Some Final Thoughts
As adults who have supposedly attained a certain level of maturity, time has put some distance between us and our own rites of passage (thankfully). However, as a result of that distance, adults sometimes forget the difficulties and the confusion a child faces during the process of “growing up”. The ability to consider the world from a child’s perspective is not easy, especially after we have congratulated ourselves for successfully passing that stage of our lives, but the need to connect with our children drives us to find ways. Dreams as well as children’s literature, such as Alice in Wonderland, are potential tools that can help us.
In Dreams and Nightmares, Ernest Hartmann theorizes that a dream is a space to express emotions; for children, dreams provide an opportunity to digest the confusion and vulnerability they might feel about the world of adults. Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland potentially acts as a surrogate dream space for the child. The dream-like elements of Wonderland make it a chaotic place where Alice encounters curious as well as unpleasant events. However, the dream-like elements of Wonderland also provide a sense of safety for the reader following Alice in her adventures. In her article, “Fairy Tales for Pleasure”, Gillian Anderson observes that Carroll uses the nonsense of Wonderland to reduce feelings of confusion and fear to a state of “manageable absurdity”. In Alice in Wonderland, as in dreams, a child is able to safely face the fears he or she might feel about the adult world; in Wonderland, dreams protect the child and possibly reveal a way to cope with the more complex world of adulthood.
Read more:
Introduction
Approaches to Children's Dreaming
History of Children's Literature
Alice in Wonderland
Some Final Thoughts
Suggested Readings, Helpful Links and Image Credits
About the Author