The Poem “Jabberwocky” Symbol Analysis

Alice first encounters the poem "Jabberwocky" after she climbs through the looking-glass and into Looking-glass House. She initially thinks that it's written in a different language, but quickly discovers that it's just in reverse—holding it up to a mirror allows her to read it. As the poem comes up again and again in various points throughout the novel, it continually plays with the rules of Looking-glass World and, in general, proves the novel's broader point that literature or poetry only needs to be fun; it doesn't need to make sense. To illustrate this, even Alice remarks, upon reading it, that "It seems very pretty, [...] but it's rather hard to understand!" The narrator even notes that Alice has no real idea of what she's reading, but she can enjoy it nonetheless. Further, Humpty Dumpty's attempt to decode the poem doesn't do much to illuminate it—while he defines many of the words, the fact remains that about half of the words and all of the creatures in the poem are made up. In short, "Jabberwocky" encapsulates the idea that poetry or literature doesn't need to make strict sense to be entertaining; nonsense can be just as fun.