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Wonderland Identity

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How do travelers construct their own identity as they travel? ‘“Who are you?” said the Caterpillar.’ (Carroll 1998: 40). Identity is explored extensively throughout Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Amos Tutuola’s The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952). Both protagonists embark on a journey that questions their inner self; through the distortion of characters, time and plot. Transformations allow each protagonist to distort their own identity and gain self-awareness as they travel. Both texts explore the protagonist’s escape from reality through the episodic structure. Each episode is constructed as they travel, to become part of their identity, and the representation of escape as a criticism of the social context. Both authors carefully structure the narrative for both protagonists to create an identity that is intertwined into their travels. Escape is a major theme that controls both protagonists as they travel. Carroll and Tutuola highlight the irrational nature of the world they create, as both the African Bush and Wonderland are very different from the daily lives of the protagonists. Both texts enter a mysterious realm that is like a dream-state or limbo, arguably a journey into their sub-conscious, where through escaping different episodes they eventually come to find themselves. In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, it is quite clear to the reader that Alice is in a dream. From the subtle implications of the narrator in the opening lines, that Alice

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