By Angela Maria Hart
"There are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents, and only one for birthday presents, you know." ~ Lewis Carroll
"Happy Unbirthday!" Or, if it is your birthday, "Happy Birthday"! In today's video, I am continuing my "Alice in Wonderland" and "Alice Through the Looking-Glass" discussion. If you have any thoughts on "Alice in Wonderland" and "Alice Through the Looking-Glass" let me know!
In Wonderland, however, the pre-established symbolism of objects and order does not exist. Items people associated with certain societal expectations are irrelevant. For instance, during the croquet game, Alice is handed a flamingo for a mallet, a hedgehog for a ball, and card soldiers as wickets. The imagery becomes odd and unforeseen. Alice had been conditioned by society, and the rules of croquet, to expect a mallet, ball, and wicket. During her visit to Wonderland, Alice feels lost and soon longs for a recognizable system. Similarly, in Alice Through the Looking Glass, Alice’s understanding of chess is called into question. The logic she has learned in regards to strategy and rules no longer apply.
Most people do not try to reconfigure words and create new meanings such as Carroll did. Lacan understood the significance of words and the importance they hold in the world. Lacan believed, “Writing is distinguished by a prevalence of the text in the sense that this factor of discourse will assume…a factor that makes possible the kind of tightening up that I like in order to leave the reader no other way out than the way in, which I prefer to be difficult. In this sense, then, this will not be writing” (Lacan 738). People use words to communicate and make sense of the world around them; without words, people would be at a loss. But, the same words that provide structure and order confine individuals.
Also, considering the fact Lacan believed “this means no matter where one starts to designate their reciprocal encroachments and increasing inclusions, these units are subjected to the double condition of being reducible to ultimate differential elements and of combining the according to the laws of a closed order,” it must be noted that in Wonderland, Carroll removes all semblance of a closed order (Lacan 742). “One can’t believe impossible things…I dare say you haven’t had much practice” (Carroll 166). Carroll wants readers to believe in the impossible and develop a creative mindset. Lacan’s idea that a singular person provides a system of language must therefore find that Carroll is creating a new order of language. Now, anytime someone mentions their unbirthday, a word Carroll coined, he must receive credit for the reference.
In a civilized society, words provide context and meaning when used in a sentence whether it be written or oral. But, when a writer creates a metaphor, the meaning can become ambiguous and provide the author with more options to invoke secondary and tertiary definitions. “The creative spark of the metaphor does not spring from the presentation of two images, that is, of two signifiers equally actualized. It flashes between two signifiers one of which has taken the place of the other in the signifying chain, the occulted signifier remaining present through its (metnymic) connexion with the rest of the chain” (Lacan 745).[1] When the Mad Hatter creates the term unbirthday, he is using a new word to imply a celebration should occur. “Language hands down its sentence to those who know how to hear it: through the use of the article employed as a partitive particle. Indeed, it is here that spirit – if spirit be living signification – seems, no less singularly, to allow for quantification more than the letter does” (Lacan 749). Lewis Carroll knew how to craft sentences and stories that would cater to creating a new signification. Carroll would also include all capitalized words throughout the texts to provide emphasis such as a character stressing a certain word over others in their dialogue or to demonstrate their significance in the sentence.
[1] Lacan also write, “We see then, that, metaphor occurs at the precise point at which sense emerged from non-sense, that is, at the frontier which, as Freud discovered, when crossed the other way produces the word that in French is the word par excellence, the word that is simply the signifier ‘espirit’ it is at this frontier that we realize that man defies his very destiny when he derides the signifier” (Lacan 746).
P.S.
In case you are thinking of the Disney cartoon song, here are the lyrics to "A Very Merry Un-Birthday".
