In Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Alice is having tea with the March Hare, Mad Hatter and Sona, when the Hatter asks the above question. Later on, the Hatter asked Alice if she had guessed the answer to the riddle, to which Alice replied that she had no idea. When Alice said she couldn’t answer, the Mad Hatter finally admitted that there was no solution to the puzzle.
The crow and the desk are alike, because you can ask all the questions however you want, but none of them can ever give you the answer. Perhaps the answer, according to the original intent, is that you never kiss because the crow is like a table.
The words of the riddle are deliberately unhealthy; like a crow that is (as opposed to a table. By the way, the correct puzzle format is “why the crow looks like a table”, not “how a crow looks like a table”, contrary to any typos you may have seen.
Video – Why is a Raven like a writing desk?
What is the answer to why is a raven like a writing desk?
Since the riddle in the form in which it was originally written was not supposed to have an answer, Carroll’s solution of later years is no more canonical than any other.
This, however, is only an afterthought; the Enigma as originally invented had no answer. They thought the addict Carroll was too stupid to solve his own riddle, putting aside the shy attempt just mentioned.
Some time later, due to the popularity of unanswered puzzles, Carroll gave his answer; which, interestingly, included a pun that was accidentally “corrected” by a publisher who did not understand it. From Martin Gardners with Alice’s comments, we learn that Carroll didn’t mean there was an answer. This, however, is only an afterthought; Enigma as originally invented had no answer.
Why is a raven like a writing desk answer
I believe that with his answer he came up with another riddle and a hint of the real answer. Only recently did it become clear that he deliberately mispronounced “newar”; it is a “raven” in reverse, and the second part of his explanation does not fit both the raven and the table, so the scientists were puzzled.
I believe Lewis Carroll used this riddle as a reference to Edgar Allan Poe, because Poe was a character who always wondered if he was “crazy” or not, just like the Hatter.
He believed that most of the riddles are wrong because they lead the reader to believe that such events are possible or even solvable. Logically, this might poke fun at our need for an answer to every question. This mystery is known, although it is the same rare glory that implies that most people have never heard of it.
Perhaps to find the real answer, we need to research things that start with the letter M, such as the Mad Hatter and Mercury. Perhaps we will not find a more logical and well-reasoned argument in revealing the answer to the riddle, and if Carrols always strove to ensure that one day the answer to the riddle would be explained, about 150 years after it was first revealed. time in the history of Alice in Wonderland.
Have you any idea why a raven is like a writing desk?

Carroll himself offered an answer to the raven / table conundrum in the preface to a later version of his work, but openly admitted that no answer was originally expected.
Carroll also wrote mai as “newar”, which means “raven,” written the other way around, but according to Gizmodo, this tricky pun has been removed by the proofreader. Carroll never wrote as Nevar – Raven wrote the other way around – but the proofreader struck out the inverted pun before publication.
Although Carroll’s original foreword never spelled the word nevar (reverse crow), it was lost in proofreading and was corrected as always.
Carroll created this pseudonym by translating his first name and patronymic into Latin and reversing their order. We don’t know when Carroll got to know Poe’s essay, but given that teenager Lewis Carroll was actively pursuing his career as a writer, it’s possible that he got acquainted with Poe’s essay at the age of 14 and had until 19 years of age in which to reflect on ravens.
Why is a raven like a writing desk Alice in Wonderland?
In Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the question “Why does a crow look like a table” appears for the first time. Lewis Carroll (née Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) includes this puzzle in the Mad Hatter’s dialogue with Alice about his adventures in Wonderland [full text here].
It seems that Lewis Carroll might suggest that the answer to the riddle is somehow related to the properties of time due to these conversations, and the tea-drinking challenges Alice’s understanding of the fundamental concept of time.
Although, strictly speaking, neither Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) nor Through the Looking Glass (1871) is an epistolary novel, letters and letter references are common in both.
However, to put an end to the suffering of constant fan letters of curiosity, he went further and came up with a suitable answer, which he prefaces subsequent editions. Carroll wrote: “Because he can play multiple notes even if they were very flat, and this is a newar, placed with the wrong end first.
Because that which is never backward is always forward, and the crow is always backward, and the writing table is always for words. The charlatan’s poem upside down, when placed in the glass mirror of the universe, also looks like a NevaR puzzle back and forth on a table. Raven’s words, when seen in our universe, reflect the properties of space and time.
Is there an answer to why is a raven like a writing desk?
When I first picked up a long-eared copy of my mother’s Lewis Carroll, I asked her why a crow looked like a table. Since the Preston estate has several Victorian tables and the Natural History Museum of Booth was able to provide me with a stuffed raven, I thought it was more fun than making a raven riddle for our summer visitors while leaving a pencil and paper handy.
Undoubtedly, Diana and Lily read Alice as children and were perplexed by Lewis Carroll’s riddle about the unanswered ravens, as people are still confused today. I’m glad they started guessing. I think I can guess that … This is the most famous riddle that no one has answered, and there is an answer to it.
We humans are naturally interested in solving puzzles, solving problems, and finding solutions. The most successful people in your industry are problem solvers (that is, people who have solutions).
Because without them both Brave New World could not have been written. As they stand on their feet, they hide their steel (steal) and must be silenced.
Sources:
- https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/702/why-is-a-raven-like-a-writing-desk
- https://muse.jhu.edu/article/249888/pdf
- http://www.jeffwills.net/odinsaviary/2017/9/15/answers-why-is-a-raven-like-a-writing-desk
- https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-raven-and-vs-writing-desk/
- http://www.aeromental.net/2010/03/11/mad-hatter-why-is-a-raven-like-a-writing-desk-the-answer/
- https://www.infobloom.com/why-is-a-raven-like-a-writing-desk.htm
- https://gizmodo.com/the-answer-to-the-most-famous-unanswerable-fantasy-ridd-5872014
- https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/time-solve-why-raven-like-writing-desk-neil-bant
- https://nargaque.com/2010/05/28/why-is-a-raven-like-a-writing-desk/
- https://www.writerswrite.com/why-raven-like-writing-desk-121520171
- https://www.straightdope.com/21342321/why-is-a-raven-like-a-writing-desk
- https://brightonmuseums.org.uk/discover/2019/11/08/why-is-a-raven-like-a-writing-desk-preston-manors-2019-riddle-trail/
- https://agribusiness.purdue.edu/consumer_corner/why-is-a-raven-like-a-writing-desk/
Resource relating to ‘Why is a raven like awriting desk?’:
‘Why is a raven like a writing desk?’ | | The Guardian
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Why is a raven like a writing desk? – Literature Stack Exchange
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