)

SOURCE: "Alice Our Contemporary," in Children's Literature: Annual of the Modern Language Association Seminar on Children's Literature and The Children's Literature Association, Vol. 1, 1969, pp. 152-61.

[In the following essay, which focuses on a theatrical adaptation of Alice, Jorgens considers the relevance of Carroll's stories to twentieth-century society.]

In his discussion of the fairy tale, W. H. Auden nicely sums up the stereotypical view of children's literature. The world of the fairy tale, he says, is an unambiguous, unproblematic place where appearance reflects reality. It is a world of being, not becoming, where typical, one-dimensional characters (either good or bad) behave strictly in accordance with their natures, and always receive the appropriate rewards or punishments. It is a predictable world where events occur in fixed numerical and geometrical patterns. And above all, it is a world without intense emotion or awareness where even the most violent acts are viewed...