Freak Fatale: The Nineteenth-Century Freak Show and Carroll\u27s Alice\u27s Adventures in Wonderland

This project examines how Alice in Wonderland uses images of freak women to actively voice—and ultimately contain— threatening femininity. This project examines several female characters in the novel, taking into account both textual analysis and visual analysis. This essay draws from a variety of primary source material, including various images and advertisements from nineteenth-century freak shows alongside primary source articles about freak show events in the Victorian period. The project compares female characters in Carroll’s children’s novel to contemporary accounts of freakdom in the nineteenthcentury