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영어

Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is a fairy tale but readers are often at a loss to its uneasy feeling in the book. The feeling of unease and strange unfamiliarity from the fairy tale approaches us through the familiar objects and circumstances. This uncanny feeling is the most common feature readers find in the book. According to Freud, there is the uncanny when the desires oppressed or surmounted in the past return to the familiar context of the present. The grotesque and fantastic scenes such as the transforming body, automatism of the dead objects, ego-centric characters and their linguistic-logical irregularities in the book reflect the traces of the oppressed or surmounted. They become the uncanny when the protagonist contrasts them with the orderly reality of the present. This means the uncanny arises from the conflict between the desires oppressed or surmounted in the past and the present orderly reality which denies the past. The protagonist and the reader therefore experience the uncanny when they cannot escape from the simultaneous dual perspectives of the past and the present. Carroll’s book has many interesting characteristics including puns, logical problems, grotesque images among which the uncanny element is the most striking feature. The study of the uncanny, therefore, is a must step for the full understanding of fairy tales and fantastic literature as well as Carroll’s book.