America, or Henderson’s Adventures in Wonderland

Henderson Dores, the main character of William Boyd’s Stars and Bars is of course not an ingenuous little Victorian girl like Lewis Carroll’s Alice. But in the same manner, he seems dumbfounded by the odd world in which the twists and turns of the plot take place. Is America in Stars and Bars similar to Alice’s Wonderland? Or is Henderson Dores interacting with his American environment in like manner as Alice in her Wonderland. First of all one should define the main features and characteristics of the “Wonderland” in The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland in order to affirm if Henderson’s travel through America is comparable. In Alice in Wonderland, the Wonderland is vacillating over an enchanted surrealistic world and a dreadful nightmarish place. Secondly Carroll’s Wonderland is highly illogical and contradictory, a place where the time is affected and where the strange protagonists are never what they seem to be. Thirdly this world is disorientating for Alice, and leads her to an identity crisis. One should also keep in mind that the Wonderland is displayed in Carroll’s novel to criticize the real world: Britain’s 19th century Victorian society. With these basic principles about Alice’s adventures in Wonderland, we are able to compare the notion of wonderland and see if it may apply to Henderson’s eventful moments in America. We shall see that America in William Boyd’s novel like Carroll’s wonderland is hesitating between an enchanted surrealistic place and a dreadful nightmarish one. America like Alice’s Wonderland is incomprehensible to the main character, which seems lead him to an identity crisis. But contrarily to Carroll’s Wonderland, Boyd’s America is not a utopian place (in the truest meaning of the word) used to criticize the society of the main character. On the contrary, the author depicts satirically America as an uncanny wonderland, the British society being implicitly the home and the source of