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“Just our little yolk”
E3 Haroun Alice
by jsese

There is much to be learned from an egg. Within its hard exterior is a glutinous mass of the underdeveloped. Though its shell is hard, it is common knowledge that its walls are thin. It cannot even sit up on its own; its round nature prevents it from doing so. The egg is a fragile, unstable thing. The shapes and names of Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty and Salman Rushie’s Eggheads are not coincidental. Instead, they are packed with symbolism. Humpty Dumpty’s shell is a shield from the harsher truths of real life. The Eggheads, though not literally eggs, share similar qualities. An egghead, by the Oxford English Dictionary’s standards, is “an intellectual.” However, Rushdie uses the term “egghead” in its contemporary form, meaning “people considered too out-of-touch with ordinary people and too lacking in realism, common sense, virility, etc. on account of their intellectual interests” (Wikipedia). The Eggheads are exactly that - too entrenched in their work to understand anything else. The egg creatures, both Humpty Dumpty and the Eggheads, are out of touch with worlds separate from their own. This is a fatal flaw, considering that their worlds are very small. This flaw hinders them from developing a mature understanding of the world at large. Alice and Haroun are their respective counterparts. Though young, they have a more realistic impression of life. Underneath Humpty Dumpty and the Eggheads’s haughty demeanor is a sense of inadequacy triggered by Alice and Haroun’s advanced abilities and accomplishments.

The Eggheads use intelligence like a shell; intellect shields them from the expendable nature of their existence. The Eggheads are undoubtedly very learned in their specialized fields. They work the “Machines Too Complicated To Describe (or M2C2Ds) which [make] possible the Processes Too Complicated To Explain” (90) with the skill of a seasoned computer geek. Yet, despite their achievements in this important field, they help compose a conglomerate of archetypal worker bees. With their “smooth, shiny and hairless heads” and “white coats of laboratory technicians,” (89) they fade into the background with ease. Yet, when they first meet Haroun, they make their introductions with an air of superiority. They exploit Haroun’s unfamiliarity with the environment by prodding at his ignorance. This is most obvious when the Eggheads introduce Haroun to the Walrus “with looks on their faces that said we can’t believe you don’t know this” (90). However intelligent the Eggheads are, they are also very naïve. The Eggheads spend a considerate amount of time in awe of the Walrus, admiring his “thick, luxuriant walrus moustache… So hairy. So silky-smooth” (90). The Eggheads are the ones who are ignorant, not Haroun. Haroun is unimpressed because his life in Kahani left him well-versed in zoology and other subjects to which the Eggheads are unexposed. He describes the Eggheads’s ignorance best: “I suppose if you’re as hairless as these Eggheads, even that pathetic dead mouse on the Walrus’s upper lip looks like the greatest thing you’ve ever seen” (90). In other words, the Eggheads know little beyond the Processes Too Complicated to Explain House. Their knowledge is limited to their work. Though they make a deliberate effort to make Haroun feel inferior, the Eggheads are the real fools.

Similarly, Humpty Dumpty’s shell is a representation of his self-delusion: he relies on his King to protect him, but this assertion is as unreliable as Humpty Dumpty’s fragile outer layer. Humpty Dumpty, “sitting, with his legs crossed like a Turk, on the top of a high wall – such a narrow one that Alice quite wondered how he could keep his balance,” (207) teeters on a dangerous perch. Nonetheless, he insists that “why, if ever I did fall off – which there’s no chance of – but if I did… If I did fall…the King has promised me…with his very own mouth... to send all his horses and all his men” (209). Of course, this is a ridiculous assumption, both in terms of the story and the chess game. Judging from his jagged manner of speech, we conclude that his affirmation is contrived, as if he is convincing himself. The White King, to whom Humpty Dumpty pledges his allegiance, is under Alice’s control. In chapter 1, “Alice [picks] him up very gently,” (146) moving him around at her own will. In respects to chess, Alice is a mobile pawn while the King is obliged to stand still for most of the game, for fear that he will be captured. In actuality, the King has very little power. Furthermore, Alice eventually becomes Queen and is given infinitely more power than the King will ever wield. If Humpty Dumpty ever fell from the wall, he would remain a gooey mess of shards and yolk because the King lacks the power to help him. Carroll further proves that Humpty Dumpty’s aristocratic behavior is unjustified by constructing a blatant juxtaposition of Alice and Humpty Dumpty’s physical positions. Like the White King, Humpty Dumpty is immobile. Alice, on the other hand, is free to move as she pleases. Given Alice’s power over Humpty Dumpty, he has nothing to be proud about.

The egg creatures resort to immature or bitter behavior to compensate for their inadequacy. After the Victory of Bat-Mat-Karo, an Egghead confronts him and “coldly” informs him to “present yourself at once at P2C2E House… The Walrus wants to talk to the person who destroyed so much irreplaceable machinery so wilfully’” (193). If the Eggheads knew that Haroun faced punishment at the hands of their leader, they would at least derive some sadistic joy from his pain. Instead, the “Eggheads [walk] rapidly past him in every direction. Haroun fancied that they all eyed him with a mixture of anger, contempt, and pity” (198). The Eggheads eye him bitterly because they know the Walrus’s true intentions: their leader will reward Haroun for his “incalculable service” (200). In his short time in the Eggheads’s world, Haroun upstages the “geniuses who [operate] the Machines Too Complicated To Describe” (90). Humpty Dumpty reverts to childish semantics in an attempt to gain an upper hand over Alice. He creates nonsensical rules and definitions to fit his liking. When Alice questions his use of the word ‘glory,’ Humpty Dumpty explains that “When I use a word… it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less” (213). His excuse does little to disguise his ineptitude. However, Humpty Dumpty makes the convincing argument for the “portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word” (215). Portmanteaus exist in Alice’s world as well as Through the Looking Glass, thus making Humpty Dumpty’s conflicting definitions more believable. Alice’s understanding of ‘glory’ can be rightfully separate from Humpty Dumpty’s definition. Still, he only uses the portmanteau argument to explain the Jabberwocky poem and not his creative uses for the words discussed before. His primary explanation – that a word “means just what I choose it to mean” (213) – is still inadequate.

Despite their attempts to act in an adult fashion, Humpty Dumpty and the Eggheads are still eggs. Eggs are literally immature. Humpty Dumpty depends on the King the way a child depends on a parental figure. The Eggheads work mechanically, the way a developing infant does. When an infant wants, it cries. The Eggheads follow orders, and when the Machine breaks, they fix it. Action is simplified to cause and effect. There is not much critical thinking involved. The strange dichotomy of infantile/elderly appearance becomes more complicated. As already established, Humpty Dumpty’s egg form represents his immaturity. Yet, his shell is ornate with “a cravat,” (211) signifying older age, since a newborn would not have had the time to gather the accessory. He is an aged egg, but he remains in an infantile state. As for the Eggheads, their bald heads represent old age. Bald heads, however, are a natural characteristic of their species. The Eggheads are born old and born to work. That is why Alice and Haroun are so offensive to them. Alice and Haroun are children with the potential to learn and grow. Humpty Dumpty and the Eggheads, on the other hand, are cursed to be rotten eggs until their days end.

Works Citied
Wikipedia “Egghead.” March 31, 2005. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egghead>

May 17, 2005, 01:59 PM

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