1.1  Linguistic Features

 

This analysis and critique will explore the use of language, and linguistic principles represented in Anita Lobel’s children’s book, The Pancake, published in 1978, and Lewis Carroll’s 1871 nonsense poem, Jabberwocky. 
 

1.2  Rationale for Selection

 

The Pancake is a children’s book about a sentient pancake that is determined not to be eaten by the woman who made it and the seven hungry children she has. Anita Lobel is the author and illustrator of this book, a book that could be found on a grandmother’s bookcase dedicated to literature for her grandchildren in the basement library. Children’s books are the steppingstones used to teach the younger generations the language of their society; to teach them the rules language follows and inspire a love of reading. Another children’s book, one much more popular, is Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. In the second book of the series, Lewis introduces a nonsense poem, Jabberwocky. The poem tells the story of a boy who was warned of a dangerous creature as a young boy and when he grew up, he was able to kill that creature and return to his father with it is head. It is nonsense words and entertaining rhyme scheme creates a memorable experience for all ages. 
 

1.3  Morphological and Phonological Perspectives

 

As a children’s book author, Lobel uses mostly monomorphemic words in The Pancake as they are simple words for kids to understand but she does use basic polymorphemic words. Examples of monomorphemic words include “roll,” “cat,” and “eat.” The primary character of the work is a polymorphemic breakfast choice made of two free morphemes, “pan” and “cake.” On the pancake’s adventure, Lobel uses the inflectional suffix “ed” to describe the movements it made, such as “rolled” and “jumped.” There are no contractions used in Lobel’s writing. There is one instance of onomatopoeia in the book, when the pig said “oink, oink” as it ate the pancake, which is kind of odd as there were other animals, but Lobel had anthropomorphized them, and they only spoke like humans. Repetition is used a couple of times when the pancake repeats who it has rolled away from and adding the last person or animal to the end. 

 

Lewis Carroll uses the ABAB rhyme scheme in his poem, Jabberwocky. This means the words at the end of line rhyme based on the letter line it is. Following the quatrain stanza of four lines at a time, 

“’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.” (Lewis, 1871).

Then toves rhymes with borogoves, as wabe rhymes with outgrabe. But the poem also uses internal rhyming, “He left it dead, and with its head” (Lewis, 1871). Alliteration was used in lines like “the claws that catch.” As seen above, Carroll uses contractions such as “’twas” or it was. He also used portmanteau words, or words blending two other words into one, like “chortle” a combination of chuckle and snort or “galumphing” which was a combination of gallop and triumphant. There were also polymorphemic words, such as “jaws,” “eyes,” “whiffling,” etc. These were free morphemes that were bound by inflectional suffixes like “-s” and “-Ing.” 

2.1  Semantic Perspective

Lobel is more straightforward with her words than Carroll is. Her words do not change over time, and they are mostly neutral in nature. The only negative words she uses are “hungry,” “dumb,” “stupid,” and “foolish.” The words she uses have the same connation as they do denotation. 

Carroll’s use of nonsense language means his words sometimes have two meanings, such as “slithy” and there is lexical ambiguity. Slithy is a combination of slimy and lithe, with lithe meaning active. His words are a mix of negative and positives, with “fruminous” (-), “galumphing” (+), and “frabjous” (+). 
 

2.2  Register Levels

The Pancake uses a formal register with complete sentences and avoids slang words. Even the children’s dialogue is formal; “Please, mother,” they cried, “let us eat the pancake right away!” (Lobel, 1978). Jabberwocky uses an informal or casual register, with two verses being a father’s words to his son. Lewis’s words, while seeming nonsensical, would-be colloquialisms, or familiar to the father and son mentioned in the poem, such as “Jabberwocky” and “frabjous.” 
 

2.3  Dialects

Anita Lobel is an immigrant from Poland to America and The Pancake reads like she was trying not to have a noticeable dialect besides one of someone with education, which follows proper grammar rules. The pancake’s dialogue shows the most examples of dialect. For example, “If I can roll away from the woman who cooked me, and her seven children who wanted to eat me, a dumb farmer and a silly goose who wanted to take a bite out of me, I can roll away from you too, stupid cat,” said the pancake” (Lobel, 1978). The insults the pancake uses are common of American children, but the syntax is of an adult. Carroll also writes as someone with an educational background, though he shows the dialect of his time period (1800s) when he uses words such as “Twas,” “hast,” and “thou.”
 

2.4  Stylistic Elements

The Pancake uses repetition of the word “roll” or “rolled” as it refers to the movement the pancake makes to get away from those who wish to eat it. There is also the personification of the farm animals and the pancake as they make conversation throughout the book. There was also the one instance of onomatopoeia as mentioned above. 

 

Carroll uses metaphor in Jabberwocky as he describes the monster with “eyes of flames.” He also uses onomatopoeia with the “snicker-snack” of the vorpal sword as the boy takes off the head of the Jabberwocky and the “galumphing” of the boy and his horse on his triumphant journey home. He uses imagery to create the Jabberwocky in the reader’s mind, as it has “jaws that bite,” “claws that scratch,” and flaming eyes. These monsters are used allegorically to represent good vs evil, to represent the virtues the boy should shun or avoid, such as violence, anger, and those that appear at night. 
 

2.5  Critique of Standard/Non-standard Alignment 

The Pancake follows Standard English fairly strictly as it is a children’s book and is meant to help teach children proper grammar, punctation, and formal English language. Jabberwocky strays from the standard and goes straight to Non-Standard English with the made-up words and crazy punctuation. There is one verse that uses more exclamation points than made sense: 

 

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
  Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
  The frumious Bandersnatch!” (Lewis, 1871).

 

The poem also has dialogue that is not labeled by speaker; therefore, the reader must assume who is talking and decide when the dialogue starts vs stops. 
 

3.1  Changes

There are multiple changes that would need to be made to make Lewis’s Jabberwock make sense in the same time period as The Pancake. As it is a nonsense poem, the nonsense words need to be decoded based on what the author was trying to say. Later in the novel, Alice Through The Looking Glass, Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice what a couple of words in the poem means. Humpty Dumpty explained “Brillig” as meaning four o’clock in the afternoon and “toves” as something like badgers, while “gimble” is to make holes and “mimsy” means flimsy and miserable (Carroll, 1872). Making sense of the nonsense words is the first step but the next would be to fix up the dialogue to specify when the dialogue starts and who is talking. Another change to make is to update the language used from Old English to a more modernized English, such as changing “‘Twas” to “it was.” 
 

3.2  Intended Message 
The Pancake uses very straightforward language to relay it’s intend message; it’s a children’s book so it needs to be understandable by beginner readers. The message is clearly to be careful who you accept help from, as people can hide their true intentions. 

““I will help you,” said the pig. “Just sit on the tip of my nose and I will

take you to the other side.” How clever of me to meet such a kind pig,

thought the pancake and rolled onto the pig’s nose. 

“Oink, oink,” said the pig and swallowed the pancake in one large gulp.”

(Lobel, 1978).

The pig showed his true colors when he ate the pancake, after promising safe passage across the river. 
While Carroll’s poem is filled with unrecognizable words, the meaning of the poem is obvious as well. The father is trying to warn his son against the monsters they have to face in their land, like the Bandersnatch and the Jabberwocky. The son, in turn, decides to hunt the monsters down to make his father proud, “Long time the manxome foe he sought” (Lewis, 1871). The moral of the story is good versus evil, and the monsters could be metaphors for things such as pride, greed, or any of the virtues society deems to be evil. 
 

3.3  Aligning with Standard English 

To make Jabberwock align with Standard English rules, it would be changed from a poem to more of a story, meaning full sentences and the words will not necessarily rhyme anymore. The last stanza of the poem would be taken off as well because it is an unnecessary repetition of the first stanza. Therefore, Jabberwock would look like this:

“It was 4o’clock in the afternoon and the Tove badgers were scratching out holes in the hillside. The miserable Borogove parrots and grave turtles squeaked out.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my boy! It has jaws that bite and claws that catch. Beware the Jubjub bird as well and shun the fuming and furious Bandersnatch!” said the father.

His son took his deadly sword in hand and sought out his long-time formidable foe. He took a rest by a TumTum tree, one native to Wonderland, and took a moment to think. And, as he stood in a contemplative mood, the Jabberwock, with his eyes like flames, came gliding through the woods like the wind. It made noises like a bleating warbling murmur. The son used his deadly sword to kill the Jabberwock and cut off its head. He went back to his home with the head, galloping triumphantly.

“Have you killed the Jabberwock? Come to me, my beaming boy! It is a fabulous and joyous day! Hurray! Hurray!” his father cheered and snorted in his joy.”
 

3.4  Contrast in Language due to the Time Periods

Lobel’s The Pancake’s illustrations age the book more than the words do but there are certain words and ideas that place the book in the 1970’s. The first example is “Once there was a woman who had seven hungry children” (Lobel, 1978). Having multiple children in one household has been on the decline for quite some time, though examples of it pop up here and there over the years. There is a level of politeness between the characters that age the book, using “Good day” to greet everyone. There are also words like “foolish” and “silly goose” used to insult others. This is not a use of language that would be commonplace in modern society. 

 

The Jabberwock can be placed very easily into the 1800’s. Carroll’s use of words like “thou” and “hast” are common in literature written in Old English. He also used slang words such as “whiffling,” which was used to mean blowing in unsteady puffs or drinking and smoking, and “Tum-tum,” the Victorian slang word for a monotonously strummed string instrument (de Rooy, 2024). The use of a sword instead of a gun or bow and arrows can also set the time period. 
 

3.5  Cultural, Historical, and Environmental Factors 

Lewis Carroll originally drafted his poem for the amusement of his family, in a periodical he authored (De Rooy, 2024). He wrote the rest of the poem during his stay with relatives at Whitburn near Sunderland. There were two local legends (of the Lambton and Sockburn worms) that might have been the inspiration for him. The use of nonsense verse in Shakespeare and the Brother Grimm’s works could have also been inspiration for Carroll. 

 

Anita Lobel could have been influenced by her childhood in Nazi’s Poland. Her nanny took her and her brother away to the countryside to keep them from being captured by the Nazi forces (N.A., Virginia, 2018). They were poor and hungry, so a book about a pancake big enough to feed seven hungry children and being careful of who to trust could be reminiscent of that time. 
 

3.6. Influence of the Above Factors on Language

Lobel’s journey from Poland to American can explain why her children’s book has followed the standard rules of the English language. Many immigrants do not use contractions and can be formal when using English and informal in their first language. For Carroll, the influence of the tales of the Lambton Worm (worm means dragon) can be seen in the boy traveling off to fight the Jabberwocky and bringing back its head triumphantly. The tale of the Lambton Worm is set around a boy being responsible for bringing on the monster due to missing church one day and then when he grows up and realizes the destruction he has caused, especially to his father’s estate, he vanquishes the worm. (Parkinson, 2008)