Turtle Quasi ( English Mock Turtle ) - a fictional character in the fairy tale by Lewis Carroll " Alice in Wonderland "; half calf , half tortoise (head, hind legs and tail - calf).
| Tortoise Quasi | |
|---|---|
| Mock turtle | |
 Alice sits between the Griffin and the Quasi Turtle | |
| Creator | Lewis Carroll |
| Artworks | Alice in Wonderland |
| Floor | |
In Russian translations, there are different names of this character: “Calf-head tortoise”, “False-Turtle”, “Scallop muscle”, “Telepach”, “Turtle-Veal-Legs”, “Alleged Turtle” (allegedly tortoise) [1] , etc. The names appear in different versions of the translation by N. M. Demurova:
- Pod-Cat (they make a fur coat for him from the cat - 1967 edition);
- Turtle Like (make turtle soup from it);
- Quasi tortoise (quasi-tortoise soup is made from it - 1991 edition)
Content
Theory of the birth of the image of a Tortoise Quasi
The image of Quasi was borrowed from the recipe for Quasi-Turtle (false) soup, which was prepared from veal, so the illustrator Tenniel portrayed the Quasi Turtle half-tortoise and half-calf. Moreover, in the tale itself there is no verbal description of the Quasi Turtle.
The Quasi turtle, like its closest friend Griffin , was created as a parody ( cartoon ) of the sentimental graduates of Oxford , a prototype of white-collar workers and bureaucrats . If you look at the character of the Turtle as a whole, it is a typical white collar - a slow, scrupulous and egocentric bureaucrat (besides a very big pessimist ). The term quasi was taken by Carroll to exacerbate the emphasis on its inferiority. This emphasized the nature of university graduates and white-collar workers of that time, for the most part lacking talent and not being realized creatively.
Quasi Turtle Story
The story of the Turtle told by Alice in a book (described as a parody of the secondary education level of England from the time of Carroll, expensive and ineffective):
“Once I was a real Turtle. When we were little, we went to school at the bottom of the sea. Our teacher was an old man - Turtle. We called him Sprutik (because he always went with a twig). We got the best education, and no wonder - because we went to school every day ... in our school we always attributed to the bill: “Fee for French, music and laundry extra”. Anyway, I could not do the laundry, I could not afford it. I studied only compulsory subjects. At first we, as expected, Sneezed and Squeaked, and then took up the four actions of Arithmetic: Gliding, Wailing, Tenderness and Exhaustion. We also had Reefs - Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, Dirty Scripture and Coltsfoot. And still Mimic experiments; we had an old eel, it came once a week. He taught us Trikonometry, Fizionomiya ... the time of the classes depended on us: as we borrow everything, we will finish it. ”
Evening Meal
The Quasi Turtle performs the song “Evening Food” , which is a parody of the novel “Star of the Night” by J. M. Salez:
Evening food, beloved Sea Soup!
When you shine green and thick
Who will not breathe, who will not understand you then
The food is evening, blissful Food!
The food is evening, blissful Food!
In the first edition of the translation by N. M. Demurova, where this character was called Pod-Kotik, a parody romance was dedicated to the clutch for cat.
The black clutch is soft, tender
Evening darkness she hides.
Who will not appreciate the magic fur?
The black clutch captivates everyone.
Wonderful coupling under the cat!
Woo-woo-woo!
Woo-woo-woo!
Even-e-rnaya coupling under the cat!
Song of Quasi
The quasi turtle sings a very puny sad song: “The snail cod says ...” , which is a parody of Mary Howitt’s poems: “The spider said ...” . In the original version, Quasi sang a song:
“Well, hurry to the bottom with me -
The lobsters are so good there
And they will dance with us from the heart,
Cod, my little darling. "
Chorus:
“Cod, both straight and sideways,
Blink an eye, wave your tail!
There are a lot of fish - but not a mile
The cracks of my dove. "
The original funny version of the song was a parody of a Negro song, the refrain of which begins like this: "Hey, Selly, straight and sideways, Hey, Selly, stomp with a heel!" .
Notes
- ↑ M. Eliforova Bagira said ... Archived copy of August 2, 2018 on the Wayback Machine
Literature
- L. Carroll. Alice in Wonderland. - Publishing House: "Science", - M. , 1978.
- Alexey Zverev. Tortoise quasi.