I don’t believe Alice in Wonderland really was written with much deeper meaning intended, it’s just a wild, entertaining children story that veers into absurdity.

I would say, if I were forced to look for some deeper interpretation, that it kind of subverts a lot of the expectations that people tended to have for children stories. Compare it to something like Stevenson’s Treasure Island, that has an easy-to-digest plot, lots of upfront, easy to understand symbolism, and all the different songs and poems and conversations work together thematically to build the same excited, romantic feeling in the reader. Everything which feels like it should be significant, is. At the end of the day, we all learn a valuable lesson about loyalty and greed and bravery and stuff.

Then you have Alice and Through the Looking Glass, in which the plot just abruptly does whatever it wants, the characters confidently use a lot of clever sounding symbolism and idioms but it’s all intentionally made-up and nonsensical, and there isn’t really any rhyme or reason to what is significant and what isn’t, it’s just a fun chaotic ride.