The Function of Passive Voice in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: A Stylistic and Narrative Analysis

Abstract

This study compares passive voice in which Lewis Carroll wrote the novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and shows its stylistic and narrative functions. According to Quirk et al. (2010, p. 167) and Radford (1981, p. 27), passive voice clause offers mechanisms that help shift the cardinal emphasis from the performer of an act to the act or the object receiving the act. The mechanisms serve various linguistic functions. Carroll uses passive voice in many forms: agentless, adjectival, agentive, and pseudo-passives as a way of increasing the whimsy and surreal quality of the narrative.

Passive constructions without agent focus prevail as they indicate Alice’s lack of control and emphasize the unpredictable nature of Wonderland (Moaddab, 2014, pp. 1413-1418). Adjectival passives, which express a state rather than an action, place Alice’s attention more as a bystander, while pseudo-passives make her more helpless in a disorderly world (McIntyre, 2013, pp. 21-41; Baratta, 2009, pp. 1406-1421).

The first six chapters of this book were examined qualitatively. The purpose was to explain the passive function, both within the forms themselves and the narrative flow. The objective of the qualitative analysis was to develop the form of the passive and define its role of the passive voice in it, as well as in the narrative. The findings of the qualitative analysis show that Carroll utilized the passive voice as tactfully as he could within the limitations of Victorian writing. This study contributes to stylistics and narrative analysis by showing how grammatical voice functions as a tool of perspective, agency, and reader engagement in children’s literature.