Wonderland and Middle-earth: The Mythic Quest in the Dream/Fantasy World
Tez Türü: Yüksek Lisans
Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: İstanbul Üniversitesi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Edebiyat Fakültesi Bölümü, Türkiye
Tez Danışmanı: Melikoğlu, E.
Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2004
Tezin Dili: İngilizce
Özet:
Although Tolkien's The Hobbit: or There and Back Again and Carroll's
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland are related through the use of fantasy
and dream/fantasy respectively, they appear to be highly incongruous. One presents us the adventures of a hobbit, a creature of fantasy
half the size of a human being with large hairy feet, and the other the
ordeals of a human girl on the brink of adolescence. However, it is the
purpose of the present study to illustrate that the same quest patterns
underlie these two works. Both writers send their central characters out
into an alien world to fight their battles and attain the ultimate aim
of the quest: self- definition. The individual quests of the hobbit and
the girl assume cosmic/mythic dimensions through a cluster of references
to Nordic, Celtic, classical and Biblical mythology. The Introduction
of the present study is devoted to the definition of fantasy and
dream/fantasy. In Chapter 1, the theory of fantasy is applied to Alice
's Adventures in Wonderland and The Hobbit: or There and Back Again to
see to what extent these works meet the criteria and definitions it
proposes. In Chapter 2, the quest pattern is defined and discussed as
well as applied to the two works. Chapter 3 examines how the individual
quest pattern in the two fictions is transfigured into a larger
cosmic/mythic quest through a discussion of closely related Nordic,
Celtic, classical and Biblical mythology. In Conclusion, it is
emphasised that fantasy depicts reality and its blurry demarcation
between good and evil through the quest pattern and many mythical
elements which render a text universal.