A Revolutionary Wonderland: Layered Didacticism in Chen Bochui’s Miss Alice (1931–1932)

Among Chinese adaptations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland , Chen Bochui’s Miss Alice (1931–1932) is the most complete and widely known one that targets young readers. This article examines how didacticism in this adaptation unfolds in much more complicated ways than existing studies may suggest. Drawing on the theoretical discourse on didacticism in children’s literature, including, in particular, Clémentine Beauvais’s conceptualisation of children’s literature as a future-bound didactic discourse, we argue that didacticism in Miss Alice is about not only the injunction to inculcate the Revolutionary Paradigm in children, but the adult’s desire for a striving nation that is transferred to the child. Moreover, a consideration of the historical documents concerning Chen’s views of children’s literature and education against the backdrop of early modern China allows one to understand the shift in the author’s treatment of didacticism, and the sense of angst that was typical of early modern Chinese intellectuals like him. The revolutionary Wonderland Chen portrays thus condenses key concerns in the field of early modern Chinese children’s literature, a complicated field imbricated with the May Fourth Movement (1919), other fundamental social and cultural reforms, and the nation-wide revolution. Examining the layered didacticism in Miss Alice also sheds a new light on why the Chinese critical tradition may particularly value the didactic purpose of children’s literature. It is perhaps fair to see the translation, reception, and adaptation of Carroll’s Alice as a microcosm of early modern Chinese children’s literature writing and scholarship.