Fiction for Children: Second World Fantasy
Both Lewis Carroll's 1871 classic Through the Looking Glass and Phillip Pullman's 1995 work The Golden Compass incorporate the happenings of two very different worlds which exist simultaneously with the same characters directing the action in both. Both Alice in Carroll's work, and Lyra in The Golden Compass exist as young girls in their unique versions of reality, but also enter in to a surreal dreamlike world while simultaneously existing in real life. This parallel existence can be related to a theory in psychology first introduced by psychologist Carl Jung. In his 1952 work Synchronicity - An Acausal Connecting Principle, Jung proposed the idea that parallel phenomena was at the root of all coincidences. By looking at both Carroll and Pullman's work under the theoretical framework of Carl Jung, the duplicity of worlds, both real and surreal will
Lyra is forced to take action in her surreal world in order influence the real one. In Carroll's work, Alice takes her experiences and blames the strange surreal experience on her black kitten, but how would a cat influence her trip through the looking glass? In Pullman's work, the events of the surreal world affect the outside world. Since the Ancient Greeks, people have been fascinated by the myths of their culture and how those myths essential provide a foundation for everyday life. Lewis' 1955 classic The Magician's Nephew explore the need to continually remind us of our myths, such as the creation story of Genesis. Myths and mythology have long been a part of the fabric of our cultures. Frisch and Joseph Mantos explore the fundamental role religion plays in many myths and stories in their 1985 work "Religious Imagination and Imagined Religion" show the intimate relationship between our favorite childhood stories and legends and our religious conscious. The Magician's Nephew uses the framework of Genesis as a fundamental element of its structure, while the Sorcerer's Stone advocates the importance of humility which is reminiscent to the humility of Jesus Christ in the gospels of The New Testament. How these two existences do influence one another, and how does that affect the characters that are split between the two. For hundreds of years, story tellers have incorporated religious ideals in their fables.
Common topics in this essay:
Carroll's Alice,
Ancient Greeks,
Golden Compass,
Symbolism Truth,
Magician's Nephew,
Myth Identity,
Carl Jung,
Sorcerer's Stone,
Joseph Mantos,
Imagined Religion,
magician's nephew,
golden compass,
carl jung,
surreal world,
looking glass,
myths essential,
sorcerer's stone,
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Acceptance Essays
