In the seven-stanza poem “Jabberwocky,” Carroll tells the story of a fairy-tale, filled with beasts and bravery. He begins the poem as though the speaker knows voluminous descriptive details about the “Jabberwocky,” but as the reader we don’t know exactly what it is, or what it looks like. The poem itself might then be considered a disarray of words by the speaker in which he presents his description of a heroic action. Lewis Carroll, although using a jumble of words in his poem, never the less tells a suspenseful story with his use of diction, imagery, and themes that knit the poem together.
Because the poem concentrates on the speaker’s details about the creature, it is important to discuss what Carroll does with his specialized vocabulary throughout the poem. Carroll believed in enhancing meaning by combining words to take on the meaning that each word would have separately, a sonic device known as portmanteau. Combining the words “fuming” and “furious” to make the “..frumious Bandersnatch,” Carroll continues to use “home-made” words throughout the poem, mixing them with common words that tell the story of the “Jabberwock” beast. Although the reader doesn’t know what every word means, the reader does understand the sound that follow these specific words, thus creating a relationship between the sound and apparent meaning of the word that unite the story together and helps the reader understand the poem.
The first stanza of the poem starts out narrative but then alternates from narrative to a father speaking to his son in the second stanza. The “son” in the second stanza must go on a journey where he will encounter beasts his father admonish him about (lines 5-8). The reader immediately understands the task is not an easy one...
... middle of paper ...
... to the real world. The structure in which Carroll wrote the poem is remarkable; he was able to write a story with a major theme in a seven stanza quatrain form unlike a novel or other literary work. The chronological order in which the boy slays the “Jabberwocky” allows the form and structure to unite together and form an iambic tetrameter that alternate from tetrameter to trimeter, also known as Ballad Stanza stylistically. "Jabberwocky" is written specifically in quatrains four-line stanzas that have a regular ABAB, CDCD, EFEF rhyme scheme.
Lewis Carroll writes the poem as an enrapturing narrative poem that combines intelligent word use, vibrant imagery, and strong thematic views to create a highly enjoyable read. By the end of the poem, the reader understands exactly what the “Jabberwocky” is capable of doing but also what the small village boy can accomplish.
The poem does indeed have a rhyme scheme, yet doesn?t conform to conventional forms of rhyme such as A, B, A, B, etc. Rather, each stanza seems to follow the order of A, B, C, A, C, B, which may not be apparent to the reader at first, but doesn?t hinder the poem?s effectiveness. The first stanza begins with the speaker describing their failed attempt at eliminating the pests. The first attempt was described as merciful: ?The knockout bomb from the Feed and Grain Exchange was featured as merciful, quick at the bone?. However, the following lines offer a bit of humor to the chase as it seems the woodchuck has outsmarted the speaker as a result of their overconfidence: ?and the case we had against them was airtight, both exits shoehorned shut with puddingstone, but they had a sub-sub-basement out of range.? This first stanza sets the stage for what would appear to be a humorous battle of whits between the speaker and the woodchucks.
The most noticeable aspect of the structure of the entire poem is the lack of capital letters and periods. There is only one part in the entire forty lines, which is at the very end, and this intentional punctuation brings readers to question the speaker’s literacy. In fact, the speaker is very young, and the use of punctuation and hyphens brings to attention the speaker’s innocence, and because of that innocence, the
Li-Young Lee’s poem, A Story, explores a complex relationship between a father and his five year old son. Although the poem’s purpose is to elaborate on the complexity of the relationship and the father’s fear of disappointing his son, the main conflict that the father is faced with is not uncommon among parents. Lee is able to successfully portray the father’s paranoia and son’s innocence through the use of alternating point of view, stanza structure, and Biblical symbolism.
The poem begins by establishing that the speakers’ father has had more than enough to drink. “The whiskey on his breath/ Could make a small boy dizzy.” These lines (1, and 2) help in the development of the poem because they set ...
He keeps the lighthearted, joking tone throughout the poem. He explains how he could snore as loud as a bullhorn and Fergus would only sink deeper into his sleep, (Fergus is their son). The speaker explains how his son sleeps through loud noises, but as soon as he hears heavy breathing he comes running into their room. This continues to show us the playful tone the speaker uses in the poem. The conflicts that are dramatized in this poem is every time the couple tries to make love their son comes in to interrupt. The poet wrote this poem in free form or free verse. “For I can snore like a bullhorn/ or play loud music/ or sit up talking to any reasonably sober Irishman/ and Fergus will only sink deeper into his dreamless sleep/ which goes by all in one flash” (Kinnell 668 Lines 1-5) this line shows that there is no rhyme or rhythm in the poem and also the humorous tone of the speaker. “But let there be that heavy/ or stifled come-cry anywhere in the house/ and he will wrench himself awake/ and make for it on the run- as now, we lie together” (Kinnell 668 Lines 6-9) this line explains to the reader how the child seems to sleep through almost anything but, once he hears heavy breathing he is awake and
His writing is easy enough for children to understand but the text itself holds a variety of different themes. Lewis Carroll’s writing style in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is detailed and humorous. He describes every event that Alice endures and the struggles she faces while still having a humorous tone that gives the novel dimension. For example, while describing Alice's entrance to Wonderland, Carroll gives a vivid image of what she saw such as the hallway lined with doors and the different people and animals she saw including the White Rabbit, the Caterpillar, and the chesire cat. Lewis Carroll also has a way of incorporating cleverness into this novel. His use of puns and confusing homophones such as the mouse in the story describing his “long and sad tale” which Alice assumes is about his physical tail and not a
The poem is written in the father’s point of view; this gives insight of the father’s character and
Lewis Carroll, world renowned author, known most for his tale of literary nonsense published almost a century and a half ago, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Several conditions of Carroll’s life molded and shaped his writing. Evidence from Carroll’s book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland ,one can conclude that Carroll has engraved moments from his life, people around him ,as well as his beliefs and love of logic into his story, considering these are the things that Alice Liddell would recognize.
This essay is anchored on the goal of looking closer and scrutinizing the said poem. It is divided into subheadings for the discussion of the analysis of each of the poem’s stanzas.
Harwood’s poem Barn Owl, expertly conveys the poem with emotion and tells the story of a young girl losing her childish innocence by rebelling against her father and killing a barn owl. Using a variety of literary techniques, the poem has the ability to provide the audience a visual image of the scene. Expressed in great detail, the themes of innocence, death and rebelling against authority within the poem offer the audience another intriguing poem written by Gwen
The beginning of the poem starts with a humorous tone. Kinnell begins his poem with a simile “snore like a bullhorn”, an “Irishman”, or playing “loud music” to express the idea of something that is really loud and noisy, but still cannot wake the son up as opposed to the child’s ability to wake up to “heavy breathing” and a “come-cry” (line1-7). The tone that the...
The ironic use of rhyme and meter, or the lack thereof, is one of the devices Larkin uses to emphasize his need to break out of industrial society. The typical rhyme scheme is not followed, but instead an ironic rhyme scheme is used in the sonnet in the form of abab cdcd efg efg. Larkin writes this poem as a sonnet but at the same time diverges from what a typical sonnet is supposed to be. He is commenting on society’s inclination to form restrictions on those within it. By writing out of the accepted form of a sonnet, his writing becomes more natural because of a lack of constraints due to following certain rules and fitting a certain form. He breaks free and writes as he pleases and does not conform to society. Just as with the rhyme, ...
As Alice journeys through Wonderland and Looking-glass Land, she encounters a variety of characters whose nonsensical assertions call into question her tacit ontological assumptions. The strange logic these characters introduce to Alice forces her to acknowledge and reevaluate learned perceptions that she had previously accepted as objective truths. Because many of Carroll’s absurdities bear an exaggerated but recognizable resemblance to observable phenomena in society, the paradoxically meaningful nonsense causes Alice (and the reader) to experience epiphanies about the nature of the phenomena Carroll satirizes. In this way, Carroll cleverly, and ironically, uses nonsense to raise consciousness. Specifically, Carroll employs nonsense in the Alice books to construct a satirical, dystopian view of authority. One example can be inferred from Alice’s humorous inability to remember her lessons, or memorized propaganda from schoolmasters (who have authority over knowledge). Because Alice suddenly cannot remember what these schoolmasters have forced her to learn, the lessons are consequently illustrated as useless and asinine, and the teachers as senseless, counterproductive and undeserving of the position of authority they have secured. Carroll ultimately ridicules authority figures, pedagogues in particular, through the character, Humpty Dumpty. His hyperbolic depiction of Humpty Dumpty as a narcissist, a pedant, and a charlatan exposes authority figures for what they often are: unnecessary, and even disadvantageous.
Along with his love for playing-on-words in the story, Carroll also provided an original poem that he wrote at the beginning of the novel before the first chapter that serves as an epigraph for the book, suggesting the story’s theme and origin. The poem opens with a description of the sunny, summer day in 1862 when Carroll and his Oxford friend Liddell’s three daughters went out on a boat trip on the river together, where the story of Alice all started. During the outing, the girls—addressed in the epigraph as Prima, Secunda, and Tertia—beg Carroll to tell them a story, as he often did when he was with them. He claims that he is too tired on account of the rowing and the “dreamy weather,” (stanza 2, line 2), but he gives in as he finds himself
There is a very straight forward structure to this poem that contributes to the complexity and unity of the poem as a whole. The rhyme scheme follows a very straight forward ABAAB variation. This rhyme scheme flows throughout the poem with no variations and adds to the organic unity of the work. The meter of this work follows iambic tetrameter which, when read aloud, adds to the thoughtfulness of the speaker. However, the meter is interrupted during one line of the poem which reads, “I shall be telling this with a sigh” (line 16). This line brings attention to itself in order to alert the reader to the ambiguity of the statement, which will be discussed later. The poem itself is constructed with four stanzas with five lines in each stanza which adds to the unity by giving the poem a sense of a full circle and rounded out. Throughout the poem, the rhythm is slow and thoughtful, as if the speaker is reflecting on the choices that he has made in his lifetime. This slow rhythm adds a layer of complexity by demonstra...