THE MAD HATTER'S RIDDLE

At the tea-table, the celebrated Mad Hatter challenges the March Hare and Alice with the following riddle:

 

"Why is a raven like a writing-desk?"

Mad Hatter, as he appears in Disney's rendition of Alice.

Corvus corax, or European raven.

A writing desk.

He never gives the answer in the Alice books, nor has his "father", the late Charles Dodgson (AKA Lewis Carroll) betrayed it in other works, leaving the question unanswered when he shuffled off this mortal coil.

Charles "Lewis Carroll" Dodgson.

Thus, the incomplete riddle is sheer Carrollian nonsense. It is left unfinished for the same aesthetic effect that Michelangelo pursued in his unfinished sculptures (the Rondanini Pietà, for example).

Michelangelo Buonarotti's Rondanini Pietà, in which the sculptor allegedly considered the possibilities of unfinished sculpture.

However, many Carroll fans and philologists have been tempted to find an answer to the Mad Hatter's riddle. One that may fit Carroll's style has been written by chessmaster Sam Lloyd:
"Because Poe wrote on both!"

Contemporary photo of E.A. Poe

Illustration by Impressionist Édouard Manet,
 for Poe's The Raven (in French translation)

Those familiar with The Simpsons may recognize this poem, one of E. A. Poe's foremost works, from the animated rendition starring Bart as the titular raven, that goes "Nevermore! Nevermore!" instead of "Caw! Caw!"