Word play in alice in wonderland

The first word based joke in Chapter Three occurs when the Mouse tries to get the animals dry by telling them a long, boring story on the grounds that it is the «driest» thing it knows.

`Ahem!’ said the Mouse with an important air, `are you all ready? This is the driest thing I know. Silence all round, if you please! «William the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured by the pope, was soon submitted to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had been of late much accustomed to usurpation and conquest. Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria—«‘

This is swiftly followed by a joke based on the meaning of the pronoun «it»

«Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him: and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable—«‘

`Found WHAT?’ said the Duck.

`Found IT,’ the Mouse replied rather crossly: `of course you know what «it» means.’

`I know what «it» means well enough, when I find a thing,’ said the Duck: `it ‘s generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?’

After the caucus-race there is a joke based on the homophones «tale» and «tail»

`Mine is a long and a sad tale!’ said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing.

`It IS a long tail, certainly,’ said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse’s tail; `but why do you call it sad?’ And she kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so that her idea of the tale was something like this:—

At which point, there is a poem which is printed in such a way as to resemble a mouse’s tail. This is an example of an emblematic or figured poem and is a kind of visual pun.

Alice annoys the Mouse by not paying attention to the poem, leading to another pun.

`I beg your pardon,’ said Alice very humbly: `you had got to the fifth bend, I think?’

`I had NOT!’ cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily.

`A knot!’ said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and looking anxiously about her. `Oh, do let me help to undo it!’

The mouse storms off which upsets the animals somewhat and leads a crab advising her daughter not to lose her temper. The younger crab’s reply is what is known as a «Tom Swifty» (or Swiftie)

Hold your tongue, Ma!’ said the young Crab, a little snappishly.

A Tom Swifty is a sentence which contains a quote, followed by a pun describing the manner it is delivered and the person who delivers it — hence the crab speaks snappishly.

There are fewer examples of word play in Chapter Four, but it is possible that, when Pat says he is digging for apples, this is a joke based on the French for potato being pomme de terre, literally ‘earth apple’.

ALICE

«Better read it first, for if one drinks much from a bottle marked «Poison», it’s almost certain to disagree with one sooner or later.»«If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn’t be, and what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?» » Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,» thought Alice; » but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever say in my life»(Carroll) CHESHIRE CAT

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Personification, pun, syntax, and diction, these are some of the different devices of wordplay that authors use. Authors use wordplay for many different reasons. They use it to poke fun at the weaknesses and problems of the society; they also use it to make their literature more fun, and interesting. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is an example of a book that also serves as a satire. Lewis Carroll was born and raised in England during the time of Queen Victoria. In that time, and also in the book, there were two social classes, the elites, and the commoners.

The elites would be the Queen of Hearts, the King, and also the Duchess. The commoners would be the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and most of the other characters you meet along they way in the book. One example of it being a satire is on page 79. “‘And who are THESE? ’ said the Queen, pointing to the three gardeners who were lying round the rose tree; for, you see, as they were lying on their faces, and the pattern on their backs was the same as the rest of the pack, she could not tell whether they were gardeners, or soldiers, or courtiers, or three of her own children. This scene is showing how people didn’t judge other people by their character or personality, but rather by their title or social status. The Queen couldn’t recognize them without seeing their suits. Many other authors use this to express their opinions about an issue in society. Some examples are To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. To Kill a Mockingbird, is a satire because it tells the authors point of view on the issues of racism through Scout, the main characters, point of view.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a satire because it shows the authors view of slavery, through the adventure that Huck and Jim go on. Another reason that authors use wordplay is to make their literature more fun and interesting. Lewis Carroll uses a lot of different types of wordplay in all his literature. In the book Alice in Wonderland alone, Carroll uses, puns, diction, parodies, personification, alliteration, lexicon, assonance, repetition, syntax, and satire. These devices make the reader want to keep reading.

They also keep the reader interested because of mixing up the way they use language, instead of it just being boring. Many other authors use wordplay. Dr Seuss uses different types of wordplay in his books. He uses wordplay that appeals to a younger audience, while Carroll appeals to an older audience. The way an author uses wordplay changes the tone, and mood of the piece of literature. It is a creative way to add fun to the book, and make it more interesting. It can also be used to show the weakness and issues in society. Whatever way it’s used, it creates a unique piece of literature that keeps the reader wanting more.

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My 27th birthday gift was an excellent classic book by Lewis Carroll “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass,” comprised of two masterpieces: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871). While I read the first part just a while ago on Kindle, I was excited to read its sequel from a paper book complimented with colored illustrations by Sir John Tenniel (English illustrator, graphic humorist, and political cartoonist, famous for the illustrations on the pages of my gift). I was also excited to get absorbed in the world of imagination, logic, games, and childlike thinking one more time.

Just as a side note, in art world Joan Miro is famously associated with childlike paintings as they could have been done by a child and appeal to those who like simplicity in the art. The idea of childlike paintings/thinking is to be able to see the world with child unconscious mind, the mind that has not yet been put in a box and been taught adult rules and understanding of the environment.

Lewis Carroll was obsessed with games in his professional life as a mathematician and logician as well as in his life as an author. He is claimed to be one of the most playful authors of children’s literature. In the second book  Through the Looking-Glass, the one I will cover in this post, Alice becomes a part of a chess game:

…For some minutes Alice stood without speaking, looking out in all directions over the country- and a most curious country is was. There were a number of tiny little brooks running straight across it side to side, and the ground between was divided up into squares by a number of little green hedges, that reached from brook to brook.

“I declare it’s marked out just like a large chessboard!…It’s a great huge game of chess that’s being played- all over the world- if this is the world at all, you know. Oh, what fun it is! How I wish I was one of them! I wouldn’t mind being a Pawn, if only I might join- though of course, I should like to be a Queen, best”. 

While I enjoyed being part of the chess adventure of Alice, I loved the most another game- a game of words, where Carroll Lewis used logic to play with the meaning of phrases and words to amuse us with Alice’s nonsensical conversations with other characters of the book. Here I do not refer to the nonsense genre,  in which Carroll’s poem Jabberwocky is considered to be quintessential, but to a wordplay. Though, I might be wrong in putting these notions into different categories, as they equally described as nonsense.

In this post, I would like to give extracts of conversations, in which I saw a wordplay. Some are more obvious than others and some are more famous that others. Nevertheless, I only cite these conversations that I remember after having read the book (I didn’t take notes while reading the book, so very likely to have missed other example). In the square brackets, I put hints on what I found amusing. I also highlighted the main words that form logical contradictions.

****

• Alice meeting with the Red Queen (The Garden of Live Flowers):

[playing with the phrase “lose my way”]

“Where do you come from?” said the Red Queen, “And where are you going? Look up, speak nicely, and don’t twiddle your fingers all the time”.

Alice attended to all these directions, and explained, as well as she could that she had lost her way.

“I don’t know what you mean by your way,” said the Queen: “all the ways about here belong to me.”

_______

[making a comparison… comparing apples and oranges -pitfalls of day to day conversations]

“When you say ‘hill,’” the Queen interrupted, “I could show you hills, in comparison with which you’d call that a valley.”

“No, I shouldn’t,” said Alice, surprised into contradicting her at last: “a hill can’t be a valley, you know. That would be nonsense-”

The Red Queen shook her head, “You may call it ‘nonsense’ if you like,” she said, “but I’ve heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!”

****

• Alice conversation with Gnat (Looking-Glas Insects)

[playing with the word “name”]

“I don’t rejoice in insects at all,” Alice explained, “because I’m rather afraid of them- at least the large kinds. But I can tell you the names of some of them.”

“Of course they answer to their names?” the Gnat remarked carelessly.

“I never knew them do it.”

“What’s the use of their having names,” the Gnat said, “if they won’t answer to them?”

“No use to them,” said Alice; “but it’s useful to the people who name them, I suppose. It not, why do things have names at all?”

****

• Alice conversation with White Queen (Wool and Water)

[that is where the expression of unfulfilled promise “jam tomorrow or jam to-morrow” come from]

“It’s very good jam,” said the Queen.

“Well, I don’t want any to-day, at any rate.”

“You couldn’t have it if you did want it,” the Queen said. “The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday- but never jam to-day.”

“It must come sometimes to ‘jam to-day’,” Alice objected.

“No it can’t,” said the Queen. “It is jam every other day: to-day isn’t any other day, you know.”

****

• Alice conversation with Humpty Dumpty (Humpty Dumpty):

[such an obvious answer, why do we even bother asking such questions?]

“Why do you sit out here all alone?” said Alice, not wishing to begin an argument.

“Why, because there’s nobody with me!” cried Humpty Dumpty. “Did you think I didn’t know the answer to that? Ask another.”

****

• Alice conversation with the Red and the While Queens (Queen Alice)

[just a complete nonsense from the Queens]

“I am sure I didn’t mean-” Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen interrupted her impatiently.

“That’s just what I complain of! You should have meant! What do you suppose is the use of a child without meaning? Even a joke should have some meaning- and a child’s more important that a joke, I hope. You couldn’t deny that, even if you tried with both hands.”

“I don’t deny things with my hands,” Alice objected.

“Nobody said you did,” said the Red Queen. “I said you couldn’t if you tried.”

****

Here we go- we completed the game of words and logic!!! Perhaps, Carroll Lewis wrote the most readable book of logic.

I hope you enjoyed skimming through the extracts with hidden jokes, nonsenses, and fallacies. If it were not a children book, such type of conversations between adults would sound ridiculous, regardless that we fall into traps of inconsistencies and nonsense in our everyday conversations. Perhaps, we, adults, could easily be childlike and think childlike, which is great, but only if we recognize our imperfections and feel comfortable about it.