a loss of her humanity.
In Tahereh Mafi's Furthermore, the Alice-figure, Alice Alexis Queensmeadow, is a social outcast who proves her worth by surviving a land of cannibals. Alice is from the land of Ferenwood, where colour signifies magic, and those with colourful skin are believed to be the most magical. The more magical someone is, the more they are considered socially valuable. Alice, being colourless, is not believed to be magical, and is thus not believed to have any social value. When Alice's school bully, Oliver, tells her that her missing father is in the dangerous land of Furthermore, the two travel together to this dark and confusing land. While in Ferenwood magic is replenished by eating plants, in Furthermore magic is replenished by eating magical people. Alice's colourless skin becomes irrelevant. As Malin Alkestrand and I argue:
"[Alice] is as much at risk of being eaten and having her magic consumed as the much darker-skinned Oliver. This means that she is positioned in Furthermore's intersectional system of power in a drastically different way than in Ferenwood."55
Just as all people are consumable in Carroll's Wonderland and Looking-Glass world, all people are consumable in Mafi's Futhermore, no matter how magical they may or may not be. In resistance to Ferenwood's oppressive ideologies, Alice protects both herself and Oliver from cannibals in Furthermore without using any of her magic.
When Alice and Oliver arrive in the Furthermore town of Left, located at the top of a mountainously-high tree, Alice saves both herself and Oliver from being eaten without relying on her magic. Alice and Oliver are lead to believe that Left is a safe haven in Furthermore, a place they can rest as honoured guests. A man named Paramint tells them that they are the first visitors in Left in fifty-six years, and to celebrate there will be a great feast with the country’s royalty.56 Later, Alice learns that she and Oliver have been tricked when Paramint says, "The queens haven’t had a full meal in far too long, and you and your friend are sure to satisfy a large appetite."57 Alice and Oliver are the main course of the feast; they are understood as nothing more than objects to be consumed by cannibals.
Alice proves her humanity by saving herself and Oliver in a way that emphasizes the value of what makes her different in Ferenwood, where she is stereotyped because of her skin colour. Franke Wilmer argues, "Violence and conflicts are effects of the patriarchal propensity to rationalize violence by stereotyping and dehumanization. The remedy is to restore connection where it has been damaged or obstructed."58 In order to survive, Alice and Oliver must escape Left, and in order for Alice to restore her connection with others and prove her humanity, she must do so in a manner that emphasizes the value of not using magic. When Oliver is hurt and the two are cornered, it is up to Alice to save them both from being eaten. When Alice remembers that "falling in Furthermore was too anticlimactic to be deadly" she grabs Oliver and jumps out of the tree on which Left is located.59 By using her intellect rather than her magic to save herself and Oliver, Alice resists the Ferenwood ideology that only those with magic have value. And by escaping the cannibals of Left, Alice manages to maintain her identity as a valuable human, rather than regress into the position of food.
In Tahereh Mafi's feminist revision of Carroll's Alice stories, the hunger of a queen is no excuse for cannibalism. While Carroll's Alice is a queen who loses her humanity when she chooses to be a cannibal, Mafi's Alice establishes her value as a human by resisting cannibalism. Mafi's Alice refuses to be a commodity, her magic is not to be used to prove her social value in Ferenwood, and her body is not to be consumed by the cannibals of Furthermore. Whereas Carroll's Alice regresses into an object by joining a cannibalistic food chain, Mafi's Alice establishes her social value. In Furthermore, Tahereh Mafi demonstrates the power girls can find when they refuse to be objectified.
The queens haven’t had a full meal in far too long, and you and your friend are sure to satisfy a large appetite.
Tahereh Mafi, Furthermore. New York and London: Puffin Books, 2016, 356.
Conclusion
Alice does not survive Wonderland. The descent narrative, the story of a girl who adventures underground or into the underworld, is not unique to Carroll’s Alice stories. According to Holly Blackford, the Victorians popularized retelling the myth of Persephone and Demeter, the story of a girl who is abducted by Hades and taken to the underworld.60 While women poets used this "myth to explore the agony and ecstasy of female development, conveying a profound ambivalence about growing up in patriarchal cultures" and "emphasize the new knowledge gleaned from her descent" into the underworld61, Alice's descent underground transforms her into a stagnant object under the control of the male, patriarchal author. Karen Coats argues that Carroll attempts to "preserve in her [Alice] the unalienated, undifferentiated self that he is necessarily unable to preserve in himself."62 Carroll attempts to stop the formation of Alice's ego by controlling her body "because that will mean that she has assumed into her own body the sexual difference that is the metaphorical indicator of the split subject."63 Alice becomes one who neither grows nor ages.64 This ego-less Alice is not a person; she is an object that serves the purposes of the male author. The Alice stories are written in a way that removes the personhood of the girl protagonist: "Alice's consumption of other actors simultaneously moves the story along and quite literally transforms her."65 Alice is condemned for consuming, and transformed into an object for consumption. Alice returns from her adventures without her agency, identity or humanity.
Alice has been saved from Wonderland. Descent narratives in children’s literature such as Carroll's Alice stories "are largely conservative, serving to bolster the status quo" such as "the continued domination of the narrative by male protagonists and the accompanying derogatory portrayal of female figures in the adventure stories."66 Yet in contemporary feminist revisions of Carroll's Alice stories, girls are able to grow and transform into empowered, self-assured resistors. Hardinge's Neverfell is uncontrollable and uses food to resist the control of the powerful elite. Collins' Boots is undefinable and uses food to resist the hierarchies of a system of oppression. Mafi's Alice is uneatable and refuses to be food, resisting objectification and dehumanization. These feminist revisions of Carroll's Alice-figure experience the same mechanisms of oppression that Carroll's Alice faces, and refuse to be destroyed by the patriarchal power of food in radical acts of survival. Hardinge, Collins and Mafi's Alice-figures maintain their agency, identities and humanity and, now, Alice survives Wonderland.
End Notes
Go to footnote reference 1.Maria Nikolajeva, 'The Development of Children’s Fantasy', in Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, 50-61 (51).
Go to footnote reference 2.Karen Coats, Looking Glasses and Neverlands: Lacan, Desire, and Subjectivity in Children’s Literature. Iowa: University of Iowa Press, 2004, 87.
Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2000, x
Nira Yuval-Davis, 'Intersectionality and Feminist Politics', European Journal of Women's Studies, 13, 3 (2006), 205.
Adrienne Rich, 'When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision' in Barbara Charlesworth Gelpi and Albert Gelpi (eds.), Adrienne Rich's Poetry and Prose, A Norton Critical Edition. London: Norton, 1993, 166-177 (167)
Amy Crawford, 'Re-Charting the Present: Feminist Revisions of Canonical Narratives by Contemporary Women Writers', Dissertation, Cambridge: Anglia Ruskin University, 2015, 4.
Nancy Armstrong, 'The Occidental Alice' in Robert Con Davis and Ronald Schleifer (eds.), Literary Criticism: Literary and Cultural Studies. 4th ed. London: Longman, 1998, 537-564 (546).
Carina Garland, 'Curious Appetites: Food, Desire, Gender and Subjectivity in Lewis Carroll’s Alice Texts', The Lion and the Unicorn, 32, 1 (2008), 22.
Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. London: Macmillan Children's Books, 2015, 9, 12.
Go to footnote reference 10.Carina Garland, 'Curious Appetites: Food, Desire, Gender and Subjectivity in Lewis Carroll’s Alice Texts', The Lion and the Unicorn, 32, 1 (2008), 28.
Go to footnote reference 11.Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. London: Macmillan Children's Books, 2015, 61.
Go to footnote reference 12.ibid, 61-62.
Go to footnote reference 13.Carina Garland, 'Curious Appetites: Food, Desire, Gender and Subjectivity in Lewis Carroll’s Alice Texts', The Lion and the Unicorn, 32, 1 (2008), 32-33.
Go to footnote reference 14.Frances Hardinge, A Face Like Glass. London: Macmillan, 2012, 121.
Go to footnote reference 15.ibid, 127.
Go to footnote reference 16.ibid, 133.
Go to footnote reference 17.ibid, 133.
Go to footnote reference 18.ibid, 135.
Go to footnote reference 19.ibid, 135.
Go to footnote reference 20.Susan Grieshaber, 'Mealtime Rituals: Power and Resistance in the Construction of Mealtime Rules', The British Journal of Sociology, 48, 4 (1997), 651.
ibid, 664.
Go to footnote reference 22.Frances Hardinge, A Face Like Glass. London: Macmillan, 2012, 136.
Nancy Armstrong, 'The Occidental Alice' in Robert Con Davis and Ronald Schleifer (eds.), Literary Criticism: Literary and Cultural Studies. 4th ed. London: Longman, 1998, 537-564 (547).
Go to footnote reference 24.Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. London: Macmillan Children's Books, 2015, 54.
ibid, 63.
Go to footnote reference 26.ibid, 65.
Go to footnote reference 27.Nancy Armstrong, 'The Occidental Alice' in Robert Con Davis and Ronald Schleifer (eds.), Literary Criticism: Literary and Cultural Studies. 4th ed. London: Longman, 1998, 537-564 (546).
Go to footnote reference 28.ibid, 547-548.
Go to footnote reference 29.Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. London: Macmillan Children's Books, 2015, 85.
Go to footnote reference 30.ibid, 85.
Go to footnote reference 31.James R. Kincaid, 'Alice's Invasion of Wonderland', Modern Language Association, 88, 1 (1973), 97
Helena Margaret Tuomainen, 'Ethnic Identity, (Post)Colonialism and Foodways: Ghanians in London', Food, Culture and Society, 12, 4 (2009), 527, 530.
Margaret Boe Birns, 'Solving the Mad Hatter's Riddle', The Massachusetts Review, 25, 3 (1984), 461.
Suzanne Collins, Gregor the Overlander. New York: Scholastic, 2003, 118.
ibid, 67.
Go to footnote reference 36.ibid, 156.
Go to footnote reference 37.ibid, 154.
Go to footnote reference 38.ibid, 163.
Go to footnote reference 39.ibid, 198.
Go to footnote reference 40.Claude Grignon, ‘Commensality and Social Morphology: An Essay of Typology' in Peter Scholliers (ed.), Food, Drink and Identity: Cooking, Eating and Drinking in Europe Since the Middle Ages. New York: Berg, 2001, 24.
Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2000, 114.
Michael Parrish Lee, 'Eating Things: Food, Animals, and Other Life Forms in Lewis Carroll's Alice Books', Nineteenth-Century Literature, 68, 4 (2014), 490.
Zoe Jacques, Children's Literature and the Posthuman: Animal, Environment, Cyborg. New York: Routledge, 2015, 44.
Michael Parrish Lee, 'Eating Things: Food, Animals, and Other Life Forms in Lewis Carroll's Alice Books', Nineteenth-Century Literature, 68, 4 (2014), 485.
Go to footnote reference 45.Margaret Boe Birns, 'Solving the Mad Hatter's Riddle', The Massachusetts Review, 25, 3 (1984), 458.
Go to footnote reference 46.Kiera Vaclavik, Uncharted Depths: Descent Narratives in English and French Children's Literature. New York: Legenda, 2010, 58.
Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There. London: Macmillan Children's Books, 2015, 184-185.
Sara Guyer, 'The Girl with the Open Mouth', Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 9, 1 (2004), 160.
Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There. London: Macmillan Children's Books, 2015, 185.
Go to footnote reference 50.Shirley Lindenbaum, 'Thinking about Cannibalism', Annual Review of Anthropology, 33 (2004), 478.
Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There. London: Macmillan Children's Books, 2015, 71.
Go to footnote reference 52.Margaret Boe Birns, 'Solving the Mad Hatter's Riddle', The Massachusetts Review, 25, 3 (1984), 457.
Go to footnote reference 53.Shirley Lindenbaum, 'Thinking about Cannibalism', Annual Review of Anthropology, 33 (2004), 478.
Go to footnote reference 54.Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There. London: Macmillan Children's Books, 2015, 185.
Go to footnote reference 55.Malin Alkestrand and Christopher Owen, 'A Cognitive Analysis of Characters in Swedish and Anglophone Children's Fantasy Literature', International Research in Children's Literature, 11, 1 (2018), 75.
Go to footnote reference 56.Tahereh Mafi, Furthermore. New York and London: Puffin Books, 2016, 315-316.
Go to footnote reference 57.ibid, 356.
Go to footnote reference 58.Franke Wilmer, 'Gender, Violence and Dehumanization: No Peace with Patriarchy' in Maureen P. Flaherty, et al. (eds.), Gender and Peacebuilding: All Hands Required. London: Lexington Books, 2015, 341-358 (353).
Go to footnote reference 59.Tahereh Mafi, Furthermore. New York and London: Puffin Books, 2016, 361.
Go to footnote reference 60.Holly Virginia Blackford, The Myth of Persephone in Girls' Fantasy Literature. New York: Routledge, 2012, 1.
Go to footnote reference 61.ibid, 1,2.
Go to footnote reference 62.Karen Coats, Looking Glasses and Neverlands: Lacan, Desire, and Subjectivity in Children's Literature. Iowa: University of Iowa Press, 2004, 84.
Go to footnote reference 63.ibid, 84.
Go to footnote reference 64.ibid, 88.
Go to footnote reference 65.Michael Parrish Lee, 'Eating Things: Food, Animals, and Other Life Forms in Lewis Carroll's Alice Books', Nineteenth-Century Literature, 68, 4 (2014), 493.
Go to footnote reference 66.Kiera Vaclavik, Uncharted Depths: Descent Narratives in English and French Children's Literature. New York: Legenda, 2010, 123.
Bibliography
Malin Alkestrand and Christopher Owen, 'A Cognitive Analysis of Characters in Swedish and Anglophone Children's Fantasy Literature', International Research in Children's Literature, 11, 1 (2018), 65-79.
Nancy Armstrong, 'The Occidental Alice', in Robert Con Davis and Ronald Schleifer (eds.), Literary Criticism: Literary and Cultural Studies 4th ed. London: Longman, 1998, 537-564.
Holly Virginia Blackford, The Myth of Persephone in Girls' Fantasy Literature. New York: Routledge, 2012.
Margaret Boe Birns, 'Solving the Mad Hatter's Riddle', The Massachusetts Review, 25, 3 (1984), 457-468.
Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. London: Macmillan Children's Books, 2015 [1865].
Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There. London: Macmillan Children's Books, 2015 [1871].
Karen Coats, Looking Glasses and Neverlands: Lacan, Desire, and Subjectivity in Children's Literature. Iowa: University of Iowa Press, 2004.
Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2000.
Suzanne Collins, Gregor the Overlander. New York: Scholastic, 2003.
Amy Crawford, 'Re-Charting the Present: Feminist Revisions of Canonical Narratives by Contemporary Women Writers', Dissertation, Cambridge: Anglia Ruskin University, 2015.
Carina Garland, 'Curious Appetites: Food, Desire, Gender and Subjectivity in Lewis Carroll's Alice Texts', The Lion and the Unicorn, 32, 1 (2008), 2-39.
Susan Grieshaber, 'Mealtime Rituals: Power and Resistance in the Construction of Mealtime Rules', The British Journal of Sociology, 48, 4 (1997), 649-666.
Claude Grignon, 'Commensality and Social Morphology: An Essay of Typology' in Peter Scholliers (ed.), Food, Drink and Identity: Cooking, Eating and Drinking in Europe Since the Middle Ages. New York: Berg, 2001, 23-33.
Sara Guyer, 'The Girl with the Open Mouth', Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 9, 1 (2004), 159-163.
Frances Hardinge, A Face Like Glass. London: Macmillan, 2012.
Zoe Jacques, Children's Literature and the Posthuman: Animal, Environment, Cyborg. New York: Routledge, 2015.
James R. Kincaid, 'Alice's Invasion of Wonderland', Modern Language Association, 88, 1 (1973), 92-99.
Shirley Lindenbaum, 'Thinking about Cannibalism', Annual Review of Anthropology, 33 (2004), 475-498.
Tahereh Mafi, Furthermore. New York and London: Puffin Books, 2016.
Maria Nikolajeva, 'The Development of Children's Fantasy', in Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, 50-61.
Michael Parrish Lee, 'Eating Things: Food, Animals, and Other Life Forms in Lewis Carroll's Alice Books', Nineteenth-Century Literature, 68, 4 (2014), 484-512.
Adrienne Rich, 'When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision' in Barbara Charlesworth Gelpi and Albert Gelpi (eds.), Adrienne Rich's Poetry and Prose, A Norton Critical Edition. London: Norton, 1993, 166-177.
Helena Margaret Tuomainen, 'Ethnic Identity, (Post)Colonialism and Foodways: Ghanians in London', Food, Culture and Society, 12, 4 (2009), 525-554.
Kiera Vaclavik, Uncharted Depths: Descent Narratives in English and French Children's Literature. New York: Legenda, 2010.
Franke Wilmer, 'Gender, Violence and Dehumanization: No Peace with Patriarchy' in Maureen P. Flaherty, et al. (eds.), Gender and Peacebuilding: All Hands Required. London: Lexington Books, 2015, 341-358.
Nira Yuval-Davis, 'Intersectionality and Feminist Politics', European Journal of Women's Studies, 13, 3 (2006), 193–209.
Christopher Owen is a PhD Candidate in English Literature at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, under the supervision of Professors Farah Mendlesohn and Eugene Giddens. Christopher's research investigates the representation and narratological functions of intersectional systemic oppression in the fictional worlds of contemporary middle-grade fantastika literature. He is an editorial assistant of The Year’s Best Weird Fiction. His piece on Steven Universe and queer resistance will be published in Aliens in Popular Culture: A Guide to Visitors from Outer Space; and his paper on cognitive narratology, intersectionality and literary character in children's fantasy literature, co-written with Malin Alkestrand, has just been published in the International Research in Children's Literature journal. Christopher is Canadian and is currently based in Manchester, United Kingdom.