The Influence of Children’s Portal Fantasies on Gender Behavior

Children’s literature has many functions. It provides a source of entertainment for young minds. Stories stimulate creativity and offer children a sense of escape from the boredom of childhood routines. Reading and being read to can provide children with access to imagined and undiscovered worlds, the most notable works of children’s literature being fantasies. While such fantasies are a means with which adults distract restless youngsters and help them settle down at bedtime, the adults who write children’s stories may bring to bear another purpose, whether conscious or unconscious. Given the significant role children’s literature plays in young lives, it is not surprising that stories should contain lessons on what society expects of boys and girls. Frank Taylor describes the way that children’s literature can influence a particular aspect of behavior: gender roles. In his book Teaching Sociology Taylor maintains, “By age seven, and perhaps as early as age four, children begin to understand gender as a basic component of self. The literature affirms that many masculine and feminine characteristics are not biological at all; they are acquired […] Children’s books may be an important source of gender stereotypes that children use to help organize gendered behavior” (Taylor, 301). The portal fantasies Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Peter and Wendy offer to young readers highly fanciful stories embedded with examples of female behavior that instruct in and reinforce rigid social norms.

One of the earliest and most noted pieces of children’s literature that provides an example of children’s literature as social didacticism is Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Carroll initially conceived the idea for the book as a story for ten-year-old Alice Liddell. The Alice in Carroll’s story is a proper upper class Victorian girl who finds herself chasing a white rabbit down its hole into a world of confusion and talking animals. Struggling from moment to moment to find her way through the chaos, Alice wants to behave properly in a world where the social etiquette she has been taught does not fit. To understand Alice fully, it is important to look at her from the context of the period in which she was created. Carroll, or Reverend Dodgson, wrote the story of Alice in 1850s England while working at the Christ Church College at Oxford. It was believed that he wrote the story for the daughter of Dean Henry Liddell, with whom he was very close. In the book, Alice is curious and follows her curiosity, but winds up in situations where her identity is questioned and she comes to question her own assumptions. In chapter five, for example, Alice’s neck has grown long as her head as she finds its way through the trees and comes upon a disgruntled pigeon that accuses her of being a serpent.

“But I’m not a serpent, I tell you!” said Alice. “I’m a – I’m a -”
“Well! What are you?” said the Pigeon. “I can see you’re trying to invent something.” (Carroll 90)

Alice as a serpent alludes to the biblical story of Adam and Eve. During Carroll’s time, there were few children’s stories, but it could be assumed that all children would attend Christian churches where they would have been exposed to the story of Adam and Eve. It is also to be expected that children would connect the symbol of a serpent with the symbolic reference to the serpent as the temptation of sin. Alice is helpless and unable to assert herself with the pigeon as she is in her extraordinary encounters with other creatures in Wonderland. Young female readers could be expected to take away from this literary work two concerns: girls must be concerned about the suffering that may follow from the impulsivity of women and girls are not clever enough to engage in abstract thinking, much less making sense of their own identity. Elsewhere in the story, Alice is bombarded by questions from a talking caterpillar and again later by the Cheshire Cat. None of her answers ever suffices and Alice finds herself becoming increasingly confused and unable to assert herself in any situation. Alice’s inability to speak for herself teaches young girls that they, too, are helpless when confronted by authority and that they should not expect to be able to stand up for themselves.

Nearly half a century later, the story of Dorothy in L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz features a girl protagonist whose adventure in Oz is just as confronting as Alice’s stumble through Wonderland. The message for girls is the same: stay close to home. Dorothy journeys along the yellow brick road with one objective in mind; find Oz, the wizard who will be able to send her home to Kansas. On her journey, three guardians join Dorothy: the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Lion. Each of the male guardians has his own wish, which contrasts sharply with Dorothy’s. When the Scarecrow decides to join her, he exclaims, “Brains are the only things worth having in this world, no matter whether one is a crow or a man” (Baum 47). When these two rescue the Tin Woodman, and he chooses to join them, he explains “but no one can love who has not a heart, and so I am resolved to ask Oz to give me one” (Baum 61). Their last companion, the Lion, decides to join them because he finds that “life is simply unbearable without a bit of courage” (Baum 70). Dorothy’s three male companions are concerned with acquiring skills that they are lacking: intelligence, emotion and courage. Having survived being lifted up by a tornado and dropped into a strange land where she must survive flying monkeys and an evil witch, Dorothy’s only concern is with returning home. Her longing for home is rigidly didactic. Dorothy is the only young female character for young girl readers to identify with in the story, and girls can be expected, therefore, to share her plight. The message for young boys to find in the story is that they must strive to be smart, emotionally strong and brave. Girls, on the other hand, long to be home, the place they belong, the place where men want them to be. Middle America in 1900 shared these values. In the farming communities in Kansas, a woman’s place was in the home, and as such, Dorothy’s dream is to return to the domestic sphere.

By the end of the book, the reader learns that the silver shoes Dorothy has taken from the witch in the beginning of the story have the power to send her home. Dorothy spends the entire adventure trying to find the instrument to take her home, only to discover they were on her feet the whole time. While it could be argued that there is a lesson in her facing her fears and braving the dangers of Oz, the story teaches young readers something deeper: girls and women need men to help them. Ultimately, Dorothy, and every individual, has the capacity to help her, but she doesn’t see this and spends the entire book in a desperate search for Oz to help her. The young female reader learns that it is only through men that she can have her greatest wish fulfilled.

J.M. Barrie wrote the story of Peter and Wendy during a period that has come to be regarded as the golden age of children’s books, the Edwardian Period. Despite the sense of excitement of flying and the wonderment of Neverland, the book quickly remands Wendy to her role as a female. As soon as they land on the island, Wendy is immediately confronted with male expectations and demands.

“O Wendy lady, be our mother.”
“Ought I?” Wendy said, all shining. “Of course it’s frightfully fascinating, but you see I am only a little girl. I have no real experience.”
“That doesn’t matter,” said Peter […] “What we need is just a nice motherly person.”
“Oh dear!” Wendy said, “you see I feel that is exactly what I am.” (Barrie 65)

Wendy arrives in Neverland where she is expected to play the maternal role. She spends her entire stay there pretending to be cooking and cleaning the house, putting the lost boys to bed on time and making sure they have good manners. As Wendy is the only young female character in the story besides the savage native Tiger Lilly and Wendy clearly takes the role of the female protagonist. She is the character young girl readers are lead to identify with. While young boys are free to fly with Peter or wrestle with the lost boys, girls who choose to identify with Wendy are confined to maintaining order and preparing food.

In Sexism and the World of Children’s Books Marion Bauer states, “Literature does not shape society, its ideas, or its rules. It is merely a mirror held up to the world. It can, however, give back a reflection that challenges or one that merely reinforces the status quo” (Bauer 580). The reinforcement of stereotypical gender roles in these three works of children’s literature is clear. Alice teaches girls of the danger of impulsivity should they forget their simple natures. Dorothy teaches that women are helpless without men. Wendy embodies a belief that for females there is nothing more fulfilling than the role of being a mother. The unfortunate reality is that such rigidly drawn gender roles are not exclusive to these pieces of literature. However, when such strict gender roles are presented to children through literature as entertainment and escape, they contribute to one more subconscious prejudice that must be unlearned.

In all three portal stories, young girls are thrust into worlds where they are not supervised by parents or teachers, where they are free to explore and adventure only to find themselves back home. These girls depart from a world full of conventions but always find themselves back where they started. There is also the consistent theme that home is boring or bland and this is often the reason they discover these new worlds. The best they can hope for is to enjoy the comfort of home, like Dorothy. The worlds they discover are full of excitement and danger, much the same experience readers have when they seek the thrill of living vicariously through the characters in the stories. The young reader identifies with these heroes, and through observing, them in the text learn that what Alice or Dorothy do is what they, too, should do. How Wendy acts is how they should act. It is through the girls’ experience in these portal worlds that young readers learn what it means to be a girl.









Works Cited

Barrie, J.M. Peter Pan. New York: Penguin Classics, 2004. Print.
Bauer, Marion Dane. “Sexism and the world of children's books”. Horn Book Magazine 69.5 (1993): 577-580. Academic Search Elite. EBSCO. Web. 13 Dec. 2010.
Baum, Lyman Frank. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1960. Print.
Carroll, Lewis and Richard Michael Kelly. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 2000. Print.

Taylor, Frank. Teaching Sociology Vol. 31, No. 3 (Jul., 2003), pp. 300-311 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3211327

"I was twelve going on thirteen when I first saw a dead human being" -Gordie Lachance

Stephen King’s “The Body” is an honest and fearless look into the life of a twelve year old boy. The short story looks back from the present day to a summer adventure where four young friends travel to find the dead body of another boy, Ray Brower. Believed to be highly autobiographical, the story of Gordie Lachance seems an unforgiving account of the author’s own childhood. Rob Reiner’s translation of “The Body” into film carried all the blemishes and curse words that made “Stand By Me” feel so authentic. Both works do a wonderful justice to youth - giving them the freedom to be real, to be flawed. It is interesting that these imperfections are the elements that make both the story and film so intense and significant. While it is not the typical portal story, “The Body” masterfully depicts childhood in a narrative text and illustrates maturity and growth through multiple contexts.

It is always a struggle to adapt a literary work to film. While Stephen King is known for his thrillers and horror stories, this novella is a departure, offering readers a naturalistic representation of adolescence with realistic dialogue. It is debatable whether the film was intended for a younger audience due to its violence and profanity and the emotionally mature themes of broken homes and the hopeless personalities of Teddy and Chris. The book also appeals to a mature audience because it takes some of the more provocative aspects found in the film to a very different level. Certain pieces of the book are changed in the film, such as Chris, instead of Gordie, holding off Ace with his father’s gun and the added scene in the film where Ace and Eyeball take the hat Denny gave Gordie before he passed. The edits made the film as touching as the book without losing the significance of the themes of loyalty and friendship.

It could be argued that the book was an opportunity for the author to discover some of his inner psyche through reflecting on his childhood. The film masterfully develops the characters of Chris and Gordie and the dialogue is consistently believable and touching. The theme song from which the film takes its title - “Stand By Me” - is perfect for the translation. With an R rating the film is clearly not intended for a young audience, but it is almost exclusively shot with young actors, the four main characters not even yet teenagers. The trouble is that these boys are more accurately represented than other films intended for a young audience with a primarily young cast of actors. It is not only the predominance of young actors but how naturally they interact. It seems that society tries to hide the flaws that define these characters away from young audiences, when it is these imperfections that give the story such great depth and gravity. Rob Reiner’s direction brilliantly converts “The Body” to film, but Stephen King gives a powerful tribute to the pain and growth of adolescence.

“The Body” is entirely unconventional in its simplicity. King does not use talking animals or witches or magical worlds to create a portal. Ray Brower serves as the white rabbit to the boys, the trestle above Castle River is their portal, the forest their Oz, or Wonderland. It is interesting to note that like Alice and Coraline, or even the children of “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe”, these boys are bored with the monotony of summer vacation and tempted by the idea of adventure. It seems they are pushed through their portal. There is the same urgency in the children running from a train in rural America as there is in the children fleeing a disgruntled English housekeeper in the Wardrobe. But the body has other portals. The whole story seems to be a writer’s journey back through his memory. His reliving the events with such detail gives the reader a sense of actually walking along the train tracks, or looking down at the face of Ray Brower. While recounting his childhood, the author has Gordie tell the story of the pie eating contest to Chris, Teddy and Vern, and the author himself inserts his own short “Stud City.” All of these stories illustrate some facet of coming of age, through friendship, revenge and sexuality.

“The Body” is a wonderful piece of literature. “Stand By Me” is an endlessly impressive film. It is rare that a film adaptation and its original could be both independently significant and complimentary at the same time. Much of the credit for “Stand By Me” must go to the four young actors Whil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman and Jerry O’Connell and in turn the director Rob Reiner for such a compelling performance by such young actors. But ultimately the film’s great success comes from its fidelity to Stephen King’s “The Body”.

I woke up sweating, my heart beat pulsing in my ears, and frantically jumped out of bed. The morning light cut through my blinds and my eyes flashed around the room as I slowly came to my senses. It was a dream, actually it was a nightmare. I felt like Chihiro in the beginning of the film when she is crouched at the foot of the river after her parents were transformed into pigs, rocking back and forth “I’m dreaming, I’M DREAMING!” In my dream I found myself running to class, late, the day of the presentation without a clue as to what I was going to share with the class, terrified. In reality I was prepared. I had seen Spirited Away each night for the last few days, our group had met, but I was still unsure of what was going to happen the day Team Awesome was to present.
I loved Spirited Away. I loved the characters and Miyazaki’s vision. I had seen the film when it first came out but revisiting it while taking this class gave me a very different insight. Through each scene I felt I was able to appreciate much more about the film, and of course spent much of my time appreciating the similarities from the other works we have visited. I couldn’t help but think that the film was a tribute to Alice, Wendy and Dorothy. It was because of this that I felt the one downfall to doing the project on this film was there was no literature to accompany it. I have so much enjoyed comparing and contrasting books and film since taking this class I felt like there was more that I could have done if I had some literature to go along with them film.
While I was nervous for the presentation, I felt that it went very well. We tried to vary the structure and our approach with the class. While the other people in my group didn’t have the same experience, I felt breaking into smaller groups was one of the high points of our presentation. The smaller group allowed us to get deeper into the individual topics. I felt our presentation was thorough but the actual delivery didn’t allow us the time to fully explore everything we had planned. All in all I felt the presentation covered the topics well and did just to the film.

When contrasting the resolution of MGM's film The Wizard of Oz and the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum there are some significant differences.  In the book Dorothy's adventure starts in a storm in Kansas, where she falls asleep and when she wakes she finds herself in Oz.  She spends the book meandering through Oz, almost at the expensive of the readers time.  It seems the book is long merely for the sake of being long, and it is for this reason that the resolution does not seem adequate for such a drawn out tale.  At the end of her stay in Oz, Dorothy claps the heels of her shoes together and demands "Take me home to Aunt Em!"(258).  We are met with five astrix's and she whirls through the air and ends up back in Kansas, mid stride toward Aunt Em.  The book leaves the reader with the idea that Oz was a real place, that she traveled to some fantastical land while asleep in the storm.  The film contrasts greatly.  While stuck in the storm at the beginning of the film the house is uprooted and fly through the air, landing back down in Oz, much the same way Dorothy returned to Kansas in the book.  While the book seemed to continue merely for the sake of being long, the film had a clear beginning, middle and end.  It was Dorothy's return to Kansas in the film that gave the film the sense of resolution that the book lacks.  Dorothy wakes from the colorful Oz, in a sepia tone Kansas.  We are told repeatedly that Dorothy was dreaming, that she bumped her head.  And while our dreams of some distant, mystical land fade with each character's reminder that she was dreaming, they are themselves evidence that Oz was a real place.  The characters in Kansas played roles in Oz, leaving the audience unsure whether her unconscious surfaced in her dreams, or some parallel world does exist.  The book leaves us back in Kansas, and abruptly ends shortly after, with no doubt that Oz was a very real place.  The film on the other hand leaves us unsure, questioning, ever hopeful that Oz is truly out there...

Alice: A Dream or Nightmare

When Lewis Carroll set out on the 4^th of July, 1862 with Alice Liddell the story he thought up seemed only worth the gift to the child.  Little did Carroll know that generations to come would have that same story read to them at bed time.  The Disney rendition of Alice in Wonderland is dreamy and endearing and seems to be a constant in the lives of children ever since its release in 1951.   Jan Švankmajer  Alice from 1988 is a largely stop action film filled with unsettling images of taxidermy animals and creatures reconstructed out of bone, disturbing to the most mature audiences.  What makes each of these films stand out is their overwhelming ability to evoke emotion through their visual presentation.  While Disney and Švankmajer’s presentation could not be any more polar opposites, they are individually impressive in their own way.

Disney’s Alice in Wonderland is dreamy and almost overwhelming at times in its visual presentation.  The use of color mirrors the dreamy quality: a purple stripped Cheshire Cat, the blue body and pink hands of the caterpillar and the psychedelic color smoke rings he blows as he speaks.  A victory celebrated by the production of this film is the various moving elements in every scene, complimented by backgrounds that hold light and line with a shadowy, dream like calm.  The music and sound effects compliment the visual wonders of this work.  Despite the uncertain, “curious” tone that runs through the film in faith to the literature, there maintains an upbeat, light tone, which might be why Disney’s Alice in Wonderland seems to have turned into a classic children’s film.

While artistic license gives creative individuals the space to create, Jan Švankmajer turned a possibly surreal story into a frightening nightmare.  While much of the film is stop motion, Alice is also played by a living person, which gives the stop action a crude, machine like quality.  The creatures of Švankmajer’s Wonderland are a mixture of dead, preserved animals and skeletons attached to mechanical objects.  This bringing to life of static objects is strange and frightening when accompanied by the clacking of the White Rabbit’s teeth or the squeaking of the wheels as it drags behind a skull and section of spine.  And if the film’s monstrous creatures don’t round out the nightmarish quality, the poorly lit, gritty sets seem to finish it off.  It is clear that Švankmajer’s work influenced Tim Burton and other animators.  Švankmajer’s Alice is far too chilling and unsettling a work to do much more than shock and upset its audience.