Charles Synyard (@CharlesSynyard)

7/13 “Alice did not like shaking hands with either of them first, for fear of hurting the other one’s feelings; so, as the best way out of the difficulty, she took hold of both hands at once: the next moment they were dancing around in a ring. This seemed quite natural (she remembered afterwards), and she was not even surprised to hear music playing: it seemed to come from the tree under which they were dancing, and it was done (as well as she could make out) by the branches rubbing one across the other, like fiddles and fiddle-sticks.” A couple of handshakes, and Alice finds herself dancing, equally partner to Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Rereading Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871), by Lewis Carroll, in the 1983 Pennyroyal edition with woodcut engravings by Barry Moser. After the Tweedles catch their breath, and thank Alice for her consideration, the FIRST thing they do is propose to read her a poem, and then opt for “The Walrus and the Carpenter”: a selection with plenty of nonsense, but darkly humorous. I believe they are testing Alice: gauging her reaction, to see if she is game to join in on real-life exploitation of the powerless. Tweedledum and Tweedledee: “They were standing under a tree, each with an arm round the other’s neck”. Certainly affectionate for ostensible foes who have agreed to battle! Long taken as a parody of the two-party system, and with good reason. In his work as a mathematician, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson devised a form of multi-member district proportional representation, as an alternative to the first past the post system, which he explained in The Principles of Parliamentary Representation, to the end “That the proportions of political parties in the House should be, as nearly as possible, the same as in the whole body of Electors” https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Principles_of_Parliamentary_Representation/Chapter_I The author’s native Britain has, remarkably, developed a kind of multiparty system despite its unchanged electoral system… yet is there much more real choice than when it was just Conservative or Liberal? All the factions of the electorate have to pin their hopes on a candidate with a chance of winning the plurality, and in making compromises, all the nation’s “parties” are seemingly still reduced to two in Parliament. Just so, the Tweedles, whom we would clearly recognize as twin brothers, are really so much of a mind that they speak in tandem, bouncing off of and developing each other’s sentences. But at first Alice is too distracted to really engage them, “for the words of the old song kept ringing through her head like the ticking of a clock, and she could hardly help saying them out loud:— “Tweedledum and Tweedledee Agreed to have a battle; For Tweedledum said Tweedledee Had spoiled his nice new rattle. “Just then flew down a monstrous crow, As black as a tar-barrel; Which frightened both the heroes so, They quite forgot their quarrel.” Though the Tweedles are pre-existing nursery rhyme characters, Carroll composed these verses, which Alice already knew on first meeting them—and which dictate the action afterwards, as will happen with Humpty Dumpty, and the Lion and the Unicorn. What is going on? I think this is a commentary on how, for all the passion of different actors in the world, the same things keep happening over again. Rather than something new under the sun, and mastery of the present and future, the gods of the copy-book headings, the eternal return of the same. Tweedledum and Tweedledee are glad-handedly confident, and seem to think they’ve a good thing going: but their whole mock battle is about to be cut short, as the “heroes” flee before a “monstrous crow” swoops down and scares them off. The crow is so close its shadow is already obscuring the sky—“it’s getting so dark”—yet they are completely oblivious until the last moment. I find the choice of “a monstrous crow, As black as a tar-barrel” significant. The Tweedles, stand-ins for the two-party system, don’t flee before a third combatant: partisanship reliably becomes unity around the leader during a major war, the history of democracy shows. Does the “tar-black” have racial connotations? The boldest-talking politicians will kneel and pander before race hustlers, before whom “leaders” cower in fear. Intended or not—after all, the r-word didn’t exist yet in 1871—the detail showed uncanny foresight. Trying to greet the two properly on their prompting, Alice’s businesslike double handshakes become a dance in a ring—that is, they go from strangers to chums. The dance, and subsequent recitation and discussion of the poem, happen, like other key events in Looking-Glass Land, while standing beneath a tree, reminiscent of the hero standing long in thought beneath the Tumtum tree in “Jabberwocky”. The Tweedles recognize their new buddy, Alice, as a potential partner in crime, and decide to read her a long poem, despite her being in a hurry to leave. “‘You like poetry?’ “‘Ye-es, pretty well—some poetry,’ Alice said doubtfully. ‘Would you tell me which road leads out of the wood?’ “‘What shall I repeat to her?’ said Tweedledee, looking round at Tweedledum with great solemn eyes, and not noticing Alice’s question. “‘“The Walrus and the Carpenter” is the longest,’ Tweedledum replied, giving his brother an affectionate hug.” This smacks of a practiced routine. The Tweedles have been through this before, and have a repertoire of poems that they use to test the reactions of potential partners in crime. The Tweedles remind me of the brothers Mortimer and Randolph Duke from the 1983 film Trading Places, or for an older reference, the friends Saad and Saadī in “The Generous Sheikh” in the Thousand and One Nights: their facetious conflict, whose consequences for others they care nothing for, merely underscores how they are really on the same side. “The Walrus and the Carpenter” has the trappings of a nonsense poem, but from the first, looked at differently, it is realistic fiction. Take the first two stanzas: “The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might: He did his very best to make The billows smooth and bright— And this was odd, because it was The middle of the night. “The moon was shining sulkily, Because she thought the sun Had got no business to be there After the day was done— ‘It’s very rude of him,’ she said, ‘To come and spoil the fun!’” To Alice, and to most of us, this would be an alien scenario, even a contradiction in terms—yet it really happens in the further reaches of Scandinavia, when the midnight sun shines in the summer. The Walrus and Carpenter have no eyes a beauty that would fill us with awe, however. They stroll the beach beneath the midnight sun, the sky absolutely cloudless, and not even birdsong to mar the lapping of the waves. “You could not see a cloud, because No cloud was in the sky: No birds were flying overhead— There were no birds to fly.” Rather than reduced to shuddering awe, the pair bemoans the natural beauty as waste and in the way. “The Walrus and the Carpenter Were walking close at hand: They wept like anything to see Such quantities of sand: ‘If this were only cleared away,’ They said, ‘it would be grand!’ “‘If seven maids with seven mops Swept it for half a year, Do you suppose,’ the Walrus said, ‘That they could get it clear?’ ‘I doubt it,’ said the Carpenter, And shed a bitter tear.” They see it as untidy and unprofitable, like capitalists bemoaning something that isn’t good for making money. This already is enough to set them at odds with Alice: love for beauty is her deepest motive, as we saw when she sought the garden in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and as we shall see, two posts hence, in this series. Walrus and Carpenter invite the Oysters to join their stroll: “‘O Oysters, come and walk with us!’ The Walrus did beseech. ‘A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, Along the briny beach…’” But one wizened old Oyster knows what is coming. “The eldest Oyster looked at him, But never a word he said: The eldest Oyster winked his eye, And shook his heavy head— Meaning to say he did not choose To leave the oyster-bed.” But soon the Oysters are teaming after the Walrus and Carpenter, until they get to a convenient place to stop after about a mile. Time for a snack! But first we get the iconic lines that are the best known in the poem: “‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said, ‘To talk of many things: Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax— Of cabbages—and kings— And why the sea is boiling hot— And whether pigs have wings.’” As James R. Kincaid says in the shoulder notes, the poem has been connected with a proverb, “A shell for him, and a shell for thee, The oyster is the lawyer’s fee.” The stanza is nonsense, but read as lawyers chatting one to another, it is self-aware nonsense: they are pleased to get to talk of many absurd things, for which they will get to eat their clients alive! Just so, after all the Oysters are gathered, they bring out the bread, butter, pepper, and vinegar, and the poor Oysters turn blue, aware now of what is coming. Meanwhile, the Walrus and Carpenter make a show of feeling for their victims to the end. “‘It seems a shame,’ the Walrus said, ‘To play them such a trick, After we've brought them out so far, And made them trot so quick!’ The Carpenter said nothing but ‘The butter’s spread too thick!’ “‘I weep for you,’ the Walrus said. ‘I deeply sympathize!’ With sobs and tears he sorted out Those of the largest size, Holding his pocket-handkerchief Before his streaming eyes. “‘O Oysters,’ said the Carpenter, ‘You’ve had a pleasant run! Shall we be trotting home again?’ But answer came there none— And this was scarcely odd, because They’d eaten every one.” The Walrus put on a show of tears—or was even really sad—but was preoccupied with stuffing his face with the biggest Oysters! Meanwhile, the Carpenter’s final beckon to the Oysters can be seen as openly mocking, though it also reminds me of something I’ve read about in genocides: the killers will call out to survivors of a massacre, promising they are safe, or will even be recruited into their armed forces, but just kill them too if they emerge from their hiding places. The Carpenter wouldn’t want to leave any uneaten. How do you respond to such a poem, conspiratorially read to you by one of a pair of brothers not so unlike the Walrus and the Carpenter? “‘I like the Walrus best,’ said Alice: ‘because he was a little sorry for the poor oysters.’ “‘He ate more than the Carpenter, though," said Tweedledee. ‘You see he held his handkerchief in front, so that the Carpenter couldn’t count how many he took: contrariwise.’ “‘That was mean!’ Alice said indignantly. ‘Then I like the Carpenter best—if he didn’t eat so many as the Walrus.’ “‘But he ate as many as he could get,’ said Tweedledum. This was a puzzler. After a pause, Alice began, ‘Well! They were both very unpleasant characters—‘“ where Alice is interrputed by the sound of the Red King snoring— next post in this series on who dreams the dream. To Alice’s reaction, Kincaid flat-footedly notes, “Alice seems to be puzzles because her attempts to identify with one or the other of the more powerful predators are so adroitly blocked by the Tweedle brothers that she if left with nowhere to go. This Queen-to-be is not likely to see herself as an Oyster.” Really? That might make sense, if Alice hadn’t said she felt sorry for the oysters, called the Walrus’s mock sentimentality mean, and said both were very unpleasant. The idea that Alice isn‘t identifying with the victims because she is too proud is set aside when you remember, there was one shellfish that was smart, and refused to become a victim: the eldest Oyster. If Alice prized worldly wisdom, and deplored the younger Oysters for walking “like sheep to the slaughter”, but despised the Walrus and Carpenter, it would be normal for her to like him best. Yet she does not. Why? The “puzzler” makes sense when the episode is read, as it always has been (you don’t need to be a professor to see the resemblance), as a parody of the two-party system. Or again, of prosecution and defense lawyers similarly making out well together, despite formal opposition. Alice has no other choice, because the voter has no other choice. Tweedledum, or Tweedledee? Walrus, or Carpenter? Lib, Lab, Con, Green, Reform? Alice has a conscience, and sees that both are doing wrong—and can get no farther than saying both are bad, because for ghe voter, it is reliably “the lesser of two evils” he has to pick. Keep in mind also where Alice has just come from: a wood where things forget their own names. Could the house of Tweedledum and Tweedledee be a place where visitors forget they have more than two choices? But even if Alice’s thinking is stinted, by a magic of the locale or by need to conform to the parody of politics, she shows no eagerness to join in the tricks, and become one more predator out to deceive and exploit the weaker and more gullible. Think about the lessons the evil-minded could find in “The Walrus and the Carpenter”. For them, it would be not dark comedy, or cautionary tale, but instructive. From the elder Oyster refusing to go along: You can’t fool everyone, but that’s no problem; most, especially the young, are so easily deceived, that he doesn’t even find it worthwhile to open his mouth and warn them; the old and wise are mainly looking out for themselves, as we are. From the Walrus’s pretended tears: faking sympathy, even as you harm the victims, can make you seem a humanitarian, to have a heart; but like the Walrus’s handkerchief, you can use the show of sadness to cover up wronging others even more than those who do evil with no signs of remorse. The conversation abruptly shifts, but Alice doesn’t want in on any such games, that much is clear. After rejecting the suggestions of the Gnat, who showed every sigh of wanting to exploit Alice, she survives the temptation to become an exploiter of the weak herself; she takes what could be read as a lesson on how best to take advantage, as just a cruel thing to do, without ever seeing it as something she might emulate. Next, I’ll turn to the more philosophical question—who is dreaming this dream, Alice or the Red King?—and propose an answer, backed by the text, that shows the significance and overall meaning of this Alice story, and what it meant for Lewis Caroll. #LewisCarroll #BarryMoser #ThroughTheLookingGlass #AliceInWonderland #PennyroyalPress #Pennyroyal #woodcutting #woodcut #engraving #illustration #art #TweedledumAndTweedledee #ofcabbagesandkings #poetry #midnightsun #beauty #exploitation #capitalism #oysters #twopartysystem #partysystem #firstpastthepost #proportionalrepresentation #lesseroftwoevils #dreams #fantasy #childrensliterature #childrensbooks #literature #books