Comments on Lewis Carroll’s Poem “Jabberwocky”

Meaningless Means Something

–Nonsense Language and Sounds in Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky”

“Wn a bby fst ts 2 kmnikt the wrds snd gibberish. ” No one knows what the baby is trying to say. The poem, “Jabberwocky,” written by Lewis Carroll, uses meaningless speech to either frustrate or amuse the reader. When trying to pronounce the nonsense words in the poem, the sounds of the words come out as gibberish. The sounds are the important element of the poem. Often, people like to hear poets read in languages they cannot understand. A woman leaving a reading by the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz said she was glad he’d read some of his work in Polish because the language sounded exciting, like horse hooves over cobblestones.Sometimes a poem can mean little or nothing, yet the stimulus of words alone wins our attention. Some poets can even invent words themselves. Carroll combines two words (portmanteau) into one word to compose those weird sounds and words in the poem. In a unique way the meaningless words combine with recognizable words to create a poem almost comprehensible. The language and sounds allow a reader to reflect back on the concept of how to communicate Carroll’s theme of survial of the fittest, and besides the battle between animals, Carroll creates a battle for the reader to understand the language and sounds.For an animal or reader to survive in Caroll’s poem it must kill before being killed, or understand the language before reaching the end. The setting of such survival is the forest, and Caroll’s forest is a fantasy land where words are foreign to the reader. “He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back,” (Carroll, 36) has reference to survival of the fittest. The head becomes the trophy of victory for the hunter that killed the Jabberwocky. Carroll emphasizes the word head by rhyming it with dead. The connection relates to how the marksman killed the Jabberwocky. He or she uses his or her brain (head) to kill the Jabberwocky (dead). The technique of hiding behind a tree and killing the animal by surprise is also survival of the fittest. What allowed the connoisseur’s victory was skill. Soon the hunter will be on a wall by another’s expertise. To further understand the meaning of this quote. the foreign language must be translated. “Galluping,” is questionable; it almost sounds like galloping on a horse. In this poem the hunter was on his high horse while the reader follows behind to comprehend.

The first stanza is full of most of the nonsense sounds that intensifies the battle. The way Carroll invented such meaningless words is almost comical. “Twas billig and the slithy toves,” (Carroll, 36) does not seem to actually say anything, and it is funny how the words sound when spoken. If Carroll’s Humpty-Dumpty theory was accepted, a theory of two words with different meaning are combined into one word, (Hunter,193), then one could translate the meaning of the stanza. Consider “brillig” as describing the time of day. “Bril” could be derived form brilliant, and “lig” could be derived from light. When combined the words brilliant light would describe mid-afternoon. The first stanza also gives the idea of the land of animals. “All mimsy were the borogoves,” (Carroll, 36) could be translated as “All quiet were the animals.” Mimsy could be related to a mime, and borogoves express the idea of an animal.

The second stanza concludes that the poem is describing the “Jabberwocky” as an animal. The descriptive language helps the reader to imagine such an animal as strong and fearless. “The frumious Bandersnatch,” (Carroll, 36) is descriptive but also displays an orthodox sound when spoken. “Frumious” is a word like a portmanteau where the word fuming and furious are combined, (Hunter,193). Also “Bandersnatch” could derive from a bandit that steels and kills. The capitol letter also indicates it as being a proper name of an animal. The exclamation point at the end pushes “Bandersnatch” to be stressed. The emphasis gives the “Jabberwocky” (Bandersnatch) warning to stay away from it. Referring back to survivors of the fittest, an animal must kill before it is killed.

The four other stanzas continue to demonstrate nonsense languages and sounds. “O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!,” (Carroll, 36) is a line that rolls off the tongue . One would want to say that it was a fabulous day! The Jabberwocky is dead. The mind reads what it wants to read, and the mind will not recognize such meaningless language. Carroll could also have no real definition of “frabjous” and the other words. He might have changed letters around to compel his reader to the sounds of the letters and only the sounds. Also, the pointless speech would only be for a satire poem that Carroll wanted to create. Sounding out the unrecognizable words could be an amusing experience.

The last stanza of the poem is a repetition of the first stanza. Why did Carroll write the same stanza twice into one poem? Maybe like the idea of a portmanteau, Carroll wanted to combine the same stanza twice into one poem. Going deeper into thought, Carroll repeated the stanza to describe a pointless fight. The hunter will continue to hunt pray like the Jabberwocky until the marksman is killed. In the poem dexterity killed the Jabberwocky. “So rested by the Tumtum tree,” (Carroll, 36) describes the actual skill of using a tree for camouflage. The tree is the Dumdum and covers up the hunter’s stupidity. Is the Jabberwocky harmless? The forest people could have invented a wise tale about the creature for amusement. What the hunter killed was part imagination and part real; the way Carroll’s poem is.

The sounds and nonsense language are important elements of the poem. At the same time, we can use the grammar of the sentence to help us imagine the meanings of the nonsense words. The poem is playful and frustrating at the same time. We might say it “plustrate.”

Works Cited

Carroll, Lewis. “Jabberwocky.” The Discovery Of Poetry. 2nd Edition. Ed. Frances Mayes. Orlando: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1987.

Hunter, Paul J. Footnote. The Norton Introduction to Poetry. 6th Edition. Chicago: Norton, 1996.