THE SECRET PASSAGE - A POLITICAL AND A PHILOSOPHICAL INTERPRETATION OF ALICE IN WONDERLAND AND THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

The author points out that neither Alice in Wonderland nor Through the Looking Glass had any moral conclusions. This made them radically different from previous children's books which always had some kind of moral lesson in them.

It talks about secret passages to magical worlds. In this case there were three passages to Wonderland: the tunnel, the well and the hall of doors.

Painting the roses red related to the War of the Roses while the fight between the Lion and the Unicorn related to Scotland. The White Knight refers to old age.

Humpty Dumpty, because he's an egg, refers to the origin of everything.

The Cheshire Cat moves through multi-dimensional space. The books also refer to the 'repressive education system ' to which girls were submitted. Through the Looking Glass gives financial value to everything.

The book also covers the fall from grace and Poe's poem about the Raven. There's a bibliography and footnotes.

In my own opinion I think this authors (and similar ones) read too much into the stories. Various analyses like this would have required Lewis Carroll to sit down before writing the stores and to make a list like character x = person/concept y and so on through the entire thing. Yet the fact is that the origin of the story is that it was (in its early form) pretty much spontaneous as it was told to Alice and her sisters while they were all on a boating trip.

The story was written down, yes, but it seems it was pretty much as he told it. The story was then expanded later to make it into a book that could be sold. I think any associations Lewis Carroll made were not planned.

Still, the book does make it's own case and it is interesting throughout.