I am just beginning an entire semester on Joyce Carol Oates, so expect that many of the entries appearing here over the next few months will relate to her work. I begin with two of her short stories from the 1960s, which I found a touch hot - you'll understand why after reading the following:
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Simply looking at Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is enough to indicate young women have struggled to find independence and unique identities for well over 200 years. While there is a much longer history of women engaging in various rites of passage, that looks far enough back to indicate the ideas Joyce Carol Oates writes about are not new. In "How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life Over Again" and "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" Oates explores the journey of two young girls seemingly trying to move away from the identities forced upon them. These girls run from the concept of parental control and seek freedom, yet they run into a dangerous foreign world where they are forced into other roles. Searching for an identity through the eyes of others leads both girls into the arms of trouble and toward the edge of death and destruction, but it is an edge they feel compelled to move ever closer to.
In "How I Contemplated the World...", the main character's lack of unique identity is underscored by her being referred to simply as "the girl". The girl is physically ordinary and stands out only in the sense that she does not obey the rules. In addition to being somewhat of a kleptomaniac, the girl leaves home at a very early age and rather than finding independence finds someone else to claim her. Simon, a drug addled older man, finds the girl on the streets and takes her in. She begins sleeping with him, injecting him with drugs, caring for him, and keeping his secrets. Despite a fear that Simon may come into her room and strangle her and despite such objectification that Simon gave her away to a friend for three days, the girl clearly says that she would go back to him and their crazy life "over and over again" (181).
This dangerous excitement finds the girl quite by surprise as Simon initially grabs her and is hurting her, but it is right after that she first goes to bed with him. There is something intoxicating to her about having such power wielded over her and about the fact that "it wasn't love... it was terror" (186). Repeatedly, the narrative shows someone putting the hand on the girl's arm which is referred to as "a claim" (186). From this, we see that even as she believes she is finding freedom in her relationship with Simon, she is still a creature possessed. These things the girl was happy to continue with, but when she is assaulted by two other girls, it nearly breaks her. She says even Simon's treatment never hurt her, but those other girls did, and she vows to stay forever in the protection of her family rather than risk being hurt again by other girls.
"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" is the story of Connie's search for independence. She is expected to behave in a certain way (like her older sister) and follow certain rules, but when she is out from under supervising eyes, that all changes. Sneaking out to drive in movies and engaging in sexual behavior leads Connie to have an unexpected visitor. One day after her family has gone out for the day, Arnold Friend arrives at Connie's door. "His whole face was a mask" and his words were "spoken with a slight rhythmic lilt" like a skilled hypnotist (48-49). Despite resisting at first and declaring that Arnold is crazy, the more forceful he becomes with her, the more she seems to give in to his demands.
Connie tries to rebel and reaches to call the police at which point she feels an intense pain that registers as "something Arnold Friend was stabbing her with again and again with no tenderness" (52). As she is recovering from this pain, Arnold sweetly says and repeats "that's a good girl" and things begin to shift inside Connie (52). Connie begins to realize that everything is about to change for her and though she seems afraid, she is actually detached. She begins to see even her own body as something that "wasn't really hers either" (53). Giving in to his harsh treatment and trance inducing speech, Connie ultimately watches herself walk out the door and to Arnold's car as if she were watching someone in a movie.
Though both girls wanted to escape the demands placed on their identity by their parents, they abandoned these demands for the demands of yet another authority. It seems that Oates is implying through this shift that either young women are not capable of full independence or they simply have an internal desire to be controlled and objectified by these older male figures. Both girls seem to respond most favorably to the harshest treatment from the men and in doing so, they find one form of freedom. It is this type of freedom that one girl stops resisting and the other would seek “over and over again” (181).
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Objectification and Violence as a Chosen Identity?
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I want to mention a couple of differences that strike me in these stories and see what you think about them. First, Connie and the unnamed girl do want to escape their roles within their families, but Connie seems to suffer from too much attention from her mother and too close identification with her family (the sister), while the other young woman seems to suffer from parental neglect. Her parents are too busy to notice her. My point is that the "escapes" seem different. I admit that their similarity in age implies that both are in reaction to the family situation and seeking to create their own adult identities in the world, but the family situations are quite different, aren't they? And while the girls share one motivation, they also differ.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, the stories end in very different ways. The unnamed narrartor shrinks back into the family and declares her love for the material objects ("the beauty of chandeliers and the miracle of a clean plished gleaming toaster and faucets")and the safe home that are the trappings of her upper-middle-class life ("I will never leave home, this is my home, I have everything here, I am in love with everything here....I am home"). I do think that the dynamic of attraction she has formed with Simon is likely to stick with her through her life and inform her other relationships with men, but, nevertheless, she retreats.
Connie, on the other hand, is heading like a sleepwalker toward the "vast sunlit reaches of the land behind [Arnold Friend] and on all sides of him--so much land that Connie had never seen before and did not recognize except to know that she was going to it." The world is opening up in sunlight, seemingly toward vast possibilities, not shrinking. There is an ambiguous mix of positive and negative imagery in the ending.
Connie is on the verge of losing her innocence while the other girl has lost hers and seeks to reclaim it.
Do these observations bring any further ideas to mind?
Interestingly, I don't see "the girl" as retreating from the experiences she had with Simon or as a part of his world. What she is broken by and retreats from is the behavior of other girls toward her. I need to do some deeper feminist analysis on this one maybe, but it strikes me as important that it is the maternal relationship both girls despise most and it is these other girls who hurt our main character so badly.
ReplyDeleteThere is something in here about women tearing each other apart rather than helping each other find identities. Though the girls in the detention center could have supported one another in finding a way in the world, it was instead these other girls who caused her retreat. There is a constant battle of females against each other here - the mothers push them out and the other girls push her back.
I admit there are plenty of differences in the reasons the girls strike out on their own and in where they ultimately find themselves, but to me, it is the commonality of the experience that seemed most important. I think I decided to look for what Oates might see as the common experiences of female identity rather than the details of each unique path.
It's not inappropriate to focus on the commonalities. I was struck in your original post by your interpretation of "the girl's" reaction to being beaten up in the detention center by other girls. In my own reading of the story, I couldn't put my finger on why she reacted so very strongly to that, but you've given me the answer. You make a very good point about female betrayal and girls' relationships with their mothers.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I am influenced by the extreme passivity of our protagonist in _Do With Me What You Will_, but I see that same passivity in Connie as we near, and arrive at, the end of "Where Are You Going...?" I wonder if "the girl" in "How I Saw the World..." is going to become that passive person? She acted out to get attention, so she wasn't passive then, but the acting out wasn't productive in the way she needed it to be. With Simon, she becomes very passive, and it seems like she brings that passivity back "home" with her.
Ok, yes, I'm rambling. Can you find anything that makes sense in what I just said?