Saunders teaches writing and literature in the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, area and has published six chapbooks of poetry. In the following essay, he examines Carroll's need to impose order on the chaotic characters and language in "Jabberwocky."

In the history of literature, no writer was apparently more "sane" than Lewis Carroll, one of the most beloved children's authors in the world. On the surface, at least, Carroll struck his contemporaries as the paradigm of the rational, "adjusted" gentleman, one who was prized for his unflagging support of—and contributions to—British society in the Victorian era. Indeed, the numerous biographies and critical studies on Carroll all agree that unlike many poets in literary history, who either directly challenged the social order of the day or at least sought to live outside the accepted order, Carroll was very much an "insider" who would have considered...