Intro
In these two classic fantasy tales, a young girl called Alice finds herself drawn into another world where she goes through all sorts of surreal experiences from getting advice from a caterpillar to attending a lunatic tea-party to witnessing a baby turn into a pig. All in a day’s hallucination, as they say.
Because they’re so deliciously oddball, these stories feature all sorts of off-the-wall images and situations in which things are pretty confusing, or not what they seem at all. This goes for language, too, with both stories featuring a whole heap of miscommunication.
Communication between two people (or a person and a caterpillar, as the case may be) relies on both beings being on the same page. Which, in these stories, often isn’t the case. Alice may have read her brother’s Latin textbook, but neither this nor her attempts to recite poetry are of any use, since formal systems of language (the sort you’d learn in school) have no place in these alternate worlds.
This adds to the wackiness of the stories, but it also emphasizes the complexity of language and the randomness of the signifier-signified relationship. The same goes for the various poems that the characters recite: “Jabberwocky” may be a load of gobbledygook (brillig? Slithy? Borogoves? Come on, Mr. Carroll).
But we still try to interpret it—as does Alice. This underlines how ingrained the link between signifier and signified is within our minds: in short, we’re always looking for a possible signified. Even if we’re facing total nonsense.
Sources of comic misunderstanding in these stories include mixing languages and taking metaphors literally, as well as the confusion caused by homophones (words that sound alike but have different meanings, such as “flour” and “flower” or “tale” and “tail.” Try narrating a mouse’s behind appendage or baking with rose petals if you don’t believe us).
In the same way that Alice is forever growing and shrinking as she explores Wonderland (thanks to magical cakes and potions), miscommunication can come in all sorts of forms. Still, what we’re dealing with overall is a situation in which characters interpret things differently and communicate on different levels. For example, take a wobble with the “Humpty Dumpty” chapter in Through the Looking-Glass:
Quote
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’”
“But ‘glory’ doesn't mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”
“Would you tell me, please,” said Alice “what that means?”
“Now you talk like a reasonable child,” said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. “I meant by ‘impenetrability’ that we’ve had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don’t mean to stop here all the rest of your life.”
“That’s a great deal to make one word mean,” Alice said in a thoughtful tone.
“When I make a word do a lot of work like that,” said Humpty Dumpty, “I always pay it extra.”
“Oh!” said Alice. She was too much puzzled to make any other remark.
Analysis
This whole chapter consists of Alice and Humpty Dumpty debating the purpose and nature of words. Things haven’t been going well even up to this point: Humpty Dumpty has already taken offense at Alice likening him to an egg, going on to tell her that her own name is “stupid.” Wow, quite the mature and enlightened debate we’ve got here, huh?
Anyway, upon being asked what her name means, Alice questions whether a name has to mean something, to which Humpty Dumpty replies that it most certainly does: his name, for instance, refers to his shape (which, he adds, is “a good handsome shape”), while “Alice” doesn’t seem to refer to any shape in particular. Ouch.
As Alice and Humpty Dumpty continue their conversation, it’s clear that the two have a different outlook on language. Alice gets confused because Humpty Dumpty seems to misuse words: when he defines the word “glory” as “a nice knock-down argument,” our automatic response is “huh?” Like Alice, we know that this is hardly the dictionary definition of the term.
Humpty Dumpty, however, retorts that when he uses a word it means whatever he chooses it to mean. Honestly, can you imagine playing Scrabble with this guy? He may set himself up as this master of language (modesty really isn’t his strong point), yet there would be major confusion and frustration if we all used words in this way.
In a famous line from Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare wrote, “What’s in a name?” Well, for Humpty Dumpty it’s anything he wants. The thing is, without any shared reference points, communication breaks down and becomes totally random.
This represents a move from structuralism to deconstruction, with the signifier and signified now being disconnected. In fact, in this situation, we can say that the signifier is “empty” or “floating.” As for Humpty Dumpty, Jacques Lacan described him as “the master of the signifier,” which, let’s face it, is pretty high praise for someone who looks like an egg—no matter how good and handsome a shape that egg may be.