Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 257this equation, as Capote states, execution is a “ritual
of vengeance.”
Executions uphold a vision of justice while
acting out vengeance. Likewise, prisons are sites
where convicts are supposedly brought to jus-
tice, but Capote shows that they are also sites of
criminal intensification where prisoners meet each
other and learn about potential criminal acts. In
prison, Dick and Perry first meet, Perry invents a
past murder, and Dick learns of the Clutters and
plots their burglary. In the book, prison preserves
images of successful democracy by removing crimi-
nals from the society that they have interrupted;
simultaneously, prison encourages and intensifies
criminal behavior.
Dick and Perry do not fit into the exemplary
American image that Holcomb and its citizenry
desire. Both men exhibit symptoms of mental ill-
ness. They have criminal backgrounds. Perry has a
history of abuse. Their antisocial behavior places
them in sharp contrast to the American ideals
of Holcomb and the Clutter family. The Kansas
justice system remains aloof when it comes to
considering the justice of Dick and Perry’s past.
Perry’s abuse by nuns is no more just than his mur-
der of the Clutters, but the justice system ignores
psychosocial complexities and histories in favor of
black-and-white definitions of right and wrong. It
does not matter whether it is “just” that Perry was
abused as a child, that his mother was an alcoholic,
that two of his siblings committed suicide, or that
he exhibits symptoms of mental illness. It does not
matter that a psychiatrist states that Dick is unable
to base his actions on what he knows is right or
wrong. What matters is that Dick and Perry killed
the Clutters, that they interrupted Holcomb’s
ideal, and that they are executed as an act of
vengeance. Prior to Dick and Perry’s descent on
Holcomb, the townspeople did not think even to
lock their doors, but “those somber explosions...
stimulated fires of mistrust in the glare of which
many old neighbors viewed each other strangely,
and as strangers.” The town’s primary interest is
to use justice to reestablish Holcomb’s democratic
harmony.
Ethan Myers
CARROLL, LEWIS Alice’s Adventures
in Wonderland (1865)
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, generally regarded
as a children’s literature classic, was written in 1865
by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832–98), better
known by his pen name, Lewis Carroll. The book
relates the account of seven-year-old Alice, a curious
and precocious little girl who, intrigued by a glimpse
of a well-dressed rabbit, proceeds to follow him and
plunges down a rabbit hole. What Alice finds at the
bottom of her fall is another dimension where non-
sense and irrationality are the norm, a place where
the world as Alice has come to know it no longer
makes sense—a place called “Wonderland.” Alice
learns to navigate the strange ways of Wonderland,
although she does not exactly understand them. And
in the end, she even shows the fairy tale–like king-
dom’s inhabitants the ways in which their society
is hypocritical, a deed that arguably gives her the
confidence to return home.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is generally
heralded for its fantastic elements. However, the
book is also a satire in the strictest sense: It is about
manners; societal institutions; language; culture; and,
perhaps most significantly, growing up. The reader
witnesses Alice’s memorable encounters with the
Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter, a smoking caterpil-
lar, and the Queen of Hearts, among other colorful
characters, and watches her grow from innocence
to experience, while growing along with her. In this
regard, due to the plot’s imaginative nature and the
book’s magical realm, talking animals, and dream
sequence near its conclusion, it can be considered
analogous to a fairy tale. As fairy tales allow audi-
ences to place themselves within the story because
of their agelessness and undefined location, any
child—or any adult for that matter—has the ability
to travel to Wonderland. No wonder Alice’s Adven-
tures in Wonderland has been a beloved classic for
more than a century.
Trudi Van DykeinnOcence and experience in Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland
As the title proposes, Lewis Carroll’s Victorian-era
fantasy Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland relates the
escapades of a bored, curious, and innocent young