Wonderland (Masterplots, Revised Second Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Joyce Carol Oates
- First Published: 1971
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: 1939-1971
- Setting: Upstate New York; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Chicago; Wisconsin; New York City; and Toronto, Canada
- Principal Characters: Jesse Harte, Dr. Karl Pedersen, Mary Pedersen, Benjamin Cady, Roderick Perrault, Helene Cady, T. W. Monk, Shelley Vogel, Reva Denk
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: 1950’s
- Locales: New York, NY
The Story:
One December day, fourteen-year-old Jesse Harte came home to find his family brutally murdered and his crazed, chronically unemployed, and spiritually desolate father coming after him with a shotgun. Jesse barely escaped through a window; his father’s subsequent suicide left him to make his way alone as a traumatized orphan. He first went to live with his silent, bitter grandfather, where he took the surname Vogel for a time. That proved to be unacceptable, so he moved on to his uncomprehending cousins, and then to an orphanage.
Eventually, he encountered...
[The entire page is 2035 words long]
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