"The Walrus and the Carpenter" is a poem by Lewis Carroll that appeared in his book Through the Looking-Glass, published in December 1871. The poem is recited in chapter four, by Tweedledum and Tweedledee to Alice. The poem is composed of 18 stanzas and contains 108 lines;[2] the rhyme scheme is ABCBDB; and masculine rhymes appear frequently. [3]
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Summary
The Walrus and the Carpenter are the titular characters in the poem, which is recited by Tweedledee and Tweedledum to Alice. Walking upon a beach one "sunny" night, the Walrus and Carpenter come upon some oysters, four of whom they invite to join them – however, to the disapproval of the eldest oyster, many more follow them. After walking along the beach, the two titular characters get hungry and eat all of the oysters. Afterward, the Walrus regrets his actions and cries, mostly because now there are no more oysters for him to eat.
Interpretations
| “ | "The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things: |
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In The Annotated Alice, Martin Gardner noted that when Carroll gave the manuscript for Looking Glass to illustrator John Tenniel, he gave him the choice of drawing a carpenter, a butterfly, or a baronet (since each word would fit the poem's meter). Tenniel chose the carpenter. Because of this, the carpenter's significance in the poem is probably not in his profession. Although the two characters of the poem were interpreted later as two political types, there is no indication of what Carroll may have intended; Gardner cautions the reader that there isn't too much intended symbolism in the Alice books. The books were made for the imagination of children not the analysis of "mad people". Many portions of the Wonderland tales can be tied only to sheer whimsy, and while Carroll's life observations do make themselves obvious from time to time, it is possible that "The Walrus and the Carpenter" is not one of them: Carroll's character The Duchess said in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland that "everything's got a moral, if only you can find it."[1] Nevertheless, there are many interpretations of the poem, whether it be in politics, religion, or business. An example of such modern reinterpretation and argument by analogy is a recent article by the Socialist writer Richard Greeman, who holds that Carroll intended to satirise the inter-imperialist rivalries and wild grab of colonies and resources going on at the time of writing, with the Walrus being the British Empire and the Carpenter – France. Greeman then proceeds into the present, blaming the rivalry and war by proxy between "The Walrus Bush" and "The Carpenter Chirac" for bloody African civil wars, specifically the Rwanda genocide. Bush is mentioned as having invaded Iraq in order to "devour Iraq's oyster reserves – I mean oil reserves."[2]
The movie version
In Disney's Alice in Wonderland, an adapted version of the poem is narrated in song and spoken word by Tweedledee and Tweedledum. In this virtuoso performance, character actor J. Pat O'Malley performs all four voices as well as the Mother Oyster.[3]
In popular culture
- In one of the episodes of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead (Part Two, Ch. 12), the book's arch-villain Ellsworth Toohey launches a devastating journalistic attack on the hero Howard Roark. Toohey prefaces his article by a paraphrase of the Walrus' famous words (appearing on the top of this page), in which the words "And whether pigs have wings" are replaced by "And whether Roark has wings."
- In 1066 and All That, W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman said that King Richard II of England exclaimed gloomily, "For God's sake, let me sit on the ground and tell bad stories about cabbages and things." This combines the poem's famous lines, "Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—Of cabbages—and kings," and dialogue from William Shakespeare's play Richard II, "Let's talk of graves and worms and epitaphs... For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground/And tell sad stories of the death of kings."
- John Lennon claims to have written the 1967 song "I Am the Walrus" after coming to the conclusion that he was the Walrus on an acid trip. However, in a 1980 interview with Playboy, he said of the song, "Later, I went back and looked at it and realized that the walrus was the bad guy in the story and the carpenter was the good guy. I thought, 'Oh, shit, I picked the wrong guy. I should have said, "I am the carpenter." ' But that wouldn't have been the same, would it?"
- Donovan set "The Walrus and the Carpenter" to music on his 1971 children's album H.M.S. Donovan. The song features many segments acted and sung by Donovan and his friends. Paul McCartney appears with Donovan on a bootleg recording of the song dating from around 1968.
- In the movie Dogma (directed by Kevin Smith), a fallen angel named Loki explains his theory that the poem is really an indictment of organized religion (despite Carroll being an Anglican clergyman), with the Walrus representing Eastern religions (either Buddha or Ganesha) and the Carpenter referring to Jesus and Western religions in general. Loki chides them for eating the innocent oysters, which represent the masses under their sway. A further twist to this satirical episode is that Loki, who uses this interpretation specifically to undermine and test the beliefs of a Catholic nun with whom he is speaking, knows these beliefs to be right through his own first hand knowledge of God. Loki states he does this to the clergy to "keep them on their toes" implying he does this to test their faith and later strengthened it should they recover.
- In the movie Harriet The Spy, Rosie O'Donnell and Michelle Trachtenberg often quip the poem on the way to bed. A line is spoken during one of the most dramatic scenes from the poem. Of other things, it shows the intense bond between Harriet and Golly.
- The Dresden Dolls song The Time Has Come contains lyrics borrowed from the poem.
- In the novel Savage Day the main antagonist Frank Barry refers to "ships and sealing wax, cabbages and kings."
- The Tourniquet song Drinking from the Poisoned Well contains the lyrics: "The time has come to speak of many things / not shoes and ships and sealing wax, not cabbages and kings...".
- In the eleventh book of the A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, The Grim Grotto, the Verse Fluctuation Declaration code uses the poem to direct the Baudelaires to Briny Beach, a connection to the sixth stanza of the poem.
- In the comic Jack of Fables, The Walrus and the Carpenter, with some of the oysters, live at the Golden Boughs Retirement Village after escaping the Adversary.
Notes
- ^ Carroll, Lewis (1995). The Complete, Fully Illustrated Works. New York: Gramercy Books. ISBN 0-517-10027-4.
- ^ Richard Greeman, "Alice in Imperialand", in New Politics Vol. XI No. 3, (Summer 2007), see [1]
- ^ Kathryn Beaumont, Ed Wynn. Alice in Wonderland [DVD]. Walt Disney.
External links
- Text of the Walrus and the Carpenter (with illustrations)
- Audio - hear the poem
