Jabbering About "Jabberwocky"



Jabberwocky



By Lewis Carroll

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand;

Long time the manxome foe he sought—



So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"

He chortled in his joy.



'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.



A chilling interpretation of Lewis Carrol's beast,
the Jabberwock



After today’s discussion of the nursery rhyme, “Vintery, Mintery, Cutery, Corn,” I suddenly thought of another similar poem, “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll, from his 1872 novel, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There.  In efforts to make sense of the rhyme, my side of the room pegged definitions on the first three nonsensical words, and more strangely, no one protested them, until Ms. Serensky pointed out that no, these words mean nothing in the English language.  Thus creates the parallel. If you read the posted poem, “Jabberwocky,” you should find, too, that most of the nouns, verbs, and adjectives in this work have no real meaning. Yet, you can understand Carroll’s poem from the articles conjunctions and few familiar words that link it together.  Much like the members of my circle today, I can easily assume some sort of meaning and completely understand the tale of a man slaying the “Jabberwock” beast.  Funny how subtle changes in the English language can play tricks on your mind, right?  This illustrates the purpose of Alice in Wonderland, a dream where she cannot discern the fantasy from reality, or at a smaller level, nonsensical words from the truth.  One might even call her insane.  This idea translates well to the children’s rhyme, “Vintery, Mintery, Cutery, Corn” because it too confuses reality from fantasy to put the reader in Alice’s place of disorder.  Therefore, it translates well with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest since it has this enigmatic poem as its epigraph. All three literary works prove that everyone has this insanity within them, from Alice, to readers of the children’s verse, to my AP English peers.  I think in Kesey’s novel, we will find a lot of this theme of illusion versus fantasy and how, though people get deemed insane for not knowing the difference, the two have a fuzzy, gray area, in which most people fall.