Social Constraints Breaking social constraints, Carnival

Jabberwocky

• Lewis Carrol’s nonsense poem found in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) is generally considered to be one of the greatest nonsense poems written in the English language.

• The word “jabberwocky” is also occasionally used as a synonym of nonsense.

Jabberwocky 'Twas brillig, and the slithy tovesDid gyre and gimble in the wabe;All mimsy were the borogoves,And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!Beware the Jubjub bird, and shunThe frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:Long time the manxome foe he sought—So rested he by the Tumtum tree,And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and throughThe vorpal blade went snicker-snack!He left it dead, and with its headHe went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?Come to my arms, my beamish boy!O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy tovesDid gyre and gimble in the wabe;All mimsy were the borogoves,And the mome raths outgrabe.

Social Constraints

1. What is a “good” child like? Name some of his/her characteristics?

2. How free are children to do whatever they wish?

3. What are some things that children should not do?

4. Who makes the rules that children are supposed to follow?

– Who decides what is good and bad for a child to do? – How do they make these decisions?

Social Constraints• Rules from parents• Rules at school• Religious guidelines• Peer pressure • Laws of propriety (socially acceptable behavior)

– Fashion– language/behavior– Selfishness/selflessness – Behavior toward opposite sex

Breaking social constraints in literature

• gives a feeling of power when readers identify with characters who break the rules.

• challenges the norms and conventions of society by testing them.

• provides a site for humor.

The Carnival Tradition

Carnival is a festive season when the normal rules of society don’t apply. It occurs immediately before Lent; usually during February or March. (Lent is a time on the Christian calendar when followers give up eating meat and/or give up something they really like in order to prepare for the passion of Christ.) It typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus and public street party. People often dress up or masquerade during the celebrations.

Popular Carnivals today– Carnival at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil– Mardi Gras in New Orleans. USA– Carnival in Venice, Italy

Carnival Venice

Carnival at Rio

Mardi Gras

Carnival

• Carnival is a time or space in which the normal rules of society don’t apply.

• Carnivalesque literature highlights this kind of atmosphere.

• Nonsense is one way of rejecting the formal rules of society. This makes it empowering.

• The “grotesque” is an aspect of carnival that celebrates the physical body and the lower bodily functions.

Carnival• It’s joyous, anti-authoritarian, riotous, carnal and liberatory

celebration, to escape the pressures of life.

• Participants may deliberately violate what appear to be standards of sense and decency (which are really methods of social and imaginative control).

• Carnivals can be a means of social control because the carnival exists within a certain space and time. When it ends, then one more willingly follows the rules of society once again.

• Carnival can also bring freedom and a sense of power because people are able to do what they want to do.

• A classic scene of a Renaissance carnival appears in the opening chapters of The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo. Quasimodo, the hunchback, becomes the King of Fools and is paraded like a hero through the streets.

Carnivalesque

• Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin studied Renaissance carnivals and used the ideas he found to explain much of what happens in contemporary society and literature.

• Something is carnivalesque when the themes of the carnival twist, mutate, and invert standard themes of societal makeup.

• When the standards of society are twisted, parodied, and inverted in a playful, crazy kind of way in stories, we can often see this as carnivalesque.

• In carnivalesque literature, as in a carnival, we may see mixing and confrontations of the high and low, upper-class and lower-class, spiritual and material, young and old, male and female, daily identities and festive masks, seriousness and the comical.

Carnivalesque in children’s literature

Peter Pan• Neverland is a place where normal rules don’t make sense.

• Wendy still pays attention to the rules of society. She performs the duty of a mother and is the one that brings everyone back to reality.

• Peter follows rules of fair play.

Nonsense in Peter Pan

• What other examples can you find of nonsense in this novel?

The Adventures of

Captain Underpants

Dav Pilkey

Captain Underpants

Think about these questions as we read.• Where do you see nonsense? How do you react to it?

• Do you like George and Harold? Why or why not?

• Why do you think it has become immensely popular?

• How are the rules of society inverted? (In what ways is it carnivalesque?)

Now answer these questions

• Where do you see nonsense? How do you react to it?

• Do you like George and Harold? Why or why not?

• Why do you think it has become immensely popular?

• How are the rules of society inverted? (In what ways is it carnivalesque?)