Comparing the Fantasy world of 'Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ to ‘Narnia’

[peterpan2301]

I just wanted to get some peoples thoughts on the similarities and differences between the fantasy world of 'Wonderland' and that of 'Narnia' from 'The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe'

What do you think the major similarities and differences are and what type of effect do you think these differences have had on each story?

I can see that one major similarity is that both worlds are ruled by and evil Queen but 'Wonderland' seems to bend the rules of reality a bit more, how does this affect the story for the reader

[JCamilo]

Wonderland is not really ruled much less by an evil queen (a Mad queen, not evil). Wonderland is not exactly a world, with everything organized, so comparing geography and politics of them is just not very usefull.
Narnia preents an allegory with a moral message, Alice is more a sequence of logical games, representations and paradoxes with logic, rather than moral.
Lewis Carroll language is also much superior and stilized and as result he can write about a girl who dreams. C.S can not, the kids actually go to the world where they had their adventures.

[peterpan2301]

Very interesting point, but could you elaborate on how you say that Narnia presents an allegory with a moral message. What exactly is the message? Do you mean its message on Christianity?

And you say that Alice is a sequence of games and paradoxes with logic, how does the fantasy world setting (Wonderland) help to display this logic and how is Wonderland different from Narnia in this sense?

[JCamilo]

Yes, it is the Christianity message.
As for alice, it is not the setting, but every episode was build to show logical ideas: size (alice grows, get smaller), order and divisions (the cards), time (the white rabbit), etc. They are pretty much ditatic narratives.

[peterpan2301]

Now what if 'Wonderland' was more like 'Narnia' where no one was changing size and the rules of reality applied more heavily in the world. How would this change have affected the story of 'Alice's adventures in Wonderland'?

Would this mean the story would be less like a dream and more like an adventure? But what does this mean for the child reading it?

I would have to say if 'wonderland' was more like 'Narnia' then certain aspects of the book would not be able to be portrayed at all.

[JCamilo]

Of Course, Wonderland is not Narnia. C.S. is a realistic kind of writer. Altough he moves the characters to an alternative reality, he still applies realistic rules there.
That is why Alice in Wonderland language was able to influence James Joyce while Narnia... well, Narnia just helped out RPG players? The fantasy of Alice is in the language level, while Narnia in the plot. The best fantasy are usually in the language level (that is even why Tolkien was also superior to his friend, in tolkien there is some work with language) and why guys like Kafka, Borges, Calvino are the best fantasy writers of the XX century. They did not needed another reality to show the fantastic, the supernatural, etc.

[peterpan2301]

I am intrigued by how 'Wonderland' presents a set of logical ideas and I would like to know what ideas exactly were presented through the language/story, do you know where I can find more information on this?

[JCamilo]

It must not be hard to find some edition of Alice with analyses of the paradoxes and problems. I can not help you much, since I owned an portuguese copy.

[peterpan2301]

Just a thought I had today, I realized that food is present in both Wonderland and Narnia.

Does food play a major role in fantasy worlds (in children's literature)?

I understand that in Wonderland that food is significant to the theme of growing up and that in Narnia that food is trying to show the dangers of gluttony.

But I thought it was strange that food is present in both worlds.

Any opinions?