The Hunting of the Snark Gardner sees the poem as dealing with existential angst, and states that the Baker may be Carroll's satire of himself, pointing to the fact that the Baker was named after a beloved uncle, as was Carroll, and that the two were around the same age at the time of the writing of the poem. Alternatively, Larry Shaw of the fan magazine "Inside and Science Fiction Advertiser" suggests that the Boots, being the Snark, actually murdered the Baker. Also references to religious issues had been suggested, like the Baker's 42 boxes being a reference to Thomas Cranmer's "Forty-Two Articles" with a
A Dream of the Past: Sir Isumbras at the Ford of Lewis Carroll has been sourced to paintings: "The White Knight echoes Millais's "Sir Isumbras at the Ford". " A Dream of the Past: Sir Isumbras at the Ford A Dream of the Past: Sir Isumbras at the Ford (1857) is a painting by John Everett Millais depicting a medieval knight helping two young peasant children over a swollen river. The children are carrying heavy burdens of wood for winter fuel. Though the title refers to the medieval poem "Sir Isumbras", the painting does not illustrate a scene from the original text. However Millais's friend, the writer Tom Taylor, wrote