Date of Award

5-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

College/School

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Department/Program

English

Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair

Jeffrey Gonzalez

Committee Member

Lee Behlman

Committee Member

Adam Rzepka

Abstract

In this thesis, I analyze Toby Fox’s 2015 roleplaying game Undertale alongside Lewis Carroll’s 1865 children’s novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. My reason for doing so is to investigate the narrative structures of the two stories, how they use metanarrative, and their use of game as a narrative tool in order to showcase the narrative lineage video games like Undertale share with Wonderland. Through this investigation I wish to show that the use of games and play as a vessel for or a part of narrative structure do not exclude works like video games from posing interesting questions and challenges for the reader, or in this case, player. Such questions, as posed by Undertale, include those of the moral obligation of the player as a protagonist of a story, the relationship between a player and their avatar in-game, and challenging narrative completion by the use of multiple routes and endings. An important way to show both the lineage of video games with novels and a game’s ability to pose intellectual and artistic challenges to the player is to discuss how game and play are used in the novel. Carroll’s clear use of game elements and symbolism blur the line between game and novel, making this well-studied novel an incipient narrative game. The foothold Wonderland creates for the study of videogames begs an advancement of scholarship to include them. Carroll’s great care in designing Wonderland and an implied desire to involve his audience in its making and telling makes him the precursor to modern game directors and designers, and it makes him an optimal starting point for advancing video game analysis in scholarship.

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