This thesis takes three works of prose fiction from the Victorian and Edwardian period that contain animal characters that interact with the human world. The fantastic narratives that will be...Show moreThis thesis takes three works of prose fiction from the Victorian and Edwardian period that contain animal characters that interact with the human world. The fantastic narratives that will be explored are: Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865); Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Books (1894-5); and Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows (1908). Furthermore, it argues that anthropomorphism and zoomorphism act as core elements in these narratives to describe the complex formation of identity in Victorian Britain and to provide an opportunity covertly to criticize issues in the Victorian social class system. Furthermore, the thesis analyses these magical worlds as places where children’s imagination can play with the animal-human divide.Show less
This thesis explores the impact of evolutionary theory on narrative form in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking–Glass and What Alice Found There (1872)....Show moreThis thesis explores the impact of evolutionary theory on narrative form in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking–Glass and What Alice Found There (1872). It argues that Lewis Carroll was inspired and influenced by Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory in writing the Alice books.Show less
