Lewis Carroll: The Walrus and The Carpenter

This is a long poem from Alice and Wonderlands Through the Looking Glass. It tells the tale of TweedleDe and Tweedledum and Alice's encounter with them. They ask her if she likes poetry and then begin to recite a long poem about the carpenter and the walrus who eat all the baby oysters after tricking them to come up on the beach. It is somewhat of a gruesome and dark story, and yet it is mysteriously interesting. I want to know where Lewis Carroll came up with his inspiration for this story and if has a deeper meaning. I think it could be interpreted in many ways. This would be a fun book to read to a class since the artwork is pretty fantastical and colorful. It would be fun to do a project where student's receive a poem and then have to make a work of art from that poem. It might also be fun to have kids write their own similar fantastical poem along with doing images to reflect it.