Reading Response #2

Contribution of Setting 

In each novel I've studied, the setting is absolutely essential; it is where the majority of the important growth of character and plot take place and the reason this growth takes place. The story lines and underlying themes would simply not be exist without the presence of a setting contrasting the world the character had been accustomed to.

Seen in Carroll's Wonderland, size, time, and other conceptions of reality are relative. This may lead one to believe that this is a dream, and indeed, at the end of the novel Alice wakes up to her "real world". "At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her; she gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger, and tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on the back, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently bushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face. 'Wake up, Alice dear!' said her sister. 'Why, what a long sleep you've had!' 'Oh, I've had such a curious dream!' said Alice." (Carroll 102-103). However, I think Wonderland has a deeper thematic meaning: it is in fact our own world, seen through the utopian eyes of a child. This world that Alice creates in her mind is one which she has no control over, which frightens her, hence her continuous efforts to bring her reality back. She recites poetry she knows she knew by heart, only to have them come out distorted and misconstrued. "For some minutes it puffed away without speaking; but at last it unfolded its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth again, and said 'So you think you're changed, do you?' 'I'm afraid I am, Sir,' said Alice. 'I ca'n't remember things as I used - and I don't keep the same size for ten minutes together!' 'Ca'n't remember what things?' said the Caterpillar. 'Well, I've tried to say 'How doth the little busy bee,' but it all came different!' Alice replied in a very melancholy voice." (Carroll 33-34).

This idea that the setting is created by the imagination of the child is mirrored in Barrie's Neverland, which is a dwelling place where children can escape growing up and stay a child forever. It is mentioned within the novel that every child has their own Neverland, and although each is more or less an island, they are never the same from one to the next. "Wendy and John and Michael stood on tip-toe in the air to get their first sight of the island. Strange to say, they all recognized it at once, and until fear fell upon them they hailed it, not as something long dreamt of and seen at last, but as a familiar friend to whom they were returning home for the holidays," (Barrie 43). Barrie describes the map of a child's mind as a map of Neverland with no boundaries at all.

Likewise, in The Secret Garden, the setting of the flourishing garden at Misselthwaite Manor is absolutely essential. Without the intrigue and mystery brought on upon it, Mary would not have given in to her youthful instincts to discover it, and without that catalyst the story's central purpose would be demolished. Although this separate world Mary creates for herself is not necessarily organic to the mind, it serves the same purpose of escapism and embracing childhood. "'Eh!' he almost wispered, 'it is a queer, pretty place! It's like as if a body was in a dream.'" (Burnett 81). Essentially, although the secret garden does not appear in an alternate reality or dream world, Mary tends to it as if to make her perception of an ideal world come true, and with this, her imagination and childhood come alive. "The sun shone down for nearly a week on the secret garden. The Secret Garden was what Mary called it when she was thinking of it. She liked the name, and she liked still more the feeling that when its beautiful old walls shut her in no one knew where she was. It seemed almost like being shut out of the world in some fairy place." (Burnett 72).

Without the ubiquity of the invented worlds, the stories within these novels would not exist. The central purpose around these stories are to manifest the idea that children need these outlets of creativity and imagination, for without them they do not grow into who they become in later life.