Tone In The Poem Jabberwocky By Lewis Carroll

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“Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!” Lewis Carroll’s poem “Jabberwocky”, addresses the fine line between imaginary and factual. Carroll’s delivery of his fluency is both a blessing and a damnation throughout his poem. From the very beginning Carroll starts to fabricate the tone of the poem starting with his nonsense words and continuing on to the fictitious creatures; thus making it hard to follow. Additionally, Carroll uses imagery to construct the impression he wants to institute on his readers, by doing so he alludes to the unfolding events of the passage. Many of Lewis Carroll’s words or (sounds) are meant to invoke feeling rather than pure understanding. When comparing the tone of the story many readers …show more content…

For instance, the endings of lines one and three give off the same sound, with the words "toves" and "borogoves". Furthermore, lines two and four end with the words "wabe" and "outgabe." Another in the middle of line six when they use the words "jaws" and "paws." These are just a few examples of rhyming words present an energetic tone that makes the sonnet amusing to the person reading it. Sound to word resemblance in line eighteen with "snicker snack!" likewise exhibits an energetic tone that give the sonnet more visual sensory detail. By examining the imagery and words used in Lewis Carroll’s poem, the reader can see that the tone and details are geared more towards that of a child than an adult.
The significance and meaning of words in the verse moreover sets up the tone of the passage. For example, the first paragraph has various words, for instance, "brillig," "toves," "gyre," "borogroves," and "mome raths" that have no meaning to that of the readers knowledge. Since the words don't have a definition, they create different tones that could either serve as playful or serious. The reader can easily interpret this poem in many different ways because of the wording used by the author and the two dominate