The Importance of Nonsense Language and Sounds in 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 ... ... middle of paper ... ...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.
The first aspect of language, which he uses is metaphor in the beginning of the poem when he is describing the dwarf sitting outside the church. He uses metaphor as he says, “The dwarf with his hands on backwards Sat, slumped like a half – filled sack On tiny twisted legs from which Sawdust might run.” The metaphor here of the dwarf sitting like a ‘half filled sack’ is describing the dwarf and how he has a deformed body. He is being compared to looking like a sack, which is slumped and half empty. This is effective as it seems as though the dwarf cannot help himself
...t is arguable that the birds fight is also a metaphor, implying the fight exists not only between birds but also in the father’s mind. Finally, the last part confirms the transformation of the parents, from a life-weary attitude to a “moving on” one by contrasting the gloomy and harmonious letter. In addition, readers should consider this changed attitude as a preference of the poet. Within the poem, we would be able to the repetitions of word with same notion. Take the first part of the poem as example, words like death, illness
You would think that Lewis Carroll an English author, mathematician and logician would sit down and write a logical, didactical novel, instead he wrote a novel of the literary nonsense genre. Unusual, is it not? Maybe we should take a closer look at Carroll's “nonsense“ and see why is it considered to be random, senseless, unpredictable, and without rules. Moreover, even justice is not spared of parody, injustice and chaos are logical consequences of living in Wonderland.
It is believed that Hatshepsut may be gender nonconforming or bending, as her wiliness to present herself, as a male was rather unusual for her time. Women typically do not appear as men upon taking the total power due to the fear that they would be overthrow or killed. Also, it is known that people knew that she is born a female, which she had shown her courage to dress like a man in public when it is generally unacceptable. Due to her time, there was no such as a well known LGBTQ* community so she had to fight on her own to be accepted by her subjects which she did by present herself as a
"Dangling from the only branch that grew on the tree was a ghory head. It was
Therefore, Oliver’s incorporation of imagery, setting, and mood to control the perspective of her own poem, as well as to further build the contrast she establishes through the speaker, serves a critical role in creating the lesson of the work. Oliver’s poem essentially gives the poet an ultimatum; either he can go to the “cave behind all that / jubilation” (10-11) produced by a waterfall to “drip with despair” (14) without disturbing the world with his misery, or, instead, he can mimic the thrush who sings its poetry from a “green branch” (15) on which the “passing foil of the water” (16) gently brushes its feathers. The contrast between these two images is quite pronounced, and the intention of such description is to persuade the audience by setting their mood towards the two poets to match that of the speaker. The most apparent difference between these two depictions is the gracelessness of the first versus the gracefulness of the second. Within the poem’s content, the setting has been skillfully intertwined with both imagery and mood to create an understanding of the two poets, whose surroundings characterize them. The poet stands alone in a cave “to cry aloud for [his] / mistakes” while the thrush shares its beautiful and lovely music with the world (1-2). As such, the overall function of these three elements within the poem is to portray the
The first element to analyze when looking at “The Fish” is figurative language. The reader is drawn to this element because of its heavy emphasis throughout the poem. Elizabeth Bishop profusely uses similes with the intention of heightening the sensation of fishing. She writes:
Dissociative identity disorder, a condition that has plagued and altered the minds of those who were diagnosed for many years, represents the condition in which an individual displays multiple personalities that overpower his or her behavior around others and even alone. Such personalities or identities can have staggering differences between them even being characterized by a disparate gender, race, or age. One of the sides of them can even be animal-like and display feral qualities. Also, the disorder severs the connection between the victim’s sense of identity, emotions, actions, and even memories from their own consciousness. The cause for this is known to be a very traumatic experience that the person had gone through previously and fails to cope with it, thus they dissociate themselves from the memory in order to keep their mental state in one piece. All these results from the disorder do not begin to tell of the rest of the horrors that gnaw away at the affected human.
Waiess EA. (2006). Treatment of dissociative identity disorder: "tortured child syndrome". Psychoanalytic Review, 93(3), 477-500.
This colossal dissociation of identity from a conventional cognizance embodies those with dissociative identity disorder, (DID; previously known as multiple personality disorder) in which two more diverse characteristics are said to interchangeably switch the person’s demeanor. Dissociative identity disorder is thought to stem from severe trauma mostly in the person’s early childhood (usually around the age 9), due to extreme cyclical sexual, physical and/or emotional abuse. The dissociative aspect is assumed to be a managing method, because literally each personality has its own mannerisms, voice, age, sex, and even race; by dissociating their selves from a situation or experience that are too painful violent to assimilate with their conscious self. Typically, the original personality denies any awareness of the other identities.
The novel has confused many critics and readers because it reads like poetry, yet in actuality it is a narrative. Cisneros admits that many of the vignettes are "lazy poems." This means that they could be poems if she had taken the time to finish them (Olivares 145). At many times throughout the novel the words rhyme and can almost be put to a catchy tune. For example, the chapter "Geraldo No Last Name" reads like a poem with end rhyme and a structured pattern. "Pretty too, and young. Said he worked in a restaurant, but she can't remember which one" (Cisneros 65).
The effects of alcohol are numerous when considering the range in which it can impact a life. From health, to family, to legal problems, and even when deciding to become sober, alcohol has a tight grip on those who abuse the drug.
Moby Dick is truly the main character of the book as the title shows. Although he is only in three chapters out of the whole, he takes on a big role to the crewmembers, especially Ahab. Firstly he becomes the focus of the whole whaling trip of the Peaquod. Moby Dick is not an ordinary whale. He has many features that set him apart. With his physical size and stature he towers over the sea, controlling everybody with fear. Other than the obvious physical obscurities, there are many symbols hidden in Melville’s whale. He has religious meaning, along with a national meaning, and an environmental meaning.
Judith Wright's poem `The Killer' explores the relationship between Humans and Nature, and provides an insight into the primitive instincts which characterize both the speaker and the subject. These aspects of the poem find expression in the irony of the title and are also underlined by the various technical devices employed by the poet.
Jabberwocky is a very peculiar poem written by Lewis Carroll. The poem is infamous for its ‘nonsense’ so the reader must dig deep to find the meaning of the poem. Jabberwocky begins with a father warning his son of the Jabberwock and two other horrible creatures, the Jubjub bird, and a Bandersnatch. These are beasts he may encounter as he adventures to slay the Jabberwock. The poem then describes the son’s journey through the forest and the slaying of the beast. At the end of the poem the son returns home to his father carrying the head of the Jabberwock to prove he has indeed defeated the beast. The father is very happy, shouting “Calooh! Callay!” However, Carroll leads the reader to believe that another beast may come when he uses the same introductory quatrain at the beginning of the poem to close the poem.