Another word for a recurring theme is: (B) motif
Motif can best be defined as "a dominant or recurring idea in an artistic work"
Some critics feel that Alice's personality and her waking life are reflected in Wonderland; that may be the case. But the story itself is independent of Alice's "real world." Her personality, as it were, stands alone in the story, and it must be considered in terms of the Alice character in Wonderland.
A strong moral consciousness operates in all of Alice's responses to Wonderland, yet on the other hand, she exhibits a child's insensitivity in discussing her cat Dinah with the frightened Mouse in the pool of tears. Generally speaking, Alice's simplicity owes a great deal to Victorian feminine passivity and a repressive domestication. Slowly, in stages, Alice's reasonableness, her sense of responsibility, and her other good qualities will emerge in her journey through Wonderland and, especially, in the trial scene. Her list of virtues is long: curiosity, courage, kindness, intelligence, courtesy, humor, dignity, and a sense of justice. She is even "maternal" with the pig/baby. But her constant and universal human characteristic is simple wonder — something which all children (and the child that still lives in most adults) can easily identify with
Number 3 and 4 is what I would say because scientifically we haven’t been able to do number 4 yet, and it’s not possible for someone to be alive to this day that was on the titanic.
B) to refer to a story that audiences are familiar with
