Did Lewis Carroll intend Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to be an allegory?

Lewis Carroll did not intend for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to be an allegory. Despite various attempts by critics to assign hidden religious, political, or psychological meanings to the work, the author maintained that the book contains no such underlying message.1

Carroll, whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, originally conceived the story as a spontaneous fairy tale told to Alice Liddell and her sisters during a picnic. He later recalled that he began the narrative by sending his heroine down a rabbit hole without any preconceived plan or idea of what would happen next.21

While the book features elements of gentle satire—specifically targeting the educational practices of the time and familiar university archetypes—these were intended for the amusement of the children rather than as a structured allegorical framework. Ultimately, the work is celebrated for its nonsensical, imaginative nature, which intentionally subverts logic rather than serving as a vehicle for didactic instruction.12