Fantasy Genre Essay

Fantasy Genre Essay

Introduction

A fantasy is an original, fictional work in which the author presents the characters and settings in such a manner that it creates an experience that is beyond the ordinary life (Murray, 2004). There are various elements in a story that the author manipulates to make it fall under the genre of fantasy. 'Alice's Adventure in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll is also one such story in which the author has manipulated the essential elements required which make it a story of fantasy. The purpose of this paper is to prove exactly how 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' fits the category of Fantasy.

Discussion

In the story Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the 7 years old protagonist falls down a rabbit hole chasing a white rabbit with a waistcoat and arrives in the Wonderland. In this place there is no application of logic while animals are also able to talk. Her adventures and encounters with various absurd characters are things around which the story revolves. The story is an engrossing one and has continued to captivate the attention of millions of readers around the world especially young children. Besides the novel has also been of interest for various researchers who have explored various themes and ideas that lie underneath the story. Most of them have stated it to be among those stories that can easily fit the genre of fantasy.

A novel to be classified in the genre of fantasy, it is required by the author to manipulate various elements. These elements include setting, characters and plot as central while 'journey, transformation, talking animal, and magic' are also usually included as elements in a fantasy story (Gates, Steffel & Molson, 2003). The young protagonist in the novel finds herself in a bizarre world full of imagination and surrounded by characters that are far from real and encounters nonsensical events during the course of the story that are impossible to happen in the real world.

With regard to the setting i.e. the time and place in which the story is placed, the author has very effectively manipulated the setting to make it align with that required for a fantasy. The story starts in the real world when Alice is sitting near the river bank and moves into the fantasy world. The character Alice is transported through time to a place 'Wonderland' where things are very different from the world we live in. Wonderland is ...