Portmanteau Words

Perhaps the most prominent poetic device Carroll uses in “Jabberwocky” is the portmanteau word. Portmanteau (PORT-MAN-TOE; equal stress on each syllable) is a French word that refers to a large suitcase consisting of two compartments folded together. Like a portmanteau suitcase, a portmanteau word combines two (or more) words into one. For readers of the novel where “Jabberwocky” first appeared, Carroll used the character of Humpty Dumpty to provide a helpful explanation of this poetic device. In chapter six of Through the Looking-Glass, Humpty helps Alice understand the poem’s first stanza by defining the unfamiliar words. He begins with the word “slithy.” He tells her: “Slithy means ‘lithe and slimy.’…You see it’s like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.” Another portmanteau word that appears in the poem’s opening stanza is “mimsy,” which Humpty defines as “flimsy and miserable.” Portmanteau words like these use a unique form of linguistic playfulness to create double meanings. The fact that such words come into being through the packing together of already existing words also shows why many of the made-up words in the poem can’t be considered pure nonsense. “Unpacking” their meanings becomes part of the fun.

Onomatopoeia

At several points throughout “Jabberwocky,” Carroll uses the sounds of nonsense words to suggest their meaning. The name for this kind of close association between sound and meaning is onomatopoeia (AW-nuh-MAW-tuh-PEE-yuh). For a good example of how Carroll uses onomatopoeia to suggest meanings for made-up words, consider the nonsense adjective “tulgey.” This word appears when the speaker describes how the “Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, / Came whiffling through the tulgey wood” (lines 14–15). If you look up “tulgey” in the dictionary, you most likely won’t find anything, since Carroll made it up. But from context, we might guess that, since the adjective describes a forested setting, it could mean something like “dark” or “dense.” The sound of the word seems to confirm this inference. The short vowel sound made by the U has a dark tone compared to brighter vowel sounds, like the A in “apple.” Likewise, the double consonant LG in the middle of the word suggests density—your tongue even has to crowd the front of your mouth just to say it! Carroll’s use of onomatopoeia here and elsewhere in the poem contributes to its overall sense of linguistic play.

Cacophony

Cacophony (kuh-KAW-fuh-NEE) refers to a sound effect characterized by dissonance, and it occurs when language sounds rough or harsh. This dissonant effect occurs when individual words or groupings of words have a particularly unmusical sound. The best way to discover cacophony in a poem is to read it aloud and see which lines are challenging to say. Upon beginning to read “Jabberwocky” aloud, most readers will intuitively sense cacophony in the poem’s opening four lines:

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

The cacophony doesn’t arise solely because it’s hard to know how to pronounce the made-up words. Dissonance also comes from the harshness of words like “brillig” and from dense combinations of consonants in phrases like “the mome raths outgrabe.” The poem’s dissonant language has a twofold significance. On the one hand, this language mimics the rough, Germanic sounds of Old English alliterative verse, which relied heavily on consonant use. On the other hand, the poem’s dissonant language has a humorous effect. Consider how, upon learning of the Jabberwocky’s demise, the father cries out: “O frabjous day!” (line 23). Frabjous doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, yet here it serves as an absurdly spontaneous expression of joy.