The question of why "Alice’s adventures in Wonderland" is one of the most influent novels in the Anglo-Saxon  world  is  just a  highly  topical  subject, which  is  being constantly  updated  by distinguished celebrities all around the world. But anyway we can not grasp the whole meaning of this great work in an overview, and our intention is just to emphasize the relevant aspects of a novel of this category.
     "Alice’s adventures in Wonderland" is, first of all, a tale for children, a tale created by Lewis Carroll about a real girl, Alice Liddell, who was his favourite child. He felt strongly attracted to her and this was a fundamental fact to understand the whole meaning of the story and later of the novel. It is thought that Carroll conceived the plot of the novel the 4th  July 1862, when Carroll and the reverend Robinson Duckworth, who was his friend and colleague in the Trinity College , went into a excursion along the Thames with the three Liddell sisters Lorina (13), Alice (10) and Edith (8). That singular day, the little girls asked Carroll for a tale, and he had to improvise as they insisted on this. The girls (and particularly  Alice) got excited when they listened to that lovely tale that Carroll was inventing for them. Alice said that she had never imagined such a beautiful story, and therefore she asked Carroll to write it to her. Because of this, and thinking that it was going to be for the girl who had always loved, Carroll gave it to her for her birthday. Then, 25 years later, when Alice was already married, he asked her if he could borrow the original copy to publish it. But he didn't publish exactly the same tale that he had told  the Liddell sisters, but changed some parts which he considered too personal and included other more  appropriate, playing on words and sometimes regarded by literary experts as better than the ones which are in the original. But it was a surprise for Carroll.  He couldn’t imagine it was going to be such a big success.
     Focusing now our study on Lewis Carroll’s style it is necessary to mention some qualities in his work which  are typical,  like his rapid rhythm, avoiding always unnecessary words without any clearly-defined function, using  a direct style, introducing the action to the reader, etc. Carroll places the reader in contact with the action, really near it, making it possible to identify himself with this new reality Carroll is showing us. The style of the author allows the reader to feel nearer the action, though this fact is in contrast with this fantastic world Carroll is showing us.  The author introduces us into the different scenes and elements with so various resorts. But some of them are described not really in detail. As we've said, sometimes the author makes us know about the scenes, elements and characters of the book using short descriptions or even by the dialogues of the characters themselves. The dream (which practically covers  the whole novel) makes it possible Carroll to avoid objective situations and therefore he can focus all his work on the subjectivity of Alice. So Carroll describes a summer afternoon besides the bank, the monotonous walk of Alice, the sudden appearance of a strange rabbit wearing clothes, a so deep rabbit hole...
      But what the reader is feeling when he is in front of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", is not, indeed, the description of this action, but the boredom of the child, the slight desperation in front of her older sister’s world that the little child can’t understand, the contrast between her feelings and the curiosity for the rabbit with gloves and finally the emotion of avoiding the reality without any fear to be guided by her instincts. We can also appreciate her happiness when she decides that and her fear in that new world where Alice doesn’t feel safe.
      The reader feels in a different world, where Alice has come into. Alice is now shrouded in mystery. The values are not the same, the strange creatures that are there don’t think the same way Alice thinks, and even Alice undergoes real metamorphosis in her height.  In my opinion that dream is a very interesting resource which allows Carroll to write  more freely . On the pretext of the dream, Carroll shows us a sequence of  characters which are archetypes, perfect examples of
social situations of Victorian Culture, but very different if we compare them with the world we are used to live in. With the same purpose the dramatic strength of Carroll’s characters is increased through zoological shapes, which provides the author with more possibilities and  sense.
     Another essential points in "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland" are the psychological portraits of the characters. Some of them are described rapidly like accidental characters hardly mentioned, whereas others are described accurately, sometimes more than Alice herself. We only have to think about characters like the Hatter, the Queen, etc.
     Nevertheless there is a third kind of specific characters like, for instance "the Cat of Cheshire", which has been identified with Carroll, who suddenly appear as if he were spying in the dream that he has invented. Anyway it is necessary to say that "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland" is more than a sharp view of British society ; it’s the view of a little child, Alice, in front of a incomprehensible and irrational world which suddenly involves her. Now she will have to get around by herself, without any help. The things that she learned before, in a different world, don’t have any use now. Though she'll try to recall the lessons she learned at school, she will realize that there is no use on doing that. These old lessons seem to have suffered the same strange transformations that she has, and now they are useless to any of her purposes.
     The way that Carroll involves real characters into incomprehensible situations has made some experts compare him and his style with the figure of Kafka. But the main difference between Lewis Carroll and Kafka is the dynamism, the fresh impetus which Carroll’s art shows and the great optimism of his main character, Alice.
     This work, as so many magnificent works of fantasy, is opened to many kinds of different symbolic interpretation like, for instance, political, Freudian or metaphysic. But some of the interpretations that have been made about this work, cannot be considered appropriate and can lead to wrong interpretations. For instance, Shane Leslie, in her article about "Lewis Carroll and the Oxford Movement" (published in the London Mercury , July 1933) said she had discovered in Alice a secret story about religious disputes in the Victorian period.  She maintained that  the jar of marmalade, for instance, represented the Protestantism of the Victorian England. The battle between the red and the white king represented the confrontation between Thomas Huxley and the bishop Samuel Wilberforce. The blue caterpillar was Benjamin Jowet; the white Queen was the cardinal  John Henry Newmann, the red queen was the cardinal Henry Manning, the cat of Cheshire  was the cardinal Nicholas Wiseman, and so on. But if we compare this interpretations with other more modern studies we will realize that we can find hundreds of them. Possibly we will not be able to distinguish the better ones if we are not experts on this field. I have read symbolic interpretations about the cat of Cheshire, showing that it is Lewis Carroll himself spying in this strange dream. I am not going to talk about the ones I think are better, but what I mainly want to show is that we can’t say that one is true and the other is false and  vice versa.
    Therefore I am merely going to say that all them are possible but we can’t be sure of  any of them. In fact, nowadays the most increased interpretations are the psychoanalystic interpretations.  Anyway, though some people insist on giving to "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland" lots of symbolic interpretations, as we have seen before, when children read the book for first time, although they don’t pay attention to this fact, they enjoy the book and get excited with the story like Alice Liddell did that famous summer day, when Carroll told her the tale.
     Now, if you would like to know more about this essay, his purposes and the definitive result , you we'll have a short explanation if you click here. Final conclusion.