Dorothy
Lucy Alice
Lucy
Lucy Alice Alice Alice
Lucy Alice Do rot hy Dorothy Lucy
Dorothy
Preface An ordinary girl with an overactive imagination, bored of her mundane life, decides to explore. To find something outside of her normal. Something unknown. This girl opens a wardrobe door. Tumbles down a rabbit hole. Travels by hurricane. To another world. A fantastical and magical land far away from her own. A world in color, where witches prevail, cats leave behind their grins, men are missing their hearts, and where there is only winter. Never Christmas. These worlds seem an adventure away from our own, as distant as the number of steps between ourselves and the library where these stories reside. These characters do not seem similar to our friends and neighbors. These lands do not resemble our town, our street, or our country. However, this distance between the fantastic and the familiar is not as far as one may think. These worlds are as known to us as our own. They reflect and provide a commentary on our own societies. Our own faith. Our own growth and philosophy. Is it a girl falling down a rabbit hole into a nonsense world, or our social norms and societal classes being challenged? Is it a girl stumbling into a world of winter with a witch as cold as ice, or a story of the redemption provided through salvation? Is it a girl swept up into a hurricane landing in a shining land of color, or an insightful look into the fiscal problems of our own nation? These are some of my favorite stories, known to me since childhood. The imagination that these tales cultivate, and the literary heroines they contain, are beloved. When deciding upon three people and their connection for this project, I remembered them. Alice, Lucy, and Dorothy. Girls who I wanted to be friends with when I was younger. Girls who I thought so lucky to have the chance to exist in their own magical worlds. I still hold these, and other, fictional heroines close to my heart, and I wanted to honor them in some form for this project. So, I began to search, for a connection between them. What deeper meaning could bind three of my literary friends together? With stories and settings so vastly different, what could they possibly have in common? Then is when I realized, that is exactly what they have in common. The settings of their stories, these magical lands, are not so different. Not so distant from our own. Research led me to discover that these otherworld’s landscapes are a commentary on our own. On our own society, faith, and government. That is where the connection between Alice, Lucy, and Dorothy is found. In this book I aim to express the layers in their stories, showing how the fantastical is a thinly veiled critique of the familiar. Alongside the layered portraits of these three heroines will be their story. Retold to find a new light shed on the stories, revealing the layers of symbolism. Revealing the criticism and observations within the narration. The goal of this book is to introduce and expound upon not only the connections between these three stories, but also the connections between these heroines and you. The reader. And your own society, government, neighbors, country, and faith. So, without further ado. Let me introduce to you my friends. Alice and Lucy and Dorothy.
A l i c e Alice Alice There once was a young girl who was more interested in pictures than words. More interested in the colorful and nonsensical than the orderly and rules. When a rabbit with a pocket watch ran by, she followed. Why not? It was not normal, not something you see every day in Victorian England. Not in the English world of society and their rules. A rabbit with a pocket watch was very rare indeed. So the girl followed the rabbit. Without the decorum expected of a young lady. And she fell. Down, down, down. The rabbit hole seemed endless. But then, She landed. In another world. Wonderland. Where everything and everyone threw logic and sense out the window. There were no etiquette rules at the tea party she attended. Just half cups of tea and riddles with no explanations. The monarchy was different. Here in Wonderland the Queen broke hearts and removed heads, while the King looked on. An ornamental piece at the side of the ruling Queen. Temperamental with no mercy, she demanded her roses to be red. Demanded to know who ate the tarts. But when left with crumbs and white blooms, it became the Wars of the Roses. Wonderland, an adventure filled with and powered by curiosity. A search for knowledge and a lesson in growth. A young girl traversing adolescence in a nonsense world.
Alice, and her Wonderland that she travels to is more familiar than first realized. Wonderland takes the societal rules held in high esteem by English society of the day and turns them on their head. The decorum and formality of our world’s rules are replaced with illogical and confusing conversations. This leads the reader to more closely consider. Is Wonderland really the world filled with mad people? Or does Alice’s adventure shed light on the madness of our own society?
L u c y Lucy Lucy There once was a young girl who was interested in exploring. She had to travel with her brothers and sister far from her home and mother. There was a war. So she went on an adventure to the Professor’s house in the country. Where there was open space and games to play instead of smoke and bomb-filled streets. In this house there were many rooms. And lots of boredom. So her siblings decided to play a game. Hide-and-seek. And the young girl hid. She climbed through the coats in the wardrobe. Back and back and back. Then she landed. In the snow of another world. Where there was only winter, but never Christmas. Legends told of a lion who ruled with majesty and power. Reality told of an evil and manipulative witch. The young girl brought her siblings. They explored this new fantastical world. But one betrayed them all. To the evil witch, for an earthly temptation. He now needed salvation, he needed the lion. The siblings found the lion, who brought back creatures from the dead. Who raised an army to defeat the witch. Who gave his perfect life for the sinful boy. But then. The stone table broke. A magic deeper than any other. The lion raised from the dead, poised to help the siblings. Help them defeat the evil witch. In this world of Narnia. And in their own. Lucy Pevensie’s adventure through Narnia, found in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, is a familiar analogy to an aspect of our own world. The Christian faith. The depictions are obvious. A sinless savior giving his life for the traitor. We find our own selves in Edmund, a sinful creature needing salvation. The parallel is also strong between the Narnian’s Stone Table and the curtain that tore in two after Jesus’ crucifixion. Aslan tells Lucy that he goes by another name in her world, and this name is also recognizable in our world.
Do rot hy Dorothy Dorothy There once was a young farm girl who was surrounded by family. And loved her home. Living in Kansas however meant horrible weather. Hurricanes. She tried to join her family in the storm cellar, but she could not make it. The door shut. So she ran into her house, hid under the bed. The storm hit. And her house flew. Up, up, and up. Then she landed. In a technicolor world, full of witches and munchkins and flying monkeys. Where the road of yellow bricks led to the epicenter of Oz. The Emerald City. Where social hierarchy determined your quality of life. A caste system of creatures, each land controlled by witches. Good and Wicked. Desperate to return to her home and family, the young girl follows the Yellow Brick Road, with the Silver Slippers provided by Glinda. The Good Witch. She travels to the Emerald City. And the Wizard of Oz. Whose magic can surely return her home. Along the way she meets several traveling companions. A brainless scarecrow. Or a typical American farmer? A heartless man of tin. Or an underprivileged factory worker? And a cowardly lion. Or a Populist hero? She avoids wicked witches. She easily walks along the road, in her Silver Slippers. Her friends stumble. Upon reaching the Emerald City and realizing the Wizard’s sham, she must kill the Wicked Witch of the East, so she can return home. A bucket of water and three clicks of her heels later, she is home. Back with her family whom she loves. Dorothy Gale’s travel to the land of Oz seems like a fantastical tale of a magical land, and a lesson on the power of familial love. Or is it? Upon looking closer at when and where the tale was written, the symbolism emerges. Oz (the abbreviation for ounces) is a commentary upon the fiscal issues in America’s government. Dorothy’s friends each stumble upon the golden road, which has lost its value. But she travels safely, in her shiny new silver slippers. The characters, social and governmental structures are parallel to our America back then. A call to action and change, thinly veiled in a story of adventure.
A Note from the Author Layers, layers, layers. That is the mantra of this project. How to visually depict the layers of symbolism and parallels found in each story. Once I had decided upon my three literary heroines as the featured portraits, I began to research their stories. I found many articles on each book with varying credibility and thoughtfulness. I did finally find some key writings that helped me identify all of the character parallels and symbolism within each story. Then I narrowed down my focus on each story. I decided to depict the social commentary in Alice in Wonderland, the religious analogy in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, and the fiscal symbolism found in the Wizard of Oz. Each portrait is comprised of three layers, the top portrait drawing, the underpainting, and a page from the respective book. The top layer of each portrait was created with ink pens on transparent tracing paper. I briefly looked at some reference pictures, but since the girls are fictional, their features and composition stemmed largely from my imagination. They are stylized, drawn in a style seen in the illustrations found in the books. The illustrations in all three books are similar, black and white sketchy drawings with a lot of cross-hatching used for shading. The underpaintings were created with art markers and pens on another layer of transparent tracing paper. With each of these layers I tried to visually depict key objects related to the symbolism in each story. For Alice, it was the teapot, dormouse, playing cards, and pocket watch that related to the story’s commentary on English society. Lucy’s story relates to the Christian faith, thus the lantern-turned-cross, and the broken stone table. Finally, Dorothy’s story in Oz is symbolic of the fiscal state of America during the time the book was written, so I created the iconic Emerald City skyline out of dollar signs, with a Yellow Brick Road made of gold bars. The portrait drawings and underpaintings were both originally created on transparent tracing paper, with the intention of physically layering them on top of one another. However, I decided to scan each layer, including the book pages, onto my computer and then played with the opacities in Photoshop. I brightened the underpaintings, erased parts of the portraits, and changed the opacities to blend the layers together. Once I finished my portraits, I placed them into my layout. The typeface used for the copy of my book was chosen as it is similar to the serif typefaces in the stories my project centered on. The headlines for the introduction page and this page also referenced the books. I also strengthened the concept of layers throughout the project by using type with different opacities for the titles of each portrait, and the cover design. Overall, the process of creating this book grew my decisionmaking and time management skills, my physical skills with a few different mediums, but especially my cognitive ability to successfully create and express connections.