The Jabberwock
Creature of “Jabberwocky”
The flame-eyed creature hunted in Lewis Carroll’s nonsense poem, encountered in a tulgey wood and defeated with a vorpal sword.
Quick answer
The Jabberwock is the dangerous creature in Lewis Carroll’s poem “Jabberwocky.” It has biting jaws, catching claws, and fiery eyes, and a young hero defeats it with a vorpal sword.
Quick facts
| Creator | Lewis Carroll |
|---|---|
| Book | Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) |
| First appearance | Chapter I, “Looking-Glass House,” inside the poem “Jabberwocky” [1] |
| Source realm | Looking-Glass world; the poem’s tulgey wood |
| Traits stated | Biting jaws, catching claws, eyes of flame |
| Movement and sound | “Whiffling” movement and a burbling call |
| Opponent | An unnamed son carrying a vorpal sword |
| Outcome | Slain and beheaded in the poem |
What the source book says
Alice finds a book in Looking-Glass House whose writing initially appears reversed. Using a mirror, she reads “Jabberwocky,” a short poem about a warning, a hunt, and a triumphant return.[1]
Within the poem, a father warns his son about the Jabberwock. The son searches with a vorpal sword and pauses beside the Tumtum tree. The creature approaches through the tulgey wood; the son kills it, takes its head home, and is welcomed with celebration.[1]
Description and identification
The poem gives only a handful of physical clues: jaws, claws, and fiery eyes. “Whiffling” and “burbled” describe its approach without explaining exactly how it moves or sounds. This deliberate uncertainty lets the invented words suggest more than they define.[1]
- Named directly as the Jabberwock
- Dangerous enough to prompt a specific warning
- Associated with the tulgey wood
- Approaches with flame-like eyes and a burbling sound
- Can be killed by the poem’s vorpal blade
Source realm: the Looking-Glass world
The poem is discovered after Alice passes through the mirror into Looking-Glass House. Its own miniature setting includes the wabe, Tumtum tree, and tulgey wood. The index therefore treats it as a literary realm nested inside Carroll’s Looking-Glass world, not as a real geographic habitat.
Language and meaning
A complete quest in seven verses
The poem compresses warning, preparation, encounter, victory, and homecoming into a very small space. Familiar story structure makes the unfamiliar vocabulary easier to follow.
Words that create creatures
In Chapter VI, Humpty Dumpty explains words from the opening stanza, including “slithy” as a combination of “lithe” and “slimy.” He does not provide a matching dictionary entry for every word, so some uncertainty is part of the design.[1]
Text and illustration are different evidence
John Tenniel’s famous illustration strongly shaped later ideas about the Jabberwock. Its visual details should be identified as the illustrator’s interpretation rather than silently treated as statements from the poem.
Book and reference
- 1Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There
Lewis Carroll; illustrated by John Tenniel. Macmillan, 1871. See Chapter I, “Looking-Glass House,” for the complete poem and Chapter VI, “Humpty Dumpty,” for discussion of its opening words.
Project Gutenberg edition ↗