Critical Introduction

Lewis Carroll was the pen name for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832–1898), the British author who penned Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass (1871). It is from the latter that the poem “Jabberwocky” is taken. Truth be told, it has very little impact on the narrative in which it appears, though that has not affected its popularity with the reading public, as it is often found in anthologies of British literature. The poem is most known for its wordplay: the majority of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are invented by Carroll. It is with this wordplay, however, that the poem conjures up the Jabberwock in the reader's mind through evocative words that lack any real meaning.

But for all its inventiveness, “Jabberwocky” still follows the narrative pattern of Gilgamesh or Beowulf: the young hero is warned of the dangerous monster “out there,” he seeks out that monster, kills it, and returns victorious. That plot outline, of course, flattens the poem considerably. In reality hero tales spend a good deal of time on scenes of conflict; in “Jabberwocky,” however, the battle is over in two lines, “snicker-snack.” Carroll seems more concerned—rather like an Impressionist painter—with evoking the scene and the characters in the reader's mind than with developing the narrative. The lack of proper names, character motivations and backstories, or even description gives the reader enormous power to shape the poem: one reader may associate the Jabberwock's “whiffling” with “whistling” and imagine him rushing through the woods, whereas another might associate it with a whiffle ball and consider it light, airy, and of little danger. We disagree with Alice that it is “hard to understand” because an understanding of the poem is as natural as it is individual—but we do agree that, as she says, “it seems to fill my head with ideas.”

Reading Questions

The young hero with the vorpal sword has indeed returned victorious after slaying the terrifying Jabberwock. This, of course, raises his prestige and would seemingly put his father more at ease about the “slithy toves.” The final stanza, however, repeats the first. Does this suggest that the young man's work has made no impact on the world of the poem? If the end is the same as the beginning, has anything really changed? Can we assume the Jabberwock will return to be killed again?