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
All in the golden afternoon... Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the poem lacks meaning. All in the golden afternoon... "All in the golden afternoon" is the prefatory poem in the book "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll. The book was first published in 1865 by London's Macmillan. The introductory poem recalls the afternoon on which he improvised the story about Alice in Wonderland on a boat trip from Oxford to Godstow, for the benefit of the three Liddell sisters, Lorina ("Prima"), Alice ("Secunda") and Edith ("Tertia"), with Alice being the one which inspired Carroll's main character. Carroll's "All in the golden afternoon" has been included