“Moving” as a Means of Spatial Resistance to Gendered Boundaries in Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass

Abstract

Across patriarchal, social and spatial structures femininity is associated with domesticity, obedience, and spatial confinement which certainly limit the freedom of girls to explore and act independently. In nineteenth century Victorian England this limitation was all the more prominent, as an ideal Victorian girl was expected to remain within the domestic periphery. Written in the later half of the nineteenth century, Carroll’s Alice in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass emerges as a figure who refuses to remain confined within prescribed gender roles by continually moving through unfamiliar landscapes. Drawing upon the spatial theory of Doreen Massey this paper argues that “mobility” of the protagonist in Carroll’s fantasy worlds is not simply a narrative device but an important means through which its protagonist Alice exerts her identity. Her wandering through unknown and difficult places, questioning the authority, accessing forbidden spaces enable her to challenge the hierarchies and resist the spatial restrictions. Alice’s “mobility” through these imaginary spaces could be seen as a means of spatial resistance to the gender expectations imposed upon girls/women. By analysing Alice’s encounters with the inhabitants and landscapes ,while travelling through these worlds, the paper demonstrates howhow movement becomes a strategy of self-assertion and empowerment.