Every day now, people learn more about the world around them than medieval scientists in their entire life. Alice in Wonderland, a fairy tale by Lewis Carol, and Enchanted (2007) Disney movie are two peculiar stories about how a person reacts in an entirely new environment. This paper aims to analyze the two heroine’s transformation as they find themselves in entirely new settings referring to the main stages of the hero’s journey outlined by Joseph Campbell.
The two stories under consideration both represent heroes’ literal journey from ordinary to a special world. Alice, who lived in a dull reality, does not refuse the rabbit’s call to adventure, leading her to the fantasy location. At the same time, Giselle, an animated princess in Enchanted, is sent to Manhattan and turned into a real woman by the evil witch. In other words, a princess lacks the chance to accept or reject the call to adventure. Here is the first distinction: Alice is a strong character who decides what to do with her life when Giselle is a naive heroine who floats down the stream. Now the heroines are at the stage of interpreting the extraordinary world and activating their internal forces. At this moment, the attentive reader or viewer realizes that both stories are a metaphor for an ever-changing reality and people’s reaction to it.
Giselle’s most significant personal challenge is the riddance from the romantic views on life and accepting the reality out of her comfort zone. Nevertheless, like Alice, despite the new viscous and multi-layered system, to which Giselle does not belong, the girl still finds friends. Alice is more open to the modern world and gladly learns the principles of a fantasy society. She does not ask why the world she is in is exactly like that but gives them the right to their picture of life. The protagonists’ naivety does not seem at all feigned, but as if it is put in opposition to the ideas prevailing in the real world.
As a reward, the heroines get an insight: thanks to naive, innocent, and profoundly ignorant look at familiar things, Giselle and Alice see life in a completely new light, from such an unusual perspective that will put many things in their place. Nowadays, the feeling of surprise inevitably becomes a necessary and invisible option that there is no time to experience; otherwise, people will not survive in this information flow. At the end of the journey, heroes return to their ordinary world, enlightened and transformed (Vogler 4). Thus, Alice is back to a reality full of dreams, hope, and new experiences. Enchanted, however, ignores this stage as the girl remains in a special world where she finds her place. Thus, such an unexpected motion indicates the end of the journey.
In conclusion, the heroines of both stories are transferred into a new context, overcoming their challenges to begin to understand themselves and the world better. In this case, a much more important question becomes the one posed to Alice by the Caterpillar: “WHO are you?” (Carroll 60). Thus, movies and children’s stories are preoccupied with the people finding their place in the world. This is important for art in general – with its help, people are trying to comprehend life and themselves and their place in it.
Works Cited
Carroll, Lewis. Alice in Wonderland. S.L., Flame Tree Publishing, 2019.
Vogler, Christopher. “Joseph Campbell Goes to the Movies: The Influence of the Hero’s Journey in Film Narrative.” Journal of Genius and Eminence, vol. 2, no. 2, 2017, pp. 9–22.