After reading this poem several times, it still does not mean very much to me. The poet’s use of portmanteau, or nonsense words, makes the work confusing and difficult to read or understand. Jabberwocky does have a rhythm and rhyme that could easily make music of these words. Portmanteau words combine the sound and meaning of two words to create a new word (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012). Brillig could be the combination of brilliant and evening. I am not sure what a Borogove is, however, the poets tells us they are mimsy, or weak. The Mome is fool, but I am not sure what it means when the “mome raths outgrabe” (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012, p. 629). The poet uses cacophony where words are rhymed contribute to the whimsical effect of the work. An
The reader experiences euphoria and extreme amusement reading the entire poem which flows in a very stupefy way. But, it also promotes
Many poems have concepts that can be hard to grasp due to complex metaphors, figurative language, and forms of diction. Lewis Carroll takes this struggle of comprehension to an entire new level in The Jabberwocky. Although a simple story of a boy slaying a foul creature, it is formatted in a way that traps the reader inside of the nonsensical imagination of Carroll. It does not take close inspection to realize that the word choices throughout are a bit unorthodox. It does, however, take an out-of-the-box mindset to fully appreciate the imagery at work in this poem. It is proven in The Jabberwocky that words do not have to be proper in meaning or pre-existent to portray ideas.
He uses this in the poem to give it rhythm to engage the reader and
symbolic richness, but at the same time the poem supplies the reader with a wide
The most obvious poetic devise of this poem is the rhyming scheme. Rhyming is when there is close similarity in the final sounds of two or more words or lines of writin.
The two closing lines of the text are rhymed together. The word bread is a good example of cacophony. It starts with the sound b and ends with the sound d, both of them are cacophonic. This adds to the noise, tense, and overcrowded atmosphere of the story. Also, it comes as a confirmation of negative feeling from the mother’s point of view.
The entire poem confused me the first time that I read it. I did not understand many of the words throughout the poem, however more than that, I did not understand the story behind the poem, and lastly I did not comprehend the meaning behind the story. I believe that Jabberwocky is a story about a man and his son. As evident when someone says "beware the Jabberwock, my son!" (Carroll 5)
Another technique this poem takes use of is alliteration. The alliteration used helps to express the themes importance through repletion of sound devices. A specific example of alliteration
People often believe a person must have supernatural powers to be a hero, but this is not true. Heroes are people who fight for the greater good. This is seen in Lewis Caroll’s poem, Jabberwocky, where the central idea is that good will always win against evil with mental strength and bravery. Caroll uses the hero concept to enhance the theme with the sudden battle he faces. For example, when the hero is under the tree strategizing, the author says,”So rested he by the Tumtum tree And stood awhile in thought”...”One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!” This shows a hero must have patience because in literature, evil can present itself in confusing ways. This is important to understand because bravery
Another sound device used is the application of different types of rhyme such as end rhyme and pararhyme. Keith decides to vary between these so it's effect be unsettling the readers understanding of the poem's tone is evident.
In the second stanza, the character that is thought to be the boy’s father, warns the boy of the terrible danger that comes from the Jabberwocky. The terror is described in a way that makes me believe that the father has seen the beast before, or seen something like it. You cannot describe something so terrible to someone if you have never faced it yourself. The third stanza says “long time the manxome foe he sought”, meaning it’s been a long time since the father has fought in a battle. This supports my claim that something has come to terrorize the villagers before the
Another technique used is Onomatopoeia it means the use of words that imitates sound. An example of this in the poem is shown by the use of the following word – zipping. “They’re zipping them up in green plastic bags” by using the word zipping in this sentence, helps the readers to associate with the sound of which a zip makes.
Literary devices are tools that many authors use to make their novels, short stories, and poems rich with vivid details. However, poets are the ones who tend to use the most complex literary devices in their pieces. In doing so, they make their poetry abundant with many distinct emotions and sensations. In addition to that, authors mainly use literal devices to portray their message more effectively. For example, the poet Robert Frost in “Design” he uses rhyme scheme to explore the existence of good and question whether darkness will always be omnipresent.
The first stanza is full of most of the nonsense sounds that intensifies the battle. The way Carroll invented such meaningless words is almost comical. "Twas billig and the slithy toves," (Carroll, 36) does not seem to actually say anything, and it is funny how the words sound when spoken. If Carroll's Humpty-Dumpty theory was accepted, a theory of two words with different meaning are combined into one word, (Hunter,193), then one could translate the meaning of the stanza. Consider "brillig" as describing the time of day. "Bril" could be derived form brilliant, and "lig" could be derived from light. When combined the words brilliant light would describe mid-afternoon. The first stanza also gives the idea of the land of animals. "All mimsy were the borogoves," (Carroll, 36) could be translated as "All quiet were the animals." Mimsy could be related to a
The vivid language that is used to convey the poet's feelings about the natural world is