Fantastic Journeys: Resisting Growth in Golden Age Children's Novels

dc.contributor.advisorMichie, Helenaen_US
dc.contributor.committeeMemberPatten, Robert L.en_US
dc.contributor.committeeMemberFette, Julieen_US
dc.creatorElliott, Heather Den_US
dc.date.accessioned2014-08-26T18:59:37Zen_US
dc.date.available2014-08-26T18:59:37Zen_US
dc.date.created2014-05en_US
dc.date.issued2014-04-11en_US
dc.date.submittedMay 2014en_US
dc.date.updated2014-08-26T18:59:37Zen_US
dc.description.abstractDuring the Golden Age of children’s literature (1865-1914), authors both clung to the Romantic ideal of the innocent child and desired to acknowledge the child’s capacity for agency. This Romantic ideal of innocence was necessarily threatened by the child’s potential for agency—the more power the child wielded, the more likely she was to have her innocence tainted by experience and knowledge. This dissertation contends that the tension between the ideas of the child as innocent and the child as powerful led to the invention of a trope that I have named the “fantastic journey.” The fantastic journey occurs when a child character travels to a marvelous space (such as fairyland), has an adventure there, and returns to her ordinary world without her adult guardians ever discovering that she has been away because the journey has been either an out-of-body or an out-of-time experience. The journey may be explained as a dream or vision, or as an instance of time travel where the child returns to the same moment that she left in her ordinary world. The purpose of the fantastic journey is to allow a child to wield agency without any damage to her essential child identity. Each journey does this in different ways, but all allow child characters to gain knowledge and experience or to perform actions that would normally cause them to move closer to adulthood without losing any part of their child identity. Additionally, the journey also results in metamorphosis—abrupt change that is not the result of progress or process—for the child. This change always either enhances or protects the protagonist’s essential child identity. It is not change toward adult maturity. This dissertation traces the development of the fantastic journey through five texts, beginning with its initial formation in The Water-Babies; continuing through its various forms in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, At the Back of the North Wind, and The Story of the Amulet; and concluding with its deconstruction in Peter Pan.en_US
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen_US
dc.identifier.citationElliott, Heather D. "Fantastic Journeys: Resisting Growth in Golden Age Children's Novels." (2014) Diss., Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/76715">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/76715</a>.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/76715en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.en_US
dc.subjectGolden Age of children's literatureen_US
dc.subjectChildren's literatureen_US
dc.titleFantastic Journeys: Resisting Growth in Golden Age Children's Novelsen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.type.materialTexten_US
thesis.degree.departmentEnglishen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineHumanitiesen_US
thesis.degree.grantorRice Universityen_US
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen_US
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen_US
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