Wonderland: Plot Discussion
It struck me as weird when Jesse's father came to get him early from Jesse's after-school job, just as it struck Jesse and his employer as weird. We know something's going to happen, something has already happened. It is with trepidation that we watch Jesse leave the security of his familiar routine at work to go with his father.I found it touching that Jesse kept thinking his father coming for him had something to do with Christmas, expectations of things as normal, thinking there might be presents from Montgomery Ward. He is still thinking things are normal as they drive up the familiar drive to the house, as he walks into the warm house, the feeling of home, then the slow realization, the smell....
We want him to run, but he is still taking it in, doesn't move, then his father comes in, and Jesse finally makes his move, dives through the window, runs, escapes....
When I was growing up in a small town in Southern Illinois in the 60s, I remember a family where the father killed everyone except the two older brothers who hid from him while he was on his rampage. He killed himself after giving up on the boys. One was my age, 7th grade, but I didn't know him very well, I don't even remember his name, just what happened to him. I remember everyone talking about how he and his brother stayed out of school after this happened. Eventually the boys came back to school, but I don't remember what happened to them or who they lived with. At the time I couldn't imagine how they must have felt, hiding from their father who just killed their mother and younger siblings. It was easier not to think about it, to forget that such a terrible thing happened. Reading the early parts of Wonderland brought it back to me. Terrible things do happen to children, scarring them in ways we can only imagine. I love the way JCO is able to take us inside such people so that we can know them and understand (sometimes) their actions better than they do themselves.
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