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‘Nobody in Wonderland believes we can define a “woman”’

‘What are you?’ asked Alice.  Humpty Dumpty narrowed his eyes and looked at her.  ‘Is that a trick question?’ he retorted.  ‘No more than you are a trick to the eye,’ she replied.  The egg shifted his weight on the wall.  ‘I might ask you the same question,’ he stated.  ‘Well, that is easy,’ she said.  ‘I’m a girl.’

 ‘A "girl," you say.'  He paused.  ‘Is that your final answer?  I mean, in this world, we are masters of words rather than they of us.  We are as we identify.  You say you are a girl, but how do you identify?  I might, as a matter of fact, say that I am a hippopotamus.’

‘But you are not a hippopotamus,’ replied Alice.  ‘A hippopotamus has four legs, a very big head and a tremendously wide mouth, and it lollygags about all day in the river.’

‘Well,’ said the egg, ‘if I were to attach four legs, alter my head and mouth, and removed myself from this wall to the river, then would you be content to acknowledge that I am a hippopotamus?’

‘An egg, however much altered, is still an egg,’ replied Alice.

‘Ah, so you think me an egg, do you, as some sort of objective fact?’

‘Quite so.  A rather large one.  A talking one at that.  But, in essence, an egg.’

‘In essence?’

‘I don’t want to be rude in saying this, but if I were to smack you on the side of your body with the back side of a spoon, I believe that you would crack and out would flow some white and yellow eggy substance.’

‘That does strike me as rude, but not for saying you might smack me with a spoon.  You are frightfully rude to make assumptions about me.  In reducing me to what you assume by mere observation in past situations, you claim an authority over me just as words insist on their definitions and make us all abide by them.  What if you performed your little spoon experiment and out flew four-and-twenty blackbirds?  Would you then call me a pie?’

‘Well, I shouldn’t call you an egg, in that case, because there is no definition of an egg that would fit such a wonder.’

‘There you are again, with your words and definitions.  I might call you a tyrant in that regard if it weren’t for the uncertainty of meaning, about which I am firmly resolved.’

‘If words are uncertain and we can give them any meaning, and if identity is uncertain and can in any case change, why should we accept yours?  If word definitions are tyrants, why isn’t your choice of identity over against my observations not also tyranny?’

‘Because if you don’t, you will hurt my feelings.’

‘Very well,’ said Alice.  ‘Shall I call you a pie?’

‘A blackbird pie,’ said Humpty Dumpty.

‘And the spoon experiment?’ asked Alice.

‘If I am a blackbird pie, it is not because I can be proven to be so with your spoon but because this is how I choose to identify.’

‘And should I wish to make a cake or provide companionship to two strips of bacon and some toast on a plate, might I expect from this that you would not prove useful?  Or is it that you would not prove willing?  And if you were useful, even against your will, might I add, what then?  Would we need to retreat from our playtime and accept that you are, after all, an egg?’

‘You horrible little girl!’ said Humpty Dumpty, displaying very hurt feelings.

‘Girl?’ said Alice.  ‘Suppose I were to insist that I am a boy, despite appearances.’

‘Oh, then I would call you a boy.’

‘But then I would still be the tyrant, would I not?’

‘You seem to have scrambled everything,’ said the would-be blackbird pie.

‘I’ve done nothing of the sort,’ said Alice.  ‘You are the one who wishes to have private, scrambled meanings and expect everyone to play along.  You pretend to be offended if someone does not play your little tyranny identity game.  But might I suggest that this is why you are stuck on this wall with no friends?  And I am growing curiouser and curiouser,’ she said, pulling out a spoon from under her apron.

Humpty Dumpty drew back—a little too far back.  He fell right off the wall to the ground.  A small crack appeared on his belly, and then several others from there.  He looked up at Alice.

‘Don’t you worry,’ said Alice.  ‘I shall get help.’

In just a short while, she reappeared with all the king’s horses and all the king’s men.  They bent over the egg, out of which was oozing albumen.  ‘This is serious,’ said a poultryman, ‘No one has ever unscrambled an egg.’  ‘We shall need some nail polish for sealing egg shells,’ said another.  ‘I have some,’ said Alice.

‘But I don’t identify as an egg,’ said a feeble voice.

‘Ignore this nonsense,’ said one of the king’s men.  Alice brushed the cracks with the nail polish. 

‘Very good.  Now gently roll him over,’ said the king’s man.  To everyone’s horror, the egg was cracked everywhere, with yoke pouring from it.

‘I’m afraid,’ Alice said to Humpty Dumpty, ‘that your yoke is broken.’ 

‘I’m not an egg,’ Humpty Dumpty protested, his voice fading.

‘Well, for the record,’ said Alice, ‘I am a girl, no matter what word games or identity games you play here.  And one day I shall be a woman, and that means that I shall marry a man and have children.  And I’m quite sure that they will like hard boiled eggs to accompany their bacon and toast.’

The egg motioned for her to come closer.  He whispered in her ear, ‘Nobody in Wonderland believes that we can define a “woman.”’  With that, he cracked up.

Comments

Mark said…
Herr Professor. You may have missed your calling! Challenge: write only fiction and poetry for one month! And write daily!
6 September 2023 at 18:57
Rollin Grams said…
Our post-rational culture seems to require more satire, narrative, fiction, comedy, parable, allegory--less reasoned argumentation.
7 September 2023 at 03:48
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