“OFF WITH HER HEAD!” WONDERLAND MEETS HORROR: ALICE IN WONDERLAND’S TRANSFORMATION INTO AMERICAN MCGEE’S ALICE.
LÓPEZ ORTIZ, LAURA Narrativa Inglesa Universidad de Murcia
1. ADAPTATIONS, TRANSFORMATIONS AND VICTORIAN UNDERLYING HORROR IN ALICE IN WONDERLAND. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, are probably one of the most famous works of fiction not only in English literature, but in the world. It is not difficult or strange to find quotes and references to Lewis Carroll‟s main creations in other books, films or even songs. Due to the fame of Alice and Wonderland around the world, they have been subject to an uncountable number of adaptations. As any other successful piece of literature, Alice in Wonderland has generated a wide variety of renditions in every possible media, such as theatre or cinema and even more recent and up-to-date media like the case of videogame adaptations. Classifying all the different types of renditions Alice‟s books have been adapted to could be a hard task. According to Phyllis Frus and Christy Willaims, we can distinguish generally between two different approaches to the process of bringing one story into a new media: adaptations and transformations. In the first case, they define it as follows: “An adaptation is a text that has been changed to suit a new purpose or environment (like a classic novel updated to a twenty-first -century setting. But, […], the new text is still recognizable.” (3) In the second case, transformations are described as: “[…] a text that reworks an older story or stories, making a transformation very much like an adaptation. But […] there are some that move beyond mere adaptation and transform the source text into something new that works independently of its source material.” (3) If we take a look at the many renditions of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, most of them may fit into the labels of adaptation or transformation. For example: 1951 Walt Disney‟s film Alice in Wonderland is an adaptation that combines elements from both books to bring the adventures of little Alice as an animated film addressed to a young audience. On the other hand, we can identify other works as clear transformations of Carroll‟s books such as the television miniseries Alice, which moves to a modern setting and is an independent piece of work not so much related to the books. From the definitions given, we could draw the conclusion that both adaptations and transformation usually look for meeting the tastes of new audiences and „suit[ing] a new purpose or environment‟ (Frus and Williams 3). As time goes by, trends disappear and new ones come up, so taste is continually changing. Therefore, instead of new stories, working with already existent characters and plots gives the possibility of making changes and variations. In
this way, they can be adapted or transformed to what the present audience demands more. This has encouraged directors and writers from the last century to consider new perspectives on classical works of literature, be it any period and author. For example, we could look at several film productions that employ Shakesperian plots to create something different: this is the case of the movie 10 Things I Hate About You, which can be considered a modern rendition of The Taming of the Shrew set in an American high school, transforming Shakespeare‟s text in a 20 th century romantic comedy film. This recent trend of exploring classics of literature in alternative and modern ways has been quite popular, taking into account the considerable number of productions that use elements or plainly adapt many of them, adding up-to-date settings or ideas. The case of Victorian literature is no exception. There have been several adaptations of Charles Dickens‟ novels as well as Bram Stoker‟s Dracula, for example. It is interesting to note, notwithstanding, a particular trend in modern renditions of Victorian novels: they usually magnify and emphasize the underlying horror atmosphere of some of these novels. First of all, it is important to remember that Victorian authors and audiences were quite fascinated by the strange and the supernatural despite the public conservative opinions. In fact, Gothic novels appeared at this time and they were incredibly successful. Many other works did not rely so much on the characteristics of that genre, but a hidden horror atmosphere under apparently innocent situations can be traced in certain works from this period. We have Grimm brothers and Andersen, whose recollections of fairy tales would be taken as inappropriate for present-day children. Furthermore, Victorians were not only fascinated by the strange in a fantastic perspective, but also with medicine and anything that could be considered mental deviations and madness. As Alan Beveridge notes, “many Victorian authors had personal experience of the effect of mental illness” (411) and it can be found in their own works, such as the case of Charlotte Brontë with Jane Eyre. In general, we could resume that topics which dealt with the macabre and madness were quite popular during Victorian years. However, as we have mentioned before, books that were not related to the genre of gothic novel also hinted to certain horror elements in their narrative. Despite being largely considered a children‟s book, Alice in Wonderland falls into that group. It has been stated by some scholars that there seems to be something sinister in Carroll‟s works, but not explicitly. “[Alice‟s books] are hilarious, yet puzzling – for one thing, some children cannot bear them: they are too disturbing for them; for another, they are quite mad – although the sceptical wit in their satire seems to belong to sanity, and the little girl protagonist, Alice herself, the epitome of sanity and of the capacity to survive and preserve oneself. They are regarded as
funny works – yet, as William Empson declared „death is never far out of sight in the books‟ [...].” (Holbrook 3) Even Martin Gardner, in The Annotated Alice, comments on the mild sadistic and violent elements that have shocked modern critics, since it is supposed to be a children‟s story – especially in relation to the constant threat of beheading from the Queen of Hearts. This is not so rare in children‟s literature, as it is also noticed by Holbrook: “In Alice in Wonderland his world is one in which there is none of the security of the normal experience [...]. As with many of the best children‟s stories, death and pain are never far away, as William Empson has noticed about Alice.” (61) Indeed, that feeling of insecurity and scariness has been applied to certain scenes of Disney‟s animated version of Alice in Wonderland, slightly relying on the horror elements. However, among the many transformations and adaptations that Carroll‟s books have undergone, some of them have relished more and more on the macabre and sadistic side of Alice‟s adventures. The story of Alice in Wonderland has attracted adult audiences as much as children, thus new renditions of the book try to transform it in order to appeal this new target audience of adults from 20th century. This may be taken as the motivation to emphasize the horror elements that the original Alice only hints vaguely: by transforming Alice‟s dream of Wonderland into a nightmare, Carroll‟s work becomes a product similar to popular horror movies that will most likely fit into the taste of modern adult audiences. Moreover, if this transformation takes the form a very recent and highly popular media such as videogames, it is evident that the final version of this rendition of Alice may attract people who were interested in the book, but it is also concerned with adapting and re-doing the elements of the original book in such a way that it appeals to a new, modern audience as well. Such an adaptation (or rather transformation) of Carroll‟s Alice in Wonderland already exists and it is the 2000 year‟s videogame American McGee’s Alice. 2. AMERICAN MCGEE’S ALICE: THE NIGHTMARE OF WONDERLAND. American McGee’s Alice is a computer videogame developed by Rogue Entertainment back in 2000. A sequel for the game was recently released in 2011 under the title of Alice: Madness Returns. However, in this essay we will only focus on the analysis of the first installment of the series. In spite of what has been implied in the previous part of the essay, it should be clarified that American McGee’s Alice is not an actual re-telling of the story with horror elements, but rather it acts as a sequel of Carroll‟s books featuring a grown-up Alice. Even if it looks for a wider audience, some knowledge of the original text is needed to fully
comprehend what happens. Interestingly, this trend of creating sequels of Alice has spread in other adaptations of Alice in Wonderland, as it can be seen in Tim Burton‟s Alice in Wonderland film where we follow the story of an older Alice who returns to Wonderland when trying to escape from an arranged marriage. In this rendition of Alice, Wonderland seems to be understood as a parallel world such as Narnia in C. S. Lewis‟s books, and it adds certain elements that deal with more explicit violence. However, it relies more on the adventure and fantastic. American McGee’s Alice, as we have noted, it is a sequel that is completely based on transforming Wonderland into a nightmarish place, emphasizing the hidden horror of the original book and creating new monsters to the experience. The story presents an older Alice confined in a mental asylum after the death of her parents and sisters, who died in a fire at their own house. Her sense of guilt over what happened, since she was the only survivor, made her gone almost mad after the incident. Under these circumstances, Alice visits Wonderland again in her dreams, just in time to find out that it has become a darker and unhappier place as opposed to the curious and intriguing world she remembered from her childhood. The new status of Wonderland, where its inhabitants are treated as slaves and violence dominates, is due to the realm of horror of the Queen, as it is explained to Alice at the beginning of the story by the Cheshire Cat. In the course of her new adventure, Alice finds out that Wonderland has become a nightmare because of her own mental problems: Wonderland is linked to her own, troubled feelings and that is the reason why it has changed into a twisted version of the place she remembered. Thus, in order to retrieve her sanity, she must save Wonderland from the Queen, who is revealed as a devilish projection of Alice herself at the end of the story. After defeating her, Alice wakes up again and leaves the asylum. First of all, American McGee’s Alice is an interesting transformation of its original text because the premise of the new context contains roots that link it to its own period: this new Alice does not change the setting and Wonderland to fit the horror theme. Instead, it adds elements that are very much related to the Victorian origin of the source material: in order to transform an English classic novel from the nineteenth century into a modern horror story, the developers of the game have introduced the topic of madness to its own rendition of Alice. As it has been stated in the introduction, Victorian period was distinguished because of his interest in mental illnesses and there was a proliferation of asylums to treat patients while such illnesses were studied fervently. Therefore, the game uses the asylum and the apparently morbid fascination with madness to justify in some way its twisted version of Alice and Wonderland. In fact, this is probably not an arbitrary decision since madness and Alice‟s books have always been associated due to the nonsensical nature of the original text and the many references to madness from characters of the novel, such as the Cheshire Cat.
“„But I don‟t want to go among mad people,‟ Alice remarked. „Oh, you can‟t help that,‟ said the Cat: „we‟re all mad here. I‟m mad. You‟re mad.‟ „How do you know I‟m mad?‟ said Alice. „You must be,‟ said the Cat, „or you wouldn‟t have come here.‟” (Carroll 89) It is addressed similarly in the chapter VII‟s title, „A Mad Tea-Party‟, where Alice has to face both the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, who the reader knows mostly because of their status as mad characters. However, American McGee’s Alice plays with the disturbing and sinister aspects of madness, which probably turn out to be more appealing and interesting for its 20th century audience who is looking for a horror movie-style story. How does American McGee’s Alice become a horror story, transforming the original elements of the books? Which are the key elements for this transformation? To what extent is the element of madness relevant in the process of transformation from the original book to American McGee’s Alice? As it has been repeated several times previously, the creators of the game have emphasized every little aspect of Carroll‟s works that hinted to a disturbing nature, exaggerating the results to the extreme. As they expressed in an article of Game Developer Magazine: “[…] the original body of works inspired the team to create something that would do Carroll‟s work justice. The IP gave us also unfettered creative freedom. Who‟s to say what works and what does not work in Wonderland?” (5) Under that premise, the team took all the liberties they considered necessary to adapt Alice to their purposes, but still maintaining very similar themes, patterns and icons that would take back to its source material. American McGee’s Alice is not a horror product that only takes references from Carroll‟s text, as other products from the genre do (e. g. Resident Evil film): it tries to develop the horror story within the context of the original text. Characters and places are easily recognizable for anyone who is slightly familiar with Wonderland – even some situations parody scenes from the book in a most disturbing approach. The first and most obvious step in the process of transforming Wonderland lies mostly on the use of violence. As we mentioned before in this essay, the original books never showed explicit violent situation – but it was sometimes hinted. Johannessen explains that „the Queen of Hearts threats of beheading are never acted upon, at least not as the reader can perceive, but are a constant threat to Alice‟ (14). However, in American McGee‟s version, the implicit violence
becomes real in Wonderland and Alice is forced to fight and kill enemies to survive – even her apron is shown with blood stains in the design of her character for the game. Thus, the Queen‟s threats become real because Alice suffers pain and violence on herself in the course of her adventure. Later on, the protagonist encounters two well-known characters from the books, the March Hare and the Dormouse. In American McGee’s Alice, they return as victims of the Mad Hatter, who tortures them in his own parody of a mental asylum. We could sum up that, while violence was a slight, non-explicit threat in the original books, it is moved to a prominent position in the nightmarish Wonderland of American McGee. Characters undergo a radical transformation in this new Alice rendition to meet the expectations of a horror tale, while still keeping certain elements that identify them with their original counterparts. Alice herself still has her apron and dress, as she is presented in John Tenniel‟s illustrations of the books. When the Cat receives her at the beginning of the game, he says to her: „And you‟ve picked up a bit of an attitude. Still curious and willing to learn, I hope‟, implying that this new Alice is different from the little Alice, but still retains some of the qualities that represented the original little Alice, such as curiosity. The White Rabbit still wears a waistcoat and is in a hurry, the Cheshire Cat grins all the time and the Mad Hatter has problems with clocks and Time. Even the enemies Alice has to destroy during her adventure in twisted Wonderland recall elements from the original books, such as the playing cards as guards for the Queen or the chess pieces that relate the adaptation to the second book as well. Other important characters appear evil monsters that must be defeated by Alice, as in the case of the Duchess, who was an already slightly frightening character in the novel. The Jabberwocky, the monstrous creature from Carroll‟s poem that Alice discusses with Humpty Dumpty in Through The Looking-Glass, appears as a major enemy for Alice in American McGee‟s Wonderland as well – something that also happens in Tim Burton‟s film, for example. Despite having resemblances to the original characters, all of their characteristic traits are exaggerated and their appearances have changed to suit the macabre environment that surrounds them. Thus, the Cheshire Cat for example has become quite „mangy‟, as Alice points out at the beginning of the game, and acts as an enigmatic and cryptic guide for Alice – as he did in the original text when he indicated to Alice where she could go. The Mad Hatter is transformed into a madder, sadistic character who runs an asylum and who is still obsessed with time. The White Rabbit looks like a devilish rendition of the innocent rabbit, with claws and teeth stained with blood. The Queen of Hearts is the character that changes the most and resembles very little of the original character: she is still scary, but she does employ violence explicitly and in the end is revealed to be a projection of Alice‟s inner consciousness itself. However, her constant yelling „Off with her head‟ is maintained to reinforce the radical violence that characterizes her.
Places and scenery are also important in analyzing the changes that the original Alice has undergone in American McGee’s Alice. First of all, we must bear in mind that many places have been added for the sake of gameplay, since we are talking about a videogame. However, the game relishes a lot on its visual aspects. Some of these sceneries have direct links with chapters, places and situations of the original source, empowering the intertextuality between game and book. For example, the Pool of Tears level refers to chapter II of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland; and the level Through The Looking-Glass is an explicit reference to the title of the second book. Furthermore, this intertextuality is reinforced in two parts of the game: firstly, during the introductory clip we can observe pages from the book with Tenniel‟s illustrations, but as the video goes on those illustrations and text from the book are modified to tell the new story (namely: the fire at Alice‟s house). Secondly, when the player arrives to a certain castle in the game, it can be noticed that the walls of the castle are covered with real images of Tenniel‟s illustrations and even portraits of Lewis Carroll himself. In both cases, the developers are creating a direct link between the original source and adaptation by means of inserting actual elements of the novel and its origins. On the other hand, there are places that instead of adapting and referencing places from the books, they add new elements to create the horror and macabre atmosphere that the product is looking for. This is related to topic of madness included on the game‟s story, as we mentioned previously on the essay, and we will take a closer look at it. Madness plays a major role in the transformation of the original Alice to the final result seen in American McGee’s Alice: the story happens precisely because of Alice‟s mental problems while she is shut away in Routledge asylum. But this is not only important as part of the Alice‟s background story in American McGee‟s rendition: it also influences the context of Wonderland more than it may seem at first sight and it usually redirects the spectator to Victorian topics associated with medical practices at the time. A good example can be found in the level Skool Daze. When Alice visits the place, she encounters little children similar to dwarves that produce disturbing sounds and look mad, thus giving the impression that the place acts as a sort of madhouse. Indeed, the player can see posters hanging all around the place with drawings and sketches of the human body and more interesting, there is one poster where the word „Phrenology‟ is written. Phrenology is a pseudoscience focused on the study and measurements of the skull, since it was believed they would help to understand human conduct and how brain worked. Phrenology was a rather popular thinking during the 19th century and it is referenced in other novels from the time such as Dracula, for example. Later on, Alice is kidnapped by the Mad Hatter and finds herself in an asylum where torture is well present in the environment. While trying to escape from there, the player can witness other patients that resemble the little mad children from Skool Daze as well, all of them jailed in cells. By making references to popular medical practices of the time while using this imagery of madness,
asylums and cruelty, the game‟s developers reinforced American McGee’s Alice roots as a transformation of the original Alice novel into what would look like a Victorian horror tale for a 20th century audience. 3. CONCLUSION: THE VALUE OF AMERICAN MCGEE’S ALICE IN RELATION TO THE ORIGINAL TEXT. Alice in Wonderland cannot be regarded as a disturbing account of a mad girl whose delicate mental state makes her imagine a nonsensical place as Wonderland. The context of the novel is different and even if it still stands out among many children book from its time for not being filled with morals and advice on what is good and bad (a characteristic Carroll slightly laughed at through the Duchess in Through the Looking-Glass, in fact), it is still an entertaining novel more interested in puns, riddles, inside-jokes and a certain deal of satire among many other elements. However, time changes the perspective of works. What Alice meant at its time of publication may have nothing to do with what a present-day audience understands when they think about Alice and Wonderland. Nowadays, the account of Alice‟s adventures may be experienced in a different way and the readers may not perceive it as people from the nineteenth century did: some traits of the novel can get lost, such as the satire, since 20th century people may not be familiar with politics and social problems of the Victorian period; but, at the same time, new messages are conveyed through the perspective of a modern audience with new ways of thinking and different cultural backgrounds. The unique nature of the world Carroll created in Wonderland has generated curiosity and interest in all kinds of people, from scholars to average citizens. Some were fascinated by it, others were even afraid of the feeling of nonsense and madness that dominated over Wonderland. As we quoted at the beginning of the essay, Holbrook states that many children are disturbed by a place like Wonderland and that there is always an implicit feeling of insecurity in the story of a little girl trapped in such a world. This dark perception of Wonderland seems to be more present in modern perspectives of Alice in Wonderland than in those of its own time. At least, it is during the 20th century that the most disturbing and dark aspects of Wonderland have made their appearance – and that is thanks to adaptations. It may seem that modern audiences are more used and enjoy consuming horror works on a daily basis, becoming a popular genre nowadays. While most of these renditions of Alice‟s books are satisfied with slightly darkening certain events or adding imagery that looks more into the disturbing side of Wonderland, American McGee’s Alice seems to be next logical step into this new trend of regarding Wonderland as a scary place where danger lies behind every corner. Moreover, the game transforms Alice‟s story into one where madness is the key element in the process of twisting Wonderland. It looks like a mere
excuse to produce a horror-movie storyline for a videogame, but despite its simplicity it is still interesting how the madness element does make sense in a new rendition of a novel from the Victorian period, where asylums and mental illnesses were a recurrent topic – both at the time and in subsequent works of fiction set in the nineteenth century. Developers of the game could have resorted to many different settings to create a horror story out of Alice in Wonderland, paying less attention to the material they worked with. But they decided to introduce madness as a key element in the end. As it has been stated before, American McGee’s Alice does not only transform its source material and invents to satisfy its own purposes, but it creates a macabre rendition of Wonderland using elements and topics that are familiar with the original period of the novel. Therefore, in my opinion, the value of American McGee’s Alice as a transformation or adaptation of Carroll‟s book resides in that it manages to convey the original text with the horror genre in a way that it does not forget its Victorian roots and, moreover, plays with them to combine both elements. From the point of view of an analysis of Alice‟s adaptations, the merits of Rogue Entertainment‟s game lie there. In conclusion, when we witness the twisted Wonderland in which we are introduced at the beginning of American McGee’s Alice, we know we are not facing a close adaptation of the original books and that it is more concerned with morbidity and horror, becoming an independent work to a certain extent. However, at the same time, we can feel that Wonderland and its inhabitants are still recognizable and alive behind the nightmare of blood, violence, horror and monsters.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Carroll, Lewis and Martin Gardner. The Annotated Alice. Great Britain: Penguin Books, 1986. Frus, Phyllis and Christy Williams. Beyond Adaptation: Essays of Radical Transformations of Original Works. USA: McFarland & Company, 2010. Holbrook, David. Nonsense Against Sorrow: A Phenomenological Study of Lewis Carroll’s Alice Books. London: Open Gate Press, 2001. Johannesen, Finn-Henning. Development of Alice’s Identities within Adaptations. Master Thesis. University of Tromso, 2011. < http://www.ub.uit.no/munin/handle/10037/3541> “Rouge Entertainment‟s American McGee‟s Alice” Game Developer Magazine. March 2001. 15th Oct. 2011. Rothfield, Lawrence. “Medical”. A Companion to Victorian Literature & Culture. Ed. Herbert F. Tucker. Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 1999.
All images belong to Rogue Entertainment & Spicy Horse.
