Victorian Visual Culture

Stories like Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, and The Little Mermaid were all written for children and adults.  For American culture to find the stories acceptable, the plot essentially had to be tailored, or made “pretty”.  Messages had to be simple, uncomplicated, and served with a side of cute.  More importantly though was that everyone was to be rewarded in the end.  Take Grimms’ Cinderella as a prime example.

Disney's Step Sisters

In the text the evil step-sisters are fair- faced, beautiful, yet attain evil black hearts. Perhaps the concept of being beautiful outwardly but evil inwardly, is too difficult for our culture to understand conceptually.  In the film, Disney instead presents the step-sisters as buffoons and very homely.

More Accurate Image of Step Sisters

To adhere to American cultural expectations, Disney, and other mega film industries followed this recipe in making children’s films.  As Nathalie mentioned earlier in her post, my initial perception of Alice in Wonderland was very similar, if not the same as Disney’s famous adaptation.

Another example that came to mind was Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid.

Disney's Little Mermaid

This story is in fact a bit anti-feminist in the sense that a young girl is willing to alter herself entirely to attract a mate.  This alteration includes her ability to speak, which in the film is not nearly as noticeable.  The prince rejects the mermaid,

Grimm, Anderson, and Carroll are very much misrepresented in popular culture.  In their original forms they present the complexity of childhood subjectivity.  The dark side, the intellectual side, and the function of anxiety are represented.  The moral in most of these stories has fairness and justice winning in the end, but not without terrible struggles.  In the American versions, the complexity of childhood subjectivity is reduced and simplified.  The dark side of our experience has either been erased or prettied up.  In the end of Cinderella for example, the evil step sisters had their eyes poked out by the birds that represent Cinderella’s dead mother.  This is considered fair punishment for their evil deeds.  Disney does not go near this sort of resolution, he has Cinderella forgive her buffoonish step sisters, as if they were never taken seriously.  This whitewashing does a disservice to the depth of our experience.

Charles Dodgson, widely known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was very much inspired by Oxford University, where he attended college. He later became in mathematics at Oxford’s  Christ Church College Much is to be said involving the influences the college had on Dodgson during and after his tenure there.  It is apparent, from the stained glass window dedicated to Dodgson, that the college prized their notable alumnus…

Stained Glass Window at Christ Church College

Stained Glass Window at Christ Church College

Today the college’s library holds some of the rarest, most beautiful editions of Dodgson’s Alice in Wonderland.  

Apparently one summer afternoon Dodgson was asked by a restless young girl to tell a zany story, which later developed into the famous Alice in Wonderland.  This young girl was in fact the daughter of the dean of Christ Church College.  I found an interesting article quoting Alice Liddell reflecting on this very special day.

“The beginning of Alice was told to me one summer afternoon, when the sun was so hot we landed in the meadows down the river, deserting the boat to take refuge in the only bit of shade to be found, which was under a newly made hayrick.  Here from all three of us, my sisters and myself, came the old petition, ‘Tell us a story’ and Mr. Dodgson began it.  Sometimes to tease us, Mr. Dodgson would stop and say suddenly, ‘That’s all till next time.’ ‘Oh’, we would cry, ‘it’s not bedtime already!’ and he would go on.  Another time the story would begin in the boat and Mr. Dodgson would pretend to fall asleep in the middle, to our great dismay.”

Clearly Alice Liddell served as Dodgson’s muse, as he wrote a story inspired by her.  His initial introduction to Alice was through her father, Dean Liddell, who apparently did not share as much affection towards Dodgson as his daughter had.  In fact, Alice’s parents did much to dissuade interactions amongst the two.

Several years ago, on a trip with my mother, I visited Christ Church College and learned a great deal about its influence on Dodgson.  Supposedly many edifices and people surrounding the school inspired characters found in the story.  The guide for the tour suggested that the infamous tardy white rabbit was in fact Dean Liddell.  In addition he showed us the gardens where Dodgson may have thought of the rabbit holes. The River Thames was also quite inspirational to Dodgson, which is where he orated the story for the first time. The tour itself was indeed quite magical, clearly showing the power the book had on all of its readers.

Old Sheep Shop a.k.a Alice's Sweet Shop

The fondest memory I have while being at Christ Church was visiting The Old Sheep Shop where Alice Liddell purchased sweets. Now the store is entirely devoted to Alice for her fans across the world.

Sources: http://www.aliceinwonderlandshop.co.uk/

http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/alice5.html

I came across this gruesome yet fascinating article by Christopher Benfey in The New York Review about Reed Bontecou, a surgeon-photographer during the Civil War. This article is relevant to our discussion of prison photography as well as photography in general as it gives a glimpse at what early photography was being used for in the United States. It is also a very sobering article about the realities of war. Warning! The images in the article are quite graphic.

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/nov/28/someone-elses-children/

The first set of three images is just like the Irish prison photography we looked at earlier in the semester. The same uncertainty about how exactly to use the new medium of photography is evident in these images just as it was in the Irish political prisoners’ images. The one on the right is seen from head to toe in a profile pose unbefitting the image’s purpose as identification and not a decoration.

The third image is also immensely fascinating as it appears upon first glance to be a very beautiful photograph of a young man in a sensual pose, set in an oval frame with soft vignette edges.  It reminds me a lot of the Julia Margaret Cameron’s photograph of Ellen Terry. What the photo actual depicts is a young man having his leg removed due to gangrene, making the facial expression and the body language of the young man as well as the photographer’s choices even more interesting.

The Civil War was unlike any previous war, greatly due to the rapidly advancing technology. Weaponry was becoming increasingly deadly and destructive and as a result injuries and surgeries were numerous. In addition to this, the introduction of photography allowed the documentation of said destruction and the rendering of the people affected by war and devastation to be captured forever.

In my English 231 class on British Romanticism we have been reading poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge such as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner from 1798, a gothic poem about a ghost ship and its captain.  I greatly enjoyed reading this poem and found it very enchanting and interesting, and was even more intrigued when I noticed the illustration that was offered along with the text.  The illustration was by Gustave Doré, the same illustrator of the book we looked at in class, Doré’s London. The illustration, as well as the poem, really stood out in my mind and I found myself examining the poem and illustration as we have been examining photography in class.

It is a hauntingly beautiful image of the ghost ship surrounded by ice, a quite different scene than the street images I had previously associated with Doré.  This illustration is beautiful for several reasons: its symmetry and even distribution of black and white as well as its ethereal qualities.  In the poem, the crew of the Mariner’s ship drops dead after he hastily kills an Albatross, causing angelic spirits to come temporarily bring them back to life.  I believe this image foreshadows the coming of the spirits, as the ice seems to be alive and moving, and the Albatross still soars in the sky.

This image conjures up ideas of religion, as well.  There is a defined halo in the sky above the ship; just like pictures we have seen of people with halos above their heads to signify godliness.  Here is symbolizes that the cursed ship is in fact protected by holy spirits.

Upon further research, I found an entire collection of Doré illustrations that accompany the Rime.  This one in particular reminded me of the London images we discussed in class:

It depicts the happy, bustling wedding scene from which the Mariner abducts the wedding-guest so that he may tell him his story.  It is quite a lot like the image of Ludgate Hill in that Doré also chooses to create the illusion of people on top of people on top of people with little to no space between, and seeming to go on forever.  I believe Gustave Doré chose to use this same aesthetic as seen in the busy London streets to depict the jubilance and abundance of life that existed at the wedding which the Mariner interrupted in contrast to the vast emptiness of the ocean, especially when the crew was gone and only the Mariner remained.

One of the most rewarding aspects of reading Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland for the first time was the fact that it was the original story, not illustrations or new connotations I have been exposed to for most of my life. I thought it was very refreshing to see a story portraying characters in different ways. It is also interesting that the one picture Lewis Carroll provided the illustrator with now dictates why Disney’s version held onto her classic skirt and apron outfit and long hair tucked behind a headband.

I opened the book thinking it would be a splendid tea party, but actually realized it was kind of scary. With each chapter, Alice seemed to approach a new hardship, instead of live a fairytale. This was not all fun and games. I was chronically nervous and slightly frightened when each new character was introduced. When Alice found the bottle labeled, “DRINK ME,” and was totally into consuming it, I was semi-paniced. Hopefully there would still be a happy ending?

This got me thinking: What do these connotations say about the original story? Society in general? Why isn’t it more popular for Alice’s story to be darker? Why wasn’t that sterotype preserved more? Perhaps that’s why Tim Burton made his new film – justice.

Before I read Alice, this is how I pictured her:

Or possibly this:

My dreams are not completely shattered, but it was interesting comparing what many children imagine Alice to be to Lewis Carroll’s original Alice.