A Victorian Experiment on Children's Literature: Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies

Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies, once regarded as a prelude to the Golden Age of children's literature in Britain, has suffered a drastic decline in its reputation since WWI. Because of its open didactism and racial bias, it became not very attractive in the modern literary market except for in an abridged form. Recent critics try to read it more as a document of social debates over child labour, aftermath of industrialization, Darwin's theory of evolution and the church's reaction to it, rather than a fairy tale for children. This thesis tries to read The Water-Babies as a unique experiment on the form of children's fiction, combining the basic elements of fairy tale imported from the Continent during the Romantic period with the contemporary social issues, while making itself into a parody of traditional fairy tales. First of all, Kingsley intended his work as a vehicle for the useful instructions for the young readers, working for reconciliation between Darwin's theory of evolution and Christian faith. However, while teaching the young readers to be an ideal English gentleman, he tries to deny his didactic intentions to say that readers do not have to believe what they read as it is only a fairy tale, a make-believe for fun. Full of digressions and contradictions, the complex narrative flow of The Water-Babies does not seem to be easily understandable for the young readers. Moreover, the explicit racialism and colonialism developed from its defense of evolution theory makes it unsuitable for the modern standard of political correctness. When read as an experiment on the form of fairy tale rather than an instructive tale for children, The Water-Babies gives more significant insights into the development of the Victorian literary fairy tale for adult readers as well as children, and its role as a medium for dealing with the contemporary issues.