How Doth the Little Crocodile is parody of moralistic poems. A moralistic poem is supposed to teach morals and good qualities. It's a parody of the poem
Against Idleness and Mischief, by Isaac Watts (that's the poem that Alice was originally reciting, beginning "how doth the little busy bee"). The difference is that the bee poem was teaching the morals of good, hard work... While the crocodile poem is parodying it by 'teaching' that deception, trickery, and predation are desired qualities.
To me it's another way of saying, Looks are deceiving. The crocodile in this poem is smiling to the fish, as if it had good intentions, when in reality, he really wanted to eat them up.
After reading this I thought of the poem
The Spider to the Fly, how the spider lured the fly into his parlour, so of course I went to Google and found this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spider_and_the_Fly_(poem)
The Spider and the Fly“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the Spider to the Fly,
'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;
The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,
And I've a many curious things to shew when you are there.”
“Oh no, no,” said the little Fly, “to ask me is in vain,
For who goes up your winding stair
-can ne'er come down again.”
~By Mary Howitt, 1829The story tells of a cunning Spider who ensnares a naive Fly through the use of seduction and flattery. The poem is a cautionary tale against those who use flattery and charm to disguise their true evil intentions. When Lewis Carroll was readying
Alice's Adventures Under Ground for publication he replaced a parody he had made of a negro minstrel song[1] with a parody of Howitt's poem.
The "Lobster Quadrille", in Lewis Carroll's
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, is a parody of Howitt's poem; it mimics the meter and rhyme scheme, and parodies the first line, but not the subject matter, of the original.[2]
Hmmmm......why after reading this did I feel it's how Carroll got the girls to always want to be with him and listen to his stories. The girls are naive like the fly, while Carroll is like the spider, enticing them with more curious stories. Sure gives me something to ponder. These poems are like opening Pandora's box.
Ciao for now~
P.S. I think Alice and the girls addressed him as Mr. Dodgson. When we speak of his story he is Lewis Carroll, but when we speak of his childhood and life, he is Charles Dodgson aka Dodo