Chasing the White Rabbit in Tokyo: 100 Years of Alice in Japan
Public Deposited- Last Modified
- September 29, 2023
- Creator
-
Johnson, Samantha
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
- Abstract
- Alice appears everywhere in Japan, from Lolita dress prints to Disney princess keychains, and even in manga. This thesis analyzes representations of Alice across time in the Japanese imagination. The first chapter explores the translation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland into Japanese, ultimately concluding that there are at least 2 Alice types visible within Japanese translations: the Meiji Alice and the Disney Alice. The second chapter considers manga as yet another avenue for Alice adaptation, exploring two mid-2000s manga that present contrasting takes on Alice’s identity. This chapter also considers the implications of a Gothic or Dark Alice, concluding that this type of Alice is nearly absent in the Western imaginary. The third chapter explores what it means to perform Alice in the everyday and in street fashion, finding that many Lolitas define Alice as a symbol of cute, and do not attach any shame to this lack of substance. At this point I incorporate data from informal interviews conducted in the summer of 2016 with students at Kanda University in Chiba, as well as with Lolitas in Harajuku, Tokyo. I conclude that the Japanese Alice is almost a stranger to Carroll’s. She has a darker side found in Kanai Mieko’s well-known 1972 short story “Rabbits” and contemporary Gothic Lolita fashion, as discussed in chapter 2. Notably, the parts of Carroll’s Alice story that evade direct translation into Japanese are often omitted, so that her Wonderland becomes simpler and very much a part of kawaii culture. This forms the backbone of the pure kawaii Alice of chapter 3 who is just an icon of cute, which may not be such a bad thing. This thesis argues that Alice splinters off into at least five “sub- Alices”: a Meiji Alice, a noir Alice, a male Alice, a pure kawaii Alice, and a Disney Alice, each with a unique Japanese-ness.
- Date of publication
- spring 2017
- Keyword
- DOI
- Resource type
- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Note
- Funding: None
- Advisor
- Driscoll, Mark
- Degree
- Bachelor of Arts
- Academic concentration
- Asian Studies
- Honors level
- Highest Honors
- Degree granting institution
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Graduation year
- 2017
- Language
- English
- Date uploaded
- April 28, 2017
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- Parents:
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