The saddest character in Lewis Carroll’s repertoire of tragi-comic characters is the Mock-Turtle. While his friend the Gryphon carries his working-class aura abroad with him, making him feel himself to be the equal of tyrannical Queens, the Mock-Turtle tries to blame his education for never rising from the great unwashed because ‘Washing’ was an ‘extra’ at his nevertheless excellent school. Though once he was a ‘real’ turtle, he can claim to be no other than a Mock one now – in fact his identity is based on a soup made of calves heads meant to substitute for the more expensive delicacy, turtle soup.
He tells Alice, in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, an ‘invented’ story of his life – hence his constant worry that his audience will not believe in it – that makes much of what he learned, where nothing one knows is based in a secure identity. Supposedly taught by a turtle, they called him ‘tortoise’, which rather compromised his knowledge of subjects appropriate to sea creatures.
When we were little,” the Mock Turtle went on at last, more calmly, though still sobbing a little now and then, “we went to school in the sea. The master was an old Turtle—we used to call him Tortoise—”
“Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn’t one?” Alice asked.
“We called him Tortoise because he taught us,” said the Mock Turtle angrily: “really you are very dull!”
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple question,” added the Gryphon; and then they both sat silent and looked at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth. At last the Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, “Drive on, old fellow! Don’t be all day about it!” and he went on in these words:
“Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you mayn’t believe it—”
“I never said I didn’t!” interrupted Alice.
“You did,” said the Mock Turtle.
“Hold your tongue!” added the Gryphon, before Alice could speak again. The Mock Turtle went on.
“We had the best of educations—in fact, we went to school every day—”
“I’ve been to a day-school, too,” said Alice; “you needn’t be so proud as all that.”
“With extras?” asked the Mock Turtle a little anxiously.
“Yes,” said Alice, “we learned French and music.”
“And washing?” said the Mock Turtle.
“Certainly not!” said Alice indignantly.
“Ah! then yours wasn’t a really good school,” said the Mock Turtle in a tone of great relief. “Now at ours they had at the end of the bill, ‘French, music, and washing—extra.’”
“You couldn’t have wanted it much,” said Alice; “living at the bottom of the sea.”
“I couldn’t afford to learn it.” said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. “I only took the regular course.”
“What was that?” inquired Alice.
“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle replied; “and then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.”
“I never heard of ‘Uglification,’” Alice ventured to say. “What is it?”
The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. “What! Never heard of uglifying!” it exclaimed. “You know what to beautify is, I suppose?”
“Yes,” said Alice doubtfully: “it means—to—make—anything—prettier.”
“Well, then,” the Gryphon went on, “if you don’t know what to uglify is, you are a simpleton.”
Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about it, so she turned to the Mock Turtle, and said “What else had you to learn?”
“Well, there was Mystery,” the Mock Turtle replied, counting off the subjects on his flappers, “—Mystery, ancient and modern, with Seaography: then Drawling—the Drawling-master was an old conger-eel, that used to come once a week: he taught us Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils.”
The Mock-Turtle’s school subjects are rarely what they seem either. Mathematics is made up of attitudes that equip him for the social pretences of a hierarchical society where we pretend to be what we are not. Yet no one seeks to teach anything except what is appropriate to them alone. Imagine how useful it would be to learn from a conger-eel the skill of fainting in coils, which just might have use for an eel but is impossible for the turtle, the exoskeltal shell gets in the way.
Nevertheless, I found Maths so dull. Though I never had the physique for it, my favourite subject had to be ‘Fainting in Coils’. For, if you have to lose consciousness, it is useful to do it gracefully. And it is easier to faint, even if you have to do it in coils, than to paint, in those sticky and dirty oils.
With love
Steven xxxxxxxxx
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