Corporeal Taboos in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and in Its Contemporary Adaptations

6. Conclusion
I have examined how corporeality, spatiality and food taboos can be used in children’s literature to discipline the girl’s body or to endow it with tools for resistance against normalisation, and how the cultural construction of girlhood operates through texts written for children. By comparing a Victorian children’s fantasy book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to three of its contemporary adaptations / retellings, I have also attempted to prove that cultural perceptions of children are continuously changing, also pointing out that these perceptions are not solely reflected in texts, rather produced by them.
The basis of my analysis was Michel Foucault’s theories on disciplining the body. First, I have provided an overview of Foucault’s ideas, highlighting the historical shift behind disciplinary practices, then I have presented feminist revisions of these theories, which consider the role of gender in the disciplining of the body. I have also introduced the two main approaches of feminist criticism towards Foucault’s theories, arguing that focusing on the operation of normalising power is equally important as examining the possibilities of resistance, as the second approach is what would move feminist criticism forward, however, it is not possible without understanding the operation of normalisation in the first place. Then, I have provided examples of the particular on the female body, introducing the concept of corporeal taboos (Grosz 2003), othering (Thomson 1996), and feminine spatiality (Young 1980).…