“Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll

In this excerpt from the Alice in Wonderland story, Lewis Carroll’s non-sense poem serves as a playful reminder about the power of language.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves One, two! One, two! And through and through

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

All mimsy were the borogoves, He left it dead, and with its head

And the mome raths outgrabe. He went galumphing back.

“And, has thou slain the Jabberwock? “Beware the Jabberwock, my son! Come to my arms, my beamish boy! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun He chortled in his joy. The frumious Bandersnatch!” ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves He took his vorpal sword in hand: Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; Long time the manxome foe he sought— All mimsy were the borogoves, So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And the mome raths outgrabe. And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

Source: Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll,  1872 Questions for “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll

Level 1

General Understanding •• What type of text is this? How do you know? •• What is a Jabberwock? •• Who are the two “characters” in the poem? •• What do you notice about the language in the poem?

Key Details •• What does the father tell his son about the Jabberwock? •• What happens to the Jabberwock at the end of the poem? The father and the son?

Level 2

Vocabulary •• Consider the nonsense word frumious. What do you think it means? How do you know? Are there any other nonsense words that you can assign meaning to? •• Examine the imagery used in the poem. How does Carroll describe the Jabberwock? •• Consider the use of nonsense language in the poem. How does it affect your ability to read the text?

Structure •• What kind of sequencing does Carroll use? What other kind of text (story, song, article) does this poem remind you of? •• Even though many of the words are made up, can you still follow the arc of the story within the poem? How? Choose a stanza to support your thinking. •• Examine the use of dialogue in the poem. How does this affect the structure of the text? •• What do you notice about the first and last stanzas? •• Why did Carroll choose to begin and end with the same stanza? •• What type of rhyme scheme does the poem follow? How does this help create the tone?

Author’s Craft •• What is the tone of the poem? Point to specific words and phrases that support your thinking.

Level 3

Author’s Purpose •• Do you think this poem is trying to teach a lesson? Why or why not? •• What might the use of nonsense language tell us about the author’s attitude toward poetry? •• Choose a stanza, and write a “translation” of it. After you are done writing, share your writing with a partner. Discuss how you determined what the stanza was about despite not knowing what all of the words meant. How does this exercise help you understand Carroll’s attitude toward writing literature?

Intertextual Connections •• This poem is from Lewis Carroll’s novel Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, a story that takes place in Alice’s dreams. After she finds and reads the poem “Jabberwocky,” the text in the novel reads as follows: “It seems very pretty,” she said when she had finished it, “but it’s rather hard to understand!” (You see she didn’t like to confess, even to herself, that she couldn’t make it out at all.) “Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas—only I don’t exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something: that’s clear, at any rate.” •• Alice does not want to admit that she doesn’t understand the poem, and she is confused by the ideas it inspires in her. Using this excerpt and the poem, discuss how Carroll uses language to reflect the setting and purpose of his story. How do the poem and Alice’s commentary echo what happens when we dream?

Level 4

Opinion With Evidence or Argument •• Many critics have noted that Carroll, in addition to creating a dream-world setting, may have used nonsense language in this poem to satirize and critique pretentious and inaccessible literature.

{{ Was Carroll simply being playful with language, or was he criticizing what he thought to be pompous writing?

{{ Do you think literature has to be difficult to understand in order to be meaningful? In a two- minute speech, present and defend—with evidence—your position on the topic.

Retrieved from the companion website for Text-Dependent Questions, Grades 6–12: Pathways to Close and Critical Reading by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey with Heather Anderson and Marisol Thayre. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, www.corwin.com. Copyright  2015 by Corwin. All rights reserved. Reproduction authorized only for the local school site or nonprofit organization that has purchased this book.