What do we know about this character?

[R Wallace]

To Raven Darkendale

I've ordered Dan Kiley's book at the library, hope to learn more about Peter Pan Syndrome from the man who defined it. I'm particularly interested in learning whether rage is an or the underlying driver.

You've written much about LC's anger toward his mother and father and indicated that his mother disrespected his father. I don't recall finding anyone who documented such in-family feelings, so I'm wondering how you reached the conclusion. I reached it based on my belief that he started using angry anagrams in the family publications even before he went into the public school system. In other words, he was demonstrating anger toward them and the world they created for him as a child. But only in secret.

It's nice to communicate with someone who puts value in profiling. Many writers have named suspects for whom no profile was ever developed. I think the "profile" on Druitt consists of him having committed suicide.

LC's escape was into many "worlds." These included word games, mathematics, logic, nonsense writing, mathematical games – all of which kept the mind busy and which require great concentration and what I describe as "simultaneous solutions" -- holding many variables in awareness to complete a puzzle solution. I believe another world was secret rebellion directed toward parents and Victorian society and institutions. Sylvie and Bruno has two or more themes running simultaneously (one of which I believe is in anagrams), a very difficult writing task and I believe one of the reasons the books are so awkward and were never commercially successful. LC was never really able to replicate the Alice books. Except for taking in royalties, he never returned to Wonderland. Some of his escapes were to keep his rage in check-- diversions, if you will; but I believe it erupted in the Ripper murders, still in secret, but a caper pulled off, nevertheless.

You mentioned his stammer. There's a lot in the AOLC about the psychological underpinnings of the stammerer. It's not pretty.

I suspect we'll have lasting differences on the subject of anagrams as a means of communication, not just word games, and perhaps on the issue of LC as sociopath.

Regards,

R Wallace

[RavenDarkendale]

R Wallace

Everything has to have cause and effect. Lewis Carroll's descent into his fantasy worlds and the fact he was most comfortable with children was what lead me to believe he harbored hatred for his parents. Victorian society being what it was, his mother would have more contact with him than his father. He no doubt blamed her for many of the things that happened to him. In his mind, where was she when he needed her? Hatred for her is not a stretch then. Victorian fathers often focused on social standing and business causing negative impact on their family life. Hatred of an absent, cold father was not unusual.

Hatred leads to anger which if no healthy outlet is found, crests in violence. At first this will show in violent outbursts of vocal vitriol, and possible violence in the form of self mutilation, destruction of property, and assault and battery. But long repressed anger can go into what I call "cold rage". There is no mercy, no regret, each action coldly calculated to do the most harm. There you have a good portrait of how anger might have driven jtR. No hesitation marks in any of the wounds, dedication to the mutilations, each grows worse.

Martha Tabram shows signs of a rage killing with "hot rage", randomly striking here and there in blind fury. On the other hand, Polly Nichols show design, the cuts precise, the posing, the exposed entrails. This grows worse with each murder, deliberate removal of body parts, until it was voiced by some of the investigators of the crimes that JtR must have skill, either a surgeon or an animal slaughter.

Does Peter Pan Syndrome cover all of this? Psychiatrists disagree on the subject, some even saying it isn't a real diagnosis. (Here I refer to the Wiki for this information). The fantasy world as reality and this world just one to live in when one has to, shows a child-like mind and resistance to grow up. Anger will flare because the sufferer is forced to deal with things for which their childhood has not prepared them. They are suspicious of adults, secretive, living in the world and faking their way through it, fantasy never far from their minds. This describes LC, is it Peter Pan Syndrome will have to be left to experts, I am not among them.

I leave it to you, have I correctly stated cause and effect and how they plunged LC into his fantasy worlds and games? If so, I merely acknowledge he could have further descended into madness and cold blooded killing.

Let me close with The Joker's remark to Batman in the movie "Batman Begins".

"You see insanity is a lot like gravity. All it needs is a little push."

God bless

Raven

[RavenDarkendale]

I didn't check all your anagrams, but the last one on Frances Coles doesn't have the right number of letters and you added an "i" for lice that wasn't in the original.

Yea, I seem to have spelled "Frances Coles" totally wrong (Francis Coles), although how I got the extra "i" in there I'm not sure.

Anyhoo, "Frances Coles" becomes "Fecal censors".

Now, as you know, I refuse to disparage your anagram evidence just because I disagree. This post of yours did bring up one thing though. You caught me out on a single letter deviation from the original. I don't believe you ever answered me as to how you decided to eliminate 8 letters from the wooden block to reach 42, and make your anagram.

I misspelled and that caused my mistake. Simple, easy mistake. But given that the "Rule of 42" is correct, 8 letters must be eliminated, and I wonder what your clue was as to which ones. Please understand I am not trying to start an argument, just an answer to a simple question, after which I promise to not mention anagrams again in this thread.

God Bless



Raven

[R Wallace]

To Raven Darkendale

Re posts 62 and 63.

I agree generally with your analysis of the descent into violence; but if the rage is intellectualized instead of made physical, then there is no violence until the intellectualization breaks down. I see that as the LC pattern. There was no physical violence ever reported during his life. I'm sure in many cases, intellectualization never breaks down.

Peter Pan Syndrome is not recognized by the Diagnostics and Standards Manual, the "bible" for the mental health profession, which in addition to driving treatment, drives billing. I believe they considered it but concluded that its elements were included in other diagnoses, such as narcissism. I'll comment more when I've read Haley's book.

I like the Batman reference.

Re: Rule 42 of the Code and the wooden block. I decided which letters to omit only when I could not find any meaningful anagram using all fifty letters and "stumbled" on the anagram with just 42 letters. I guess one could say that was arbitrary; but I clearly laid out in the book that it was the only intentional deviation from my rule of using all the letters . In fact I would have rejected my solution if I had not thought I'd solved the riddle of Rule 42. While I've been accused of not using all the letters in other anagrams in the books, the only one which has been specifically identified was the Jabberwocky anagram, which I've acknowledged publicly in several venues as an error on my part but which three letters made a usable word in the anagram. I believe the e-book version has the correction in the appropriate place; the book versions will be corrected if ever reprinted. I've accepted your explanation that your Frances Coles anagram with three extra letters was not intentionally done.

Factoid: That was one of the more difficult anagrams to solve, precisely due to the letter count problem. Jabberwocky was easier, in retrospect, I believe, because LC created fake words to fit his needs, however wonderful the verse is.

Regards,

R Wallace

[RavenDarkendale]

R Wallace

He did, indeed make up words, as did Edward Lear and Ogdan Nash. One thing and I promise, I'm through with anagrams.

Poetry comes in rhymed and free verse, foot-meter purists and those to whom flow of language is more important.

LC wrote poetry that was correct in foot-meter and also sometimes complicated rhyme. That would mean he would have to come up with a statement he wished to hide via anagram, and then make it fit the poetic patterns in which he wrote. A daunting task, don't you think?

Highest regards,

Raven Darkendale

[R Wallace]

To Raven Darkendale

Re post 64: Daunting task? Precisely, a genius at work. Of course I don't believe he did this with every poem he wrote. He might have had a theme for the anagram -- the essential message -- and then did a simultaneous solution to the poetic needs and the anagram.

Regards,

R Wallace

[Supe]

RD,

foot-meter purists and those to whom flow of language is more important

Just a personal observation, but I don't think that is an either-or proposition. When poetry scans the language flows quite nicely and naturally.

Don.

[RavenDarkendale]

RD,

foot-meter purists and those to whom flow of language is more important

Just a personal observation, but I don't think that is an either-or proposition. When poetry scans the language flows quite nicely and naturally.

Don.

Yes indeed, but some must fit stressed/unstressed meter, length of line, etc. such as iambic pentameter, while others rely on phrasing to keep the flow. There is a difference.

[R Wallace]

To Raven Darkendale

I've read Dan Kiley's book on Peter Pan Syndrome. It was not my type of book, though I won't deny his efforts to treat an observable problem. I don't care for such books that lack indices, foot or end notes. It's interesting that he focuses on the syndrome as more observable since the 1940s while Barrie came out of Victorian England (and appears to have become a replacement child after his oldest brother's death). And he identifies it as heavily populated by middle/upper class boys, those that come with at least some resources and expectations.

I see some parallels with Charles Dodgson but don't see "Lewis Carroll" as his escape personality. I'm disinclined to make strong arguments either for or against its description of Dodgson. I see the syndrome as heavy on narcissism followed by depression (which Haley doesn't emphasize as much as I would) especially as life goes on. There's enormous loss -- the loss of one's self and life – the longer it goes on

My counseling of teens who seem lost focused on the loss of opportunity if they don't accomplish certain things at age-appropriate times; i. e., that it's awfully difficult to make up for un-acquired skill/emotional development tasks and re-engage in some level of identity and accomplishment, so important for positive adult feelings. The future becomes increasingly limited. I'm a great believer in Erickson's work. For a quick summary, the following link looks good: http://www.support4change.com/index....=47&Itemid=108.

One of the reasons it is so difficult to treat – the depression, that is – is that life is being lost with really less and less opportunity to turn things around. Young people are told they can do anything they put their minds to. Rubbish! And a false promise. Innate personality, learning, and skills are much greater determinants. Some people think they can just decide what they want to do (magical thinking), try, and fail through a failure to recognize who they are and are not – what their strengths and weaknesses are. (That said, on a personal note, I left 25 years in computer programming and management and became a licensed therapist, experienced great satisfaction in both. I've always seen it as a transfer of analytical skills rather than a total change in who I am.)

And, of course, lying underneath the depression is some degree of rage, often at parents, who the teen and emerging adult blame for not preparing the child for adulthood – for the ability to enter the world as it is or a segment of the world in which a satisfying life can be experienced. For that person childhood is the safest and perhaps the most exhilarating state.

In any event, I believe and think I demonstrated that Dodgson's rage began to erupt while still in childhood, only to be exacerbated by the felt total betrayal of public school. It doesn't seem that he idealized his childhood.

Regards,

R Wallace

[RavenDarkendale]

@ R Wallace

Fair enough! You have shown something that few people will do, the willingness to step back from your position and look at it from the angle of someone with a different idea. Your link was quite informative, and detailed, not just a repeating of rhetoric. I actually might learn something there that could be of benefit. I couldn't ask for more fairness in debating the point. May God richly bless you.

Raven Darkendale

[Mondegreen]

R Wallace,
If you're still around, I have a question for you. What prompted you to investigate Lewis Carroll to begin with? Most of the discussion about your theory focuses on the validity of anagrams and whether he could have been in London. Those are important factors to take into account but I'd be interested in also knowing why you began looking for anagrams in his work to begin with. That's a question I've had for a long time now.

As to other factors mentioned here, I don't really buy them as convincing. He doesn't have a "solid alibi" about his whereabouts on nights when he could have gone to London on the train, but why would he have them if he was merely writing in his journal? If there had been some sort of police investigation into him in connection to this case, perhaps he would have an alibi, such as people who saw him or spoke to him at hours when he would have had to be on the train or in London.

As someone who has a journal... I don't feel the need to provide an alibi for crimes going on in my country when I'm writing in my journal. I simply talk about whatever comes to mind and don't need to relate how an acquaintance saw me five minutes ago and could corroborate my testimony about my whereabouts. Such things are probably too boring to relate!

I also don't find suspicious that he may have written entries for previous days. I don't always do it but sometimes I've gone back and finished a sentence I'd left unfinished the day before for some reason or other, for instance. Which is also what makes me think it's not strange that in one of his entries he sounded as though he was in a hurry (there's some discussion of this entry a few pages back in this thread, if memory serves). Sometimes I've been too tired or busy with something else and just wanted to finish my journal entry quickly after a point. No, the things I was busy with didn't include murder! Sometimes they were things as simple as wanting to go eat something or wanting to go read a book.

Whether he was a paedophile or not I don't know, but that's hardly any indication that he was murdering adult women.

Yes, he was very intelligent and had a knack for word games. However, I assume he was not the only person in Britain who enjoyed word games and had an interest in numbers. This sort of research could easily have been done about anyone else with the same characteristics. Likewise, the fact that he may have disliked his parents hardly makes him unique in 19th century England (or ever, for that matter).

Even if there is an argument that he may have had the same profile as the killer, there can be multiple people with similar personalities.

I'm not a "blogger", as I've seen you complain about bloggers dismissing your theory and I don't have any kind of hidden agenda. I simply believe that most of these arguments have other explanations that are just as simple or don't make him the killer. I'm mainly curious about why you felt that these characteristics were particularly relevant in his case and not in the case of any other people (famous or not) who were alive during this same time period.

[R Wallace]

To Mondegreen,

Yes, I'm still around but haven't been checking the blog for quite a while. I'll respond to your first paragraph. I read both Alice books by LC for the first time at about age 38 and as quite taken aback at the anger I felt in them. So I read his several biographies and continued to find anger. I quite accidentally fell on the anagrams I felt were in his book titles and continued ao study him and his works. About the anagrams (which I've commented on before), unfortunately at least ⅓ of them never should have "made the cut" on the books. But I think the presence of most of them strongly suggest that they were not there accidentally. LC even suggests that you can change the letters around to make anything; coincidentally or not, his made sense. "The Hunting of the Snark, an Agony in Eight Fits" is a perfect example of possibly being an anagram. So I made one.

The issue of London is worth a comment. I can't prove he was in London: but from his diary it is clear he was in there more than frequently for the theater. So the notion that he lived too far away to commit one or more murders there is preposterous.

As to my feelings toward bloggers, I do get a little snitty when I know that many don't now anything about LC and haven't read my books so they can discuss them. Yet they insist on their right to discuss them. Some have; and they don't like them and they don't believe them. So be it. As in my JTR, my goal was to present him as a suspect, not to prove his guilt.

[Pcdunn]

I read through the Lewis Carroll entry on the Casebook, and I must say it struck me as the wildest idea ever (to be polite). Poor Professor Dodgson, if people are not speculating on his sexual interest in little girls, they're writing filthy anagrams based on his works to prove he was a serial murderer of women!

What is the interest in pinning the Ripper murders on authors, poets, or artists? Is it just a general suspicion of creative people? Is it the idea that creativity and madness are separated only by a thin line?

(By the way-- it's not Vincent Van Gogh, either, IMO...)

[Pcdunn]

The entire reason for suspecting Carroll, or Dogdson, is based on a shoddy anagramisation of choice sentences of his work. And if the anagramiser(?) can't get the anagram to work, why, he changes a few letters to make it work.



Anagrammatist!

But I like yours better!

Jane x

Off topic, a bit: Anagrams also play a role in many of the theories that Shakespeare's works were penned by someone other than William himself. I love crossword puzzles and other word games, but don't really understand the attraction of anagrams (no offense to those who do!)

[R Wallace]

To Pcdunn

Just a couple of points. My sense is that all of your knowledge of my books comes from the Casebook and not from having read the books themselves. Dodgson was not a professor. In fact he was far from it, having spent his work life as a don, which is essentially a tutor for low level courses.. So the enormous creativity of which you write was not to benefit Oxford. In fact he may have earned more money on his books than on his salary there. Oxford of the day, and even today, would likely consider him an underachiever as an Oxford instructor. Given the disparity there was likely great internal conflict, pointed out by others as brought out in my books. Did that conflict ever come out beyond writing?

Regarding the anagrams many have claimed that letters are conveniently omitted but no one has ever pointed them out. One person (God bless him) pointed out that I left out three letters in Jabberwocky which in fact made a useful word. Other than that error I'm not aware of any anagrams that aren't complete.

In any case, I still consider LC a suspect although I did not prove he did it.