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Lewis Carroll

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Difficulties, No. 1. & No. 2 . Steven P. Harthorn
Contents of this tag:
1. Lewis Carroll
2. Lewis Carroll and His Family at Croft Rectory

Contents of this tag:

Difficulties, No. 1. & No. 2 .

This page is referenced by:

Difficulties, No. 1. & No. 2 .
Full Text:
{Note: The original text contains footnotes that are integral to the meaning and humor of the text. These original footnotes are labeled numerically and appear below each of the essays respectively. The editor of this article has also annotated the selection. His footnotes are labeled alphabetically and appear after both of the essays, in a section labeled Critical Footnotes.}
DIFFICULTIES No. 1.
     Half of the world, or nearly so, is always in the light of the sun: as the world turns round, this hemisphere of light shifts round too, and passes over each part of it in succession.
     Supposing on Tuesday, it is morning at London; in another hour it would be Tuesday morning at the west of England; if the whole world were land we might go on tracing[1] Tuesday morning, Tuesday morning all the way round till in 24 hours we get to London again. But we know that at London 24 hours after Tuesday morning it is Wednesday morning Where then, in its passage round the earth, does the day change its name? Where does it lose its identity?
     Practically there is no difficulty in it, because a great part of its journey is over water, and what it does out at sea no one can tell: and besides there are so many different languages that it would be hopeless to attempt to trace the name of any one day all round. But is the case inconceivable that the same land and the same language should continue all round the world? I cannot see that it is: in that case either[2] there would be no distinction at all between each successive day, and so week, month, &c.,[A] so that we should have to say, “The Battle of Waterloo[B] happened to-day, about two million hours ago,” or some line would have to be fixed,[C] where the change should take place, so that the inhabitant of one house would wake and say “Heigh - ho,[3][D] Tuesday morning! ” and the inhabitant of the next ( over the line ), a few miles to the west would wake a few minutes afterwards and say “Heigh – ho! Wednesday morning!” What hopeless confusion the people who happened to live on the line would always be in, it is not for me to say.
    There would be a quarrel every morning as to what the name of the day should be. I can imagine no third case, unless everybody was allowed to choose for themselves, which state of this would be rather worse than either of the other two.
    I am aware that this idea has been started before, namely, by the unknown author of that beautiful poem beginning “If all the world were apple pie, &c."[4][E] The particular result here &. discussed, however, does not appear to have occurred to him as he confines himself to the difficulties in obtaining drink which would certainly ensue.
    Any good solution of the above difficulty will be thankfully received and inserted.

[1] The best way is to imagine yourself walking round with the sun and asking the inhabitants as you go “What morning is this? “If you suppose them living all the way round, and all speaking one language, the difficulty is obvious.
[2] This is clearly an impossible case, and is only put as an hypothesis.
[3] The usual exclamation at waking; generally said with a yawn.
[4] “If all the world were apple pie,
And all the sea were ink,
And all the trees were bread and cheese,
What should we have to drink?"

DIFFICULTIES No. 2 .
     Which is the best, a clock that is right only once a year, or a clock that is right twice every day? “The latter," you reply, "unquestionably.” Very good, reader, now attend.
    I have two clocks: one doesn't go at all, and the other loses a minute a day: which would you prefer? “The losing one, you answer, “without a doubt.” Now observe: the one which loses a minute a day has to lose twelve hours, or seven hundred and twenty minutes before it is right again, consequently it is only right once in two years, whereas the other is evidently right as often as the time it points to comes round, which happens twice a day. So you've contradicted yourself once. "Ah, but,” you say, “what's the use of its being right twice a day, if I can't tell when the time comes?” Why, suppose the clock points to eight o'clock, don't you see that the clock is right at eight o'clock? Consequently when eight o'clock comes your clock is right. “Yes, I see that,” you reply.[1] Very good, then you've contradicted yourself twice: now get out of the difficulty as you can, and don't contradict yourself again if you can help it.

[1] You might go on to ask, “How am I to know when eight o'clock does come? My clock will not tell me.” Be patient, reader: you know that when eight o'clock comes your clock is right; very good; then your rule is this: keep your eye fixed on your clock, and the very moment it is right it will be eight o'clock. “But——” you say. There, that'll do, reader; the more you argue the farther you get from the point, so it will be as well to stop.
Critical Footnotes:
[A] Another way to write, "Etcetera."
[B] Conflict between Napoleon Bonaparte and a combined force of Belgian, British, Dutch, German, and Prussian forces in 1815.
[C] The International Date Line would be created several years later, in 1884.
[D] An audible exclamation accompanying a yawn or sigh
[E] The first line to a nursery rhyme published in 1850.

About the Author:
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, was born in 1832 in Daresbury, Cheshire, UK to Charles Dodgson and Frances Jane Lutwidge. Charles was raised in Yorkshire, though he began attending boarding school at age 14, where he excelled academically, despite bullying from his peers.

From an early age, Dodgson would show an affinity for the literature, writing numerous humorous works of prose and poetry for his family, which he collected in in The Rectory Umbrella, a mock-literary magazine that he created at age 18 for the entertainment of himself and his family. This ‘publication’ is where our texts today originate.

He first published under the penname, Lewis Carroll in 1856 in a poem submitted to the literary magazine, The Train. However his most famous work, Alice in Wonderland would not be published until 1865, several years after he initially told the story to several young girls. Under his more famous pseudonym, Dodgson would go on to write several other notable works of children’s fiction, such as Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, and Hunting of the Snark. His works, though particularly Alice in Wonderland, are considered milestone works of children’s literature.

While Dodgson is most well-known today for his children’s literature, he was also a renowned mathematician and logician in his life, being credited with publishing several notable mathematical proofs and being given the Mathematical Lectureship in Christ Church in 1855, where he continued to lecture until his death in 1898.

Our texts in question today exemplify both the lighthearted humor found in his better-known literary works, as well as his aptitude in for logic, as much of their humor is found in the self-aware and absurdist argumentation
Textual Overview:
DIFFICULTIES No. 1. & No. 2. could best be categorized as a satirical take on academic literature, with both pieces exploring plainly absurd arguments in a very self-serious, and occasionally patronizing, academic tone, complete with equally absurd footnotes to further mimic the style of academic writing.

In the case of DIFFICULTIES No. 1. Dodgson asks the audience to consider a hypothetical scenario wherein you could follow the sunrise on any given morning, only to come all the way around the world and find that the date had changed somewhere along the way.

No. 2. instead presents the readers with a choice between choosing a clock that is only right once per two years and a clock that is right twice per day. After assuming that the readers will choose the clock that is right twice per day, Dodgson presents two scenarios which, if followed to their conclusion, will lead the readers to adopt both contradictory positions on which of the two clocks is preferable.

Several notable features contribute to the humor of each work. First, both works are built upon premises and arguments that are, ultimately, absurd to their core. In No. 1. Dodgson goes out of his way to explain the unbroken ring of homogenous neighbors that would have to exist for the ‘difficulty’ in question to be even relevant in his day and age, while No. 2. devolves into a plainly circular argument, which the audience is effectively instructed to stop thinking too hard about.

However, these evidently untenable arguments only take on their full humorous tone when combined with Dodgson’s use of footnotes, which are typically associated with more serious academic conversations. Instead of this, however, Dodgson uses them as a tool to introduce a level of self-awareness to his pieces, while simultaneously satirizing the formal, academic style that he is imitating. In No. 1. Dodgson notably uses his first two footnotes to both further highlight the absurdity of the premises that he has asked the reader to assume, and then immediately call out that absurdity for what it is. In the case of No. 2. the singular footnote at the end of the piece further highlights the circular nature of the argument that he just made and then calls his readers to simply drop the subject because continuing down this absurdist argument would only bring them further from the original point.

The self-aware nature of the piece’s humor extends even further than this, however. Given that both pieces deal heavily with the concepts of time, No. 1. dealing with our collective perceptions of it and No. 2. dealing with our individual perceptions of it, there is a certain level of meta-humor that can be found in the fact that these sorts of unabashedly illogical musings on time could only be done by someone who, arguably, as too much of it. Such as appears to be the case in the sole footnote of No. 2. as Dodgson talks down his hypothetical reader from arguing endlessly.
Significance of the Text:
Ultimately, Dodgson’s DIFFICULTIES represents a unique opportunity to read a canonical author in a different context than we may be used to. While the majority of readers likely associate Dodgson’s work with humorous children’s literature, and a few mathematically inclined readers may call to mind his work in that field, DIFFICULTIES represents a sort of early collision between those two worlds in Dodgson’s life.
Bibliography:
Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Battle of Waterloo." Encyclopedia Britannica, June 11, 2022. https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Waterloo.
“Carroll, Lewis (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) (1832-98).” The Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature. Oxford University Press, 2015.
Carroll, Lewis. Lewis Carroll. Photograph. National Portrait Gallery. London, June 2, 1857. National Portrait Gallery. https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/use-this-image/?mkey=mw01891.
Carroll, Lewis, and Stuart Dodgson Collingwood. The Lewis Carroll Picture Book : a Selection from the Unpublished Writings and Drawings of Lewis Carroll, Together with Reprints from Scarce and Unacknowledged Work. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1899.
"heigh-ho, int., n., and v.". OED Online. September 2022. Oxford University Press. https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/85483?redirectedFrom=Heigh-Ho (accessed November 14, 2022).
“If All the World Was Apple Pie.” All Nursery Rhymes, 2022. https://allnurseryrhymes.com/if-all-the-world-were-paper/.
Lutwidge, Robert Wilfred Skeffington. Lewis Carroll and His Family at Croft Rectory. Photograph. National Portrait Gallery. London, 1858. National Portrait Gallery. https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/use-this-image/?mkey=mw01890.
“Rectory Umbrella, The.” The Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature, 2015.
US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “What Is the International Date Line?” NOAA's National Ocean Service, June 1, 2013. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/international-date-line.html.

This page has tags:

Contents of this tag:

This page is referenced by:

Full Text:

DIFFICULTIES No. 1.

DIFFICULTIES No. 2 .

Critical Footnotes:

About the Author:

Textual Overview:

Significance of the Text:

Bibliography: