Wonderland (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Joyce Carol Oates
- First Published: 1971
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: 1939-1969
- Setting: Upstate New York; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Chicago; Wisconsin; New York City; and Toronto
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: 1950’s
- Locales: New York, NY
Characters Discussed
Jesse Harte, later Vogel, and then Pedersen, a high school student who survives his distraught father’s murder of the remaining Harte family, during the Depression, in upper New York State. When his grandfather Vogel pays his hospital bills, he agrees to be called Jesse Vogel and to live on the old man’s remote farm, until he is placed in an orphanage. Dr. Karl Pedersen adopts him when he is sixteen years old, on condition that he now be known as Jesse Pedersen and prepare for a medical career. After a few years, however, Jesse cannot recognize his face...
[The entire page is 1436 words long]
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