A sculpture of Humpty Dumpty in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. Humpty is a character in a nursery rhyme of uncertain origin (the theory that it refers to a great cannon thrown down at Colchester during the English Civil War is appealing, but cannot be traced back further than 1996). Carroll gave it as:
‘Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall:
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King’s horses and all the King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty in his place again.”
The rhyme, we notice, makes no mention of eggs. We have Carroll to thank for popularising that idea. Behind Carroll’s whimsy is a serious point: language has a public and social character, and when individuals and institutions seek to take proprietary control of language, they are seeking nothing less than to take control of society. Humpty’s question ‘Which is to be Master?’ is not just about mastery over words. It is about mastery over Alice.
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