Abstract
This paper focuses on the importance of schema and context in the interpretation of
literary texts and its impact on reader and character identity. The understanding of
literary texts is aided and enhanced when a reader is able to create a text world in
their mind. A reader’s comprehension of a text is partly dependent on their
background knowledge, which forms their already existing schema. The reader’s
existing schema may be supported, challenged, or disrupted in a literary text, which
may lead to the creation of new schema and a new reader identity. The newly
created schema that might be similar to or different from the reader’s existing
schema makes a text world for them, helping them in textual comprehension and an
analysis of their self. This paper examines the first three chapters from Alice’s
Adventures in the Wonderland by Lewis Carroll in the light of these notions. Carroll
has been able to create a non-sense text world by manipulating the semantic
complexity of language, and leads the main character to self-search. The paper
draws on Elena Semino’s Schema Theory (1995) for the analysis.
Sameera Abbas, Rubina Rahman. (2013) Schema Disruption and Identity in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in the Wonderland, The Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences, Volume-21, Issue-3.
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