The Disillusionment of the Archetypal Child: A Mythological and Psychoanalytic Analysis of Lewis Carroll's Character, Alice

Abstract

According to Carl Jung, Lewis Carroll’s Alice is an archetypal character: her essential nature reoccurs in many other fictional children as incarnations of the same character. This paper will use mythological (Jung) and psychoanalytic (Freud) literary analysis to describe the child archetype that manifests as Alice and to demonstrate she functions as a universal representation of the transition to individuation. By comparing Alice to J.M Barrie’s Wendy the similarities in their characters and in the process to individuation prove Alice can indeed be seen as a symbol for an unconscious coming of age process. Likewise, Freud’s ideas about symbolic expressions of unconscious drives and desires that herald the transition from childhood to adulthood support the analysis of Alice’s individuation.