The Jabberwocky
By Lewis Carroll

A Historical Analysis

Lewis Carroll, whose birth name was Charles Dodgson, was born little more than a decade after the death of Napoleon Bonaparte. For him, the events of the French Revolution were not a distant memory but a recent past. Less than 50 years before he was born, the Bastille was stormed and the French Revolution took place- the memories that remain would have been just as fresh as those of World War II today. England, being directly across from France, was closely affected by the events that went on, and remained highly critical throughout. Thus, it is not surprising that he would turn to the events of his parents and grandparents for literary inspiration. The Jabberwocky begins:

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

In this description we see France in its pre-1789 state, that is to say, before the Revolution. Brillig is described by Carroll as "the time when you begin broiling things for dinner," just as France was about to be a-boil with revolutionary sentiment. The "outgrabing" of the mome raths represents the oppressed cries of those who could not truly be heard- the peasants and paupers scattered throughout Paris and France. Poverty was rampant, and though Marie Antoinette may never have said "Let them eat cake," they certainly needed bread.

'Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!'

The Jabberwock will be discussed in a further stanza. But it is interesting to note the other characters in this stanza. The Jubjub bird is described as "a desperate bird that lives in perpetual passion." Through opposites, Carroll is deftly skewering Louis XVI, who was ridiculed and criticized by the French people for his inability to consummate his marriage and his lack of interest in his wife, Marie Antoinette. The long-reaching Bandersnatch represents the excessive taxation of the ancien regime, whose burden fell primarily to the lower classes.

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--

The vorpal sword represents the most useful tool of the Revolution- the so-called "Parisian mob," the sans-culottes. These men and women were the most directly involved in the Revolution, exploding into anger and violence in the Storming of the Bastille and the March on Versailles.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

Here we see the Jabberwock himself. It is not one man nor one woman alone, but in fact the ancien regime as a whole- the sum of the laws and policies of pre-Revolutionary France that led to the Revolution itself. The "eyes of flame" represent the glitter and excess of the palace of Versailles, Louis XIV's pet project that consumed millions upon millions of francs.

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

After the March of Versailles, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were forced to move to Paris. Not long after, they were executed. "He left it dead, and with its head," is a gruesome reference to method of execution- the guillotine. Invented by Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, it was designed to bring a new level of medical precision and civility to execution- Carroll's murder of the Jabberwock proves otherwise.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

The immediate reaction to the French Revolution and execution of Louis XVI within France was overwhelming positive among the lower and middle classes.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

But that was soon to change. Drunk with power, Robespierre and the Jacobins created the Committee for Public Safety and initiated the Reign of Terror- a time of troubles more bloody or violent than anything the ancien regime had ever done. It is through Carroll's repeating of the opening stanza that he deftly illustrates this. In effect, at the end of The Jabberwocky, we see that things have returned to the way they are- the mome raths continue to outgrabe.

The end of the Reign of Terror, stopped by the Thermidorean Reaction, was not the end of the troubled times of France. But the Jabberwocky does not go further. To examine Carroll's thoughts on the Napoleonic period, it would be perhaps wisest to examine the story Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Further analysis is certainly merited, but an initial examination seems to show the struggle between the two sides of Napoleon- the "Child of the Enlightenment" who codified France's laws and spread the education system, and the Emperor Napoleon who conquered most of Europe. Truly, much can be garnered from the study of one of the most brilliant authors of all time.