In both Anne of Green Gables and Alice in Wonderland, the young girl protagonists are vivid dreamers with intense imaginative abilities far beyond the norm. The author has provided the characters with this quality as a tool for dealing with the many confusing and problematic situations they face as they grow into the mystifying world of maturity. Although the two girls face totally different sets of life circumstances, dreaming provides them both with a way of digesting and understanding the bombardment of information and insinuations of the adult world, of which children begin to become aware of at an early age. .

             In Anne's case, her dreams are waking and deliberate, and serve as a means of survival in, what has been up until the story begins, an intolerable sequence of events. Alice, on the other hand, who lives a rather gifted life, "falls" into her dream experience without warning. She is subjected to a sequence of bizarre scenes and characters, all of which she has taken from her waking life, and stirred with her imagination in a sleep state.

             Both Lewis Carroll, creator of "Alice," and LM Montgomery, author of "Anne, " lived during a time when a good child was one who strictly adhered to the rules of the home and church. Well-behaved children, especially girls, were not allowed to roughhouse or freely express themselves. Manners and etiquette were primary significant pieces of the educational process. Lewis Carroll, (actually Charles Dodgson) born in 1832, was fond of children, and was not prone to "put away childish things"(Carroll v). An Oxford math professor, he spent his free time with children, particularly girls, telling stories and taking photographs of them. A favorite of Carroll's, Alice Liddell, was part of a wealthy, proper family, as reflected in her character in both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. What may lie behind Carroll's fantasy written for Alice, is the rather boring, staid and restrained life she lives, being a child of privilege, as reflected in Through the Looking Glass.