In Chapter 4, Alice's encounter with Tweedledee and Tweedledum serves in part as a frame story for the story of the walrus and the carpenter:
“‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’ is the longest,” Tweedledum replied, giving his brother an affectionate hug.
Tweedledee began instantly: “The sun was shining——”
Here Alice ventured to interrupt him. “If it’s very long,” she said, as politely as she could, “would you please tell me first which road——”
Tweedledee smiled gently, and began again [...]
"The Walrus and the Carpenter" is one of the better-known pieces of the Alice novels. It endures today in part because it is featured in the Disney movie Alice in Wonderland. It is interesting to note, given the poem's fame, that its role in Through the Looking Glass is as a rather useless pause in Alice's journey. She is trying to ask for directions and even tries to steer Tweedledee away from reciting a very long poem. He does not pick up the hint (or at least pretends not to) and launches into the story anyway.
Alice's silence as Tweedledee tells the story of the walrus and the carpenter reveals that she, unlike Tweedledee, knows and respects etiquette. Tweedledee has clearly indicated that he wants to recite a poem, so politeness dictates that it is incumbent on Alice to listen, even if she does not get anything out of the experience. She even tries to stay engaged when the story is over, offering her reaction to the characters. She does her best to analyze the morality of the walrus and carpenter's actions until she finds herself really stumped and moves the conversation to a new topic.
There are some parallels between Alice and the poor oysters who are taken in by the walrus and carpenter. Like the young oysters, Alice is a child alone with two men who seem harmless but are also somewhat disruptive to her journey. Alice, like the oysters, struggles to correctly interpret what these men say to her. But on a closer reading, Alice is not as naive and childlike as the oysters. Her patience in listening to the story indicates that she is in fact better than Tweedledum and Tweedledee at navigating the adult world of etiquette. Her difficulty interpreting the story, too, is less of a remark on Alice's immaturity and more of a commentary on the dead-end philosophical debates Tweedledum and Tweedledee (and many adults) are apt to pursue forever, as if they are going somewhere. Alice is both more adult than Tweedledum and Tweedledee (because of her etiquette) and more reasonable than them (because she ducks out of the debate about the story when she realizes it is a pile of nonsense). This is one of many moments that reveal Alice to be on the edge between childhood and adulthood.
