Folklore and Persistence in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
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Abstract
I think that the paramount question in this investigation is why people continue to be so interested in Alice. This question addresses the text's endurance over the last one hundred and thirty-two years and the consequential rise of Alice as a symbol in popular culture. In part, Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has become an icon of popular culture because of its folkloric content. More specifically, the story provides a plethora of examples of children's speech play drawn directly from the child language model. The presence of such children's lore accounts for the text's persistence because this use of language creates a sense of familiarity with its readers. My inspiration or "spark" for this paper emerges from my housemates' obsession with Alice.
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