Jabberwocky

The poem, “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carrol, is about a young boy leaving his home, venturing into the forest alone to hunt a dangerous creature called the “Jabberwock”. However, the poem is about more than just a hunting expedition; it is about a young boy’s initiation into manhood. The reader can draw this conclusion from the second stanza of the poem as his father sends him off with a warning about creatures he may encounter. While on his quest, the boy must brave a forest containing such creatures as the “jubjub bird”, “slithy toves”, “borogroves”, “mome raths”, and the “frumious Bandersnatch”. Of course, the boy has taken his “vorpal sword”, and after a long search the boy rests in the “tulgey wood”. Incidentally, this happens to be the home of the Jabberwock. While resting and deep in thought, the Jabberwock appears, and the boy emerges from the woods triumphant with the Jabberwock’s head in hand to begin his journey home. Upon arriving home, he is greeted by a jubilant …show more content…
Nancy Goldfarb (1999) defined a portmanteau in this way: “Applied to words, a portmanteau is the opposite of a pun…a portmanteau uses two words to arrive at a single meaning” (p. 86). In addition to the word “galumphing”, Carrol used other words classified as a portmanteau throughout the poem. For example, he used the word “slithy” in the first stanza of the poem which is a combination of the words lithe and slimy. Similarly, in the second stanza of the poem he used the word “frumious” combining the words fuming and furious. When reading the poem, although the reader may not know their meaning, he or she can determine that they are not pleasing words. At any rate, Lewis Carrol was adept at taking certain parts of two different words and making them into one (Brottman, 2010). Still, the reader can ascertain that the “slithy toves” and the “frumious Bandersnatch” aren’t beast to be trifled