Thursday, April 25, 2013

Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll - Dissected

Read the poem if you haven't already: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/jabberwocky/
Check out different lenses that poems follow: http://comosr.spps.org/Lit_Theory.html

Picture obtained from:
http://www.jabberwockybooks.com/
Jabberwocky is a poem that is a prime example of the Narratology lens. The boy who's perspective the story is told from is your classic hero on a quest to slay the "evil beast" which in this case is the Jabberwocky. It also makes the hero seem strong and more powerful than anyone else because he was the only one who was able to slay this beast, leaving him as the great savior. The villain being the Jabberwocky starts off as being this great beast that should be feared and avoided gets slain at the end as most Narratology story end; with the hero beating the villain that no one else could defeat. The final stereotypical even it follows is the hero going off on his own to handle the issue by himself in a heroic effort. This is common among these types of writing, in which the hero usually handles the problem at hand by himself or sometimes with a "sidekick"

This poem also contains a trace of gender criticism with the hero being the classic great warrior male. In most Narratology stories the hero, if a warrior type person, would be a male because they are perceived as the physical stronger gender and the ones fit for slaying dangerous beast or achieving near impossible tasks.

Jabberwocky is one of the easier poems to dissect into the different lens categories because for the most part they follow the basic/common events that occur in each lens.

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