Alice was, I believe, a perfectly normal human being with a vivid and slightly twisted imagination.
*You*, of course, could argue that if you look at some of the ideas suggested in the tales of Wonderland, you can read either the innocent, if confusing, dreams of an eleven year old child, or the hallucinogenic ravings of a maladjusted juvenile.
Let's walk through this mirror and see reality with a parallel scope. Of course, all of the following interpretations are tinted with the paint of my mind, and as such, I'm sure that you will find yourself making sense of these events in your own way.
We shall start at the place that all good stories start... at the beginning.
In the beginning, Alice was a sleepy young girl that was paying far too little attention to things that ought to have been thought about. Her cat, an innocently evil little fluffball named, of all things, 'Dinah', was apparently her sidekick in this miscellaneous muckery.
Alice, being the stereotype of petulant little girls who don't go to bed when they're told to, was very tired and fell asleep under a tree in the warm afternoon sun; although this fact is not apparent in the writing of the story, so as to make the reader question the reality of said events.
Later on, we may discover the fact that she got sunburnt and developed melanoma.
Now, we can assume one of a few things in this next part. Either Alice was dreaming that she saw a little white rabbit in a waistcoat with a pocket watch running to the hole in the tree
or she was filled to the gills with hallucinogenics. In either case, that's precisely what happened, and dear little Alice decided to indulge her natural curiousity with no thought for the consequences.
I mean,
really. Who jumps down a rabbit hole without a rope and some carrots to bribe the vicious bunnies?!
The scene at the bottom of the rabbit hole, that of a room with a table holding grow me/ shrink me drugs and a small door, is obviously some kind of reference to the idea that you can't get where you want to go in life without cheating sometimes.
That, or it was merely demonstrating how easily kids are tempted into taking drugs and thus we shouldn't leave our shrinking potions lying scattered around the house, in case they just happen to end up in a mysterious parallel universe, chasing a rabbit.
An important lesson here is that the grass always looks greener on the other side of the small enchanted door. Perhaps if Alice hadn't been so keen to escape to new pastures, she wouldn't have entangled herself in the curious happenings that followed. The question is, however, whether or not it was beneficial. Of course, if she had been a more organised sort of person that had given more forethought to the consequences of her actions, she may not have ended up ten inches high and swimming in a sea of her own tears.
It seems that Alice was a very unhappy little girl for the majority of this story; I choose to take this as a warning that taking drugs and chasing rabbits while wandering in the wilderness of your mind is a VERY BAD THING. This particular story is full of well meaning moral guidings. A good example is when Alice ends up being mistaken by the white rabbit for his housemaid, Mary Ann. She, the silly twit, doesn't correct him on the finer details of her true identity, and attempts to do the job of the maidservant. Alas, temptation appears in the form of a tiny bottle labelled 'DRINK ME'. Now, there are a few things about this situation that make it rather worthy of comment.
Firstly, a bottle that has any kind of directive label on it and is full of mysterious content is sure to be trouble. Secondly, let us take this anecdote as a caution against the vanity and dissatisfaction of self image. If Alice had been more content with the way she was, she would never have felt the need to drink. "I do hope it'll make me grow large again, for really I'm quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!".
Sadly, little Alice learnt the lesson of Regret as she found herself unable to handle the consequences of her decision. "That's quite enough-- I hope I shan't grow any more-- As it is, I can't get out at the door-- Oh I do wish I hadn't drunk quite so much!".
Enough said, really.
The little girl *did* have a fairly good idea when it came to purpose, however. When speaking with the frustratingly obtuse Cheshire Cat, she said "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
To which the puss replied with a sensible "Well that depends a good deal on where you want to get to."
Now, Alice said next that she didn't care much where she wanted to get to; so long as it was _somewhere_.
This strikes me as a very mature response for such a young person, and perhaps something that is difficult for most people to grasp regardless of age.
Indeed, it is a question in the transient, arduous journey to seeking happiness: Will we be happy when we get to where we're going, or is it the journey that matters? Is it the destination, the goal fulfilled, the reward claimed that sates our need, our drive? Or is it the things that we experience on the way there, and the feeling of satisfaction that comes from merely moving, from continuing to walk to 'somewhere' instead of going nowhere?
However, in this case, we'll take a leaf from Alice's book, in which she states to the Mad Hatter "I think you might do something better with the time than waste it in riddles that have no answers."
Of course, after her encounter with this enigmatic man and the March Hare, Alice finally finds herself in the garden which tempted her into taking size altering drugs in the first place, which proves that you can, obviously, achieve your goals even when distracted, high, regretful and three inches tall, if you go 'somewhere'.
There are many other themes in this aphorism-laden story; things such as the power of authority, the wisdom of asserting one's boundaries when threatened (in Alice's case, with being beheaded,) and the importance of good sportsmanship in croquet.
The Duchess realised this, and indeed remarked to Alice as they strolled through the Queen's Garden arm-in-arm that "Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it."
I do find myself wondering if the King pardoning all of the executions ordered by the passionate-for-beheading Queen during the croquet game was a reference to the facade of rule and power of monarchs in England at the time (and indeed, now,) or if it was a more subtle allusion to the perceived 'madness' and impulsiveness of womankind in general, and the damage control initiated by men after the emotional bombshell has exploded.
Really, there's not much else. The story finishes with Alice's sister waking little Alice up, only then to drift into her own imaginings of strange alternate realities, the concept of which merely served to show her that life would go on as usual; that Wonderland was really with all of us, in our own minds, ready to serve up a good dose of abstract advice when we least expect it.
Here are some pictures from before the camo paint:
