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Jabberwock

Naming

Binomen

N/A

Morphology

Body type

Draconic

Intelligence

Sentience

Sentient

Sapience

Unknown

Ecology

Locomotion

Bipedal
Flight

Status

DD

Behind the Scenes

Universe

Alice's Adventures

"

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

"

The Jabberwock is a menacing creature, generally portrayed as a dragon-like beast, that is slayed by the protagonist of the poem "Jabberwocky". Alice finds this poem in a book in the dream-world that exists on the other side of the looking-glass, written in mirror-writing. When she holds the page in front of the mirror, she's able to read it, but finds the story difficult to comprehend due to a large number of nonexistent and nonsensical words.

The poem doesn't describe the Jabberwock in detail, save for being an extremely dangerous beast and having "jaws that bite [and] claws that catch". It's also mentioned as having "eyes of flame". It lives in the same woods as other perilous species such as the Jubjub Bird and the Bandersnatch. The protagonist manages to kill it with a "vorpal sword".

In the original book's illustration by John Tenniel, the Jabberwock is portrayed as a huge, reptilian beast with membranous bat-like wings that appear too small to support its weight in flight. It has gauntish limbs, a long sinuous neck and a long tail. Its body is covered in scales, but curiously, it appears to be wearing a waistcoat. Its feet are plantigrade, with three clawed toes, while its hands have four long dexterous clawed fingers. Its round head, resting atop the serpentine neck, possesses blank insectoid eyes, a mouth equipped with upper and lower incisor teeth like those of a rodent, a pair of long thin antennae, long whiskers on its cheeks and a pair of short tentacles or feelers protruding from the sides of its mouth.

Many other illustrators and depictions in adaptations have followed Tenniel's template to some degree, although others have opted to portray it as a more traditional dragon.

Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, by Lewis Carroll (1871)

Jabberwocky (1977)

The Muppet Show, s05e03 (1980)

Alice in Wonderland (1985)

Alice Through the Looking Glass (1987)

Jabberwock (2011)

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And as in uffish thought he stood,The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,And burbled as it came!"Jabberwocky" poem, fourth stanza The Jabberwock is a menacing creature, generally portrayed as a dragon-like beast, that is slayed by the protagonist of the poem "Jabberwocky".

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Alice through the Looking Glass

Wikipedia

The themes and settings of Through the Looking-Glass make it a kind of mirror image of Wonderland: the first book begins outdoors, in the warm month of May (4 May), uses frequent changes in size as a plot device, and draws on the imagery of playing cards; the second opens indoors on a snowy, wintry night exactly six months later, on 4 November (the day before Guy Fawkes Night), uses frequent changes in time and spatial directions as a plot device, and draws on the imagery of chess. In it, there are many mirror themes, including opposites, time running backwards, and so on.

The White Queen offers to hire Alice as her lady's maid and to pay her "Twopence a week, and jam every other day." Alice says that she doesn't want any jam today, and the Queen tells her: "You couldn't have it if you did want it. The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday-but never jam to-day." This is a reference to the rule in Latin that the word iam or jam meaning now in the sense of already or at that time cannot be used to describe now in the present, which is nunc in Latin. Jam is therefore never available today.

Chess

Lewis Carroll's diagram of the story as a chess game

Whereas the first book has the deck of playing cards as a theme, Through the Looking-Glass is based on a game of chess, played on a giant chessboard with fields for squares. Most of the main characters are represented by a chess piece, with Alice being a pawn.

The looking-glass world is divided into sections by brooks or streams, with the crossing of each brook usually signifying a change in the scene, and corresponding to Alice advancing by one square. Furthermore, since the brook-crossings do not always correspond to the beginning and ends of chapters, most editions of the book visually represent the crossings by breaking the text with several lines of asterisks ( * * * ). The sequence of moves (white and red) is not always followed. The most extensive treatment of the chess motif in Carroll's novel is provided in Glen Downey's The Truth About Pawn Promotion: The Development of the Chess Motif in Victorian Fiction.

John Tenniel's original 1871 illustration of the Jabberwock

Jabberwocky Themes
© 2019 Shmoop University.
Violence

The climax of "Jabberwocky" is violent indeed - a hallmark of the "epic ballad" form, of which this poem is a tiny sample. The warnings in the second stanza of the poem set up the danger, which is quickly followed up by the protagonist heading directly off to rid the forest of the wild and unseemly creatures that are described. Not only does the hero vanquish the most fearsome of his foes, but he also beheads him, dragging the bloody thing back in order to prove his might to his father. The violence here plays to our desire for good to stomp evil right into the ground.

In "Jabberwocky," the violent dismembering of the Jabberwock is representative of a human desire to annihilate that which threatens us.

The battle in "Jabberwocky" is crucial in placing this poem among older, "epic" poems that typically glorify violent encounters.

1. Do you think that "Jabberwocky" is too violent to be called a "children's poem"?

2. Why do you think that the battle, even though it's the climax of the action, only takes up two lines of the poem?

3. Do you think that this poem glorify things like hunting?

4. Can you envision an "epic adventure" that isn't violent? Why do the two so often go together?

In keeping with the "epic" scope of the poem, our protagonist's journey is no walk in the park. In order to triumph, he must first persevere. This theme is related to the theme of "Men and Masculinity" - it almost seems as if the protagonist has something to prove, as he hears his father's warnings and promptly goes out to find and vanquish the badness that lurks beyond. He seeks and seeks, and though we don't have a sense of the temporal element of the his journey (after all, we only get 28 lines), our hero's determination pays off. He's rewarded, as one might expect, with a joyous homecoming.

Perseverance

Perseverance In keeping with the "epic" scope of the poem, our protagonist's journey is no walk in the park. In order to triumph, he must first persevere.

1. Why do you think the protagonist is determined to find the Jabberwock, even after being told to "beware" by his father?

2. Do you think that there is a larger message about perseverance in "Jabberwocky"?

3. Does determination always lead to success? What is the definition of success, anyway? Simply triumph?

4. How does the long struggle fit into the overall action curve of the poem? How does it affect the reader?

The implication of a long search in "Jabberwocky" adds authenticity, even through the nonsense, to both the story and the protagonist.

The narrative in the poem is too compressed to give the reader a sense that the protagonist goes through any real struggle to find his adversary.

Good vs Evil

In "Jabberwocky," "Good vs. Evil" is linked with the theme of "Violence." When good (our hero) and evil (the Jabberwock) meet in this story, violence ensues. "Jabberwocky" pits the individual (one lone man) against a mythical beast. Since this beast doesn't exist in our world, it becomes something bigger, a kind of metaphor for Evil with a capital E. If it were simply human vs. human - say, white knight vs. black knight - you could draw the same conclusions, but perhaps the outcome would be less surprising. One small man triumphing over a big huge beast is an order of magnitude unto itself.

1. How do you feel about the scene that opens the poem? Do you think that it's an unequivocally peaceful scene, or is there uneasiness there?

2. Beyond the "beware," what indicators do we have that the Jabberwock is bad news? Why are those indicators threatening?

3. Why do we root for the human, and against the beast?

4. Collectively, what form does evil take in the narrative (we're not only talking about the Jabberwock here)?

We fear, and often label as "evil," that with which we are unfamiliar.

Evil in "Jabberwocky" takes the form of a beast because it makes evil seem alien and inhuman.

Men and Masculinity

Carroll first published a bit of "Jabberwocky" as a kind of satire of Anglo-Saxon verse, which might well be the "manliest" poetry there is (in addition to being the earliest in English). Think : a man goes out to fight a monster. While it's more complicated than that, Beowulf set the tone for centuries to come, and Carroll knew it. "Jabberwocky" is all about conquest, which has traditionally been considered the domain of the masculine. The fact that the protagonist, after hearing the dire warnings given him by his father, picks up his sword and heads out into the woods anyway, is one of those brave-but-maybe-unreasonable things that heroes tend to do in adventure tales. "Jabberwocky" is no exception.

1. Why do you think it is that men are typically associated with killing things with swords?

2. Couldn't the hero of "Jabberwocky" have been female?

3. How does this poem construct "the man" as a whole?

4. What are some other ways to define masculinity that are perhaps less violent? Can you find any instances of this in the poem?

The protagonist in the poem is stereotypically masculine.

The heroic figure in "Jabberwocky" - male and nearly foolhardy - is in keeping with the adventure epics after which the poem is modeled.

Man and the Natural World

"Man and the Natural World" might be the most interesting theme in the whole poem, because it's the one theme in which we can bring in the goofy language. How, you ask? Well, the "natural world" that Carroll creates certainly doesn't seem to have anything to do with the "natural world" that we inhabit, yet there are many similarities between the world of the Jubjub bird and the world of the ordinary owl. Carroll's positioning of hero vs. beast is essentially the age-old story of Man vs. Nature. While the theme "Good vs. Evil" also figures into "Jabberwocky," the Evil in this case is basically Stuff We Are Afraid Of In the Woods. Even the first peaceful stanza is full of unknowable, strange creatures doing unknowable, strange things. And they get significantly less peaceful when they return in the second stanza, because not all the evil has been banished.

1. How does the nonsense-verse impact your sense of the "natural" in this poem?

2. Is the outside (i.e., non-human) world in this poem a friendly place? Why or why not?

3. From beginning to end, how does "Jabberwocky" construct nature?

4. How is Wonderland similar to our land?

"Jabberwocky" is an example of man's desire to conquer nature.

The fantastic setting of the poem exploits both our fear of, and curiosity about, the unknown natural world.

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Alice through the Looking Glass The themes and settings of Through the Looking-Glass make it a kind of mirror image of Wonderland: the first book begins outdoors, in the warm month of May (4 May), uses frequent changes in size as a plot device, and draws on the imagery of playing cards; the second opens indoors on a snowy, wintry night exactly six months later, on 4 November (the day before Guy Fawkes Night), uses frequent changes in time and spatial directions as a plot device, and draws on the imagery of chess.

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Alice in Wonderland original illustrations

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Alice in Wonderland original illustrations

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"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

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"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad." "How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

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Jabberwocky Poem by Lewis Carroll - Interpretive Animation

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Jabberwocky By Lewis Carroll - Read by Benedict Cumberbatch

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Meshes of the afternoon is a short experimental film directed by wife-and-husband team Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid. The film's narrative is circular and repeats several motifs, including a flower on a long driveway, a key falling, a door unlocked, a knife in a loaf of bread, a mysterious Grim Reaper-like cloaked figure with a mirror for a face, a phone off the hook and an ocean. Through creative editing, distinct camera angles, and slow motion, the surrealist film depicts a world in which it is more and more difficult to catch reality.

With the original soundtrack - no music.

Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946) is a short, silent experimental film directed by Maya Deren. Like Deren's previous work, A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945), she explores the use of dance on film through the lens of commentary of societal norms, metamorphosis, and anthropomorphism. The film is notable for its disjointed storytelling and use of slow motion, freeze framing, and unique blend of stage dance and film.

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Meshes of the afternoon is a short experimental film directed by wife-and-husband team Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid. The film's narrative is circular and repeats several motifs, including a flower on a long driveway, a key falling, a door unlocked, a knife in a loaf of bread, a mysterious Grim Reaper-like cloaked figure with a mirror for a face, a phone off the hook and an ocean.

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A nostalgic male voice over and atmospheric music drive this narrative about time and death. High contrast, soft focused and textured black and white still images are sequenced as action footage. There are occasional dissolves and zooms, but mostly cut with movement between black and white shapes in opposing parts of the image. Throughout these images shake very slightly to give the feeling of movement.

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Sizewell and Dunwich

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Directed and filmed by Adam Scovell. Based on book ‘Hollway’ about Dorset linked to campaign for protection of ancient pathways. With text and voiceover by Robert Macfarlane, subtle music and prints by Stanley Donwood.

Atmospheric superimposition of blended layers. Some are of buildings and historical events. Others around the shape of an archway of trees, emphasised by Donwood’s prints. Uses glitches and sudden continuity shifts together with continuous horizontal slides of vertical tree silhouettes and zoomed panning into the archways.