Representation

In Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, there are way more deep meanings and significance than one would have thought. In the beginning of Chapters 4-5, Alice encounters a caterpillar smoking a hookah on the top of a  mushroom, which she has to tip-toe to see, symbolizing growing up and coming-of-age. This encounter could represent grown-up life because of the way Alice tip-toes to see a caterpillar quietly smoking hookah. This smoking probably represents an older person, especially because the caterpillar is sluggish, quiet (as opposed to loud children), and languid.

This caterpillar is probably an allusion of Socrates, for with Alice, he uses the Socratic method to help her understand who she really is. In this conversation, Alice tells the caterpillar that when he grows up to be a butterfly, he will probably have a better understand. Carroll probably put this in to emphasize the growing-up and realization of who Alice is. There is a lot of repetition of "finding out who she really is" in every encounter with the animals, making it significant. Age and maturity is yet brought up again in the Father William tale.

Again, size represents her development in finding her true self. She tells of wanting to grow larger and grow smaller, in whichever circumstance that benefits her.