An Analysis of Gender-Based Violence in Selected Works of Joyce Carol Oates
Contentss
Abstraction
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Towards a Societal-Level Understanding of Rape and Gender-Based Violence
Chapter 3:Discussion of Gender-Based Violence in the Work of Joyce Carol Oates
Chapter 4: Decisions
Bibliography
Abstraction
This thesis provides an analysis of gender-based force in selected plants by Joyce Carol Oates. The thesis provides a multidimensional analysis of two of Oates’ novels,Rape: A Love StoryandWe Were The Mulvaneys, and one of her short narratives, entitledWhere Are You Going, Where Have You Been?and discusses the relationship between maleness and force, the building of maleness and muliebrity in these plants, and the disenfranchisement of the adult females ( who are victims ) and the male figures ( who are the lawbreakers ) . In add-on, because all of these plants contain colza scenes, the relationship between feminism and sexual force is besides discussed, in the context of the ‘rape literature’ including Susan Brownmiller’sAgainst Our Volition: Work force, Women and Rape.
The thesis is divided in to four chief chapters, with Chapter 1 supplying a general debut to the thesis, and Chapter 2 ( entitledTowards a Societal-Level Understanding of Rape and Gender-Based Violence)discoursing how colza has come to be understood, at a social degree, through an analysis of the appropriate literature, and will look at how women’s rightists have appropriated colza as a tool with which to run against what they see, and term, our ‘patriarchal’ society. Chapter 3 ( entitledDiscussion of Gender-Based Violence in the Selected Works of Joyce Carol Oates) discusses the selected plants of Joyce Carol Oates in general footings, foremost, in footings of giving an overview of the characters and secret plans present in the plants, and so moves on to discoursing the Acts of the Apostless of gender-based force in these plants, in peculiar the colzas of Teena ( inRape: A Love Story) and Marianne ( inWe Were the Mulvaneys) , and the false future colza of Connie inWhere Are You Going, Where Have You Been?and the reverberations these Acts of the Apostless of force have for the victims, their immediate households and the wider community.
The thesis concludes with a Conclusions subdivision, Chapter 4, which draws together all of the chief hypotheses about sexual force against adult females, and its apprehension by society as a signifier of gender-based force, and the relationship between feminism and sexual force against adult females, that have been gathered from the reappraisal of the relevant academic literature in concurrence with the analysis of the selected texts of Joyce Carol Oates. The penetrations gathered from the textual analysis of the selected plants of Joyce Carol Oates, in footings of gender-based force against the female characters in these plants, are besides summarised in this Chapter, taking to a set of decisions about how Joyce Carol Oates uses gender-based force as a tool with which to demo humanity’s defects and to discourse societal-level decomposition, through the usage of relationship dislocations and issues of loss and self-loss.
Chapter 1: Introduction
This thesis provides an analysis of gender-based force in selected plants by Joyce Carol Oates. The thesis provides a multidimensional analysis of two of Oates’ novels,Rape: A Love StoryandWe Were The Mulvaneys, and one of her short narratives, entitledWhere Are You Going, Where Have You Been?and discusses the relationship between maleness and force, the building of maleness and muliebrity in these plants, and the disenfranchisement of the adult females ( who are victims ) and the male figures ( who are the lawbreakers ) . In add-on, because all of these plants contain colza scenes, the relationship between feminism and sexual force is besides discussed, in the context of the ‘rape literature’ including Susan Brownmiller’sAgainst Our Volition: Work force, Women and Rape.
Chapter 2 ( entitledTowards a Societal-Level Understanding of Rape and Gender-Based Violence)will discourse how colza has come to be understood, at a social degree, through an analysis of the appropriate literature, and will look at how women’s rightists have appropriated colza as a tool with which to run against what they see, and term, our ‘patriarchal’ society. The relationship between feminism and sexual force is hence discussed at great length in this Chapter, which will inform subsequent Chapter of the thesis, which will discourse gender-based force in the selected plants of Joyce Carol Oates. This Chapter besides provides some treatment of what is understood by gender-based force, and how sexual force against adult females came to be understood in the model of ‘gender-based violence’ .
For the intents of this paper, gender-based force is defined as “ force affecting work forces and adult females, in which the female is normally the victim and which arises from unequal power relationships between work forces and adult females. Violence against adult females and misss is frequently referred to as “ gender-based force ” because it evolves, in portion, from adult females ‘s subsidiary gender position in society. In most civilizations, traditional beliefs, norms and societal establishments legitimize and hence perpetuate force against adult females. The usage of the term “ gender-based force ” provides a new context in which to analyze and understand the long-standing phenomenon of force against adult females ; it shifts the focal point from adult females as victims to gender and the unequal power relationships between adult females and work forces created and maintained by gender stereotypes as the basic implicit in cause of force against women.” .
Chapter 3 ( entitledDiscussion of Gender-Based Violence in the Selected Works of Joyce Carol Oates) will discourse the selected plants of Joyce Carol Oates in general footings, foremost, in footings of giving an overview of the characters and secret plans present in the plants, and will so travel on to discoursing the Acts of the Apostless of gender-based force in these plants, in peculiar the colzas of Teena ( inRape: A Love Story) and Marianne ( inWe Were the Mulvaneys) , and the false future colza of Connie inWhere Are You Going, Where Have You Been? .The Chapter so moves on to look at how this gender-based force that is present in the selected plants can be understood in the current model of understanding sexual force against adult females as gender-based force. The Chapter so moves on to look at how the reader responds to these word pictures of sexual force, and to a treatment of the relationship between maleness and force, the building of maleness and muliebrity in the texts, and the disenfranchisement of the adult females victims, through the Acts of the Apostless of the sexually aggressive, commanding, male characters.
The thesis concludes with a Conclusions subdivision, which draws together all of the chief hypotheses about sexual force against adult females, and its apprehension by society as a signifier of gender-based force, and the relationship between feminism and sexual force against adult females. The penetrations gathered from the textual analysis of the selected plants of Joyce Carol Oates, in footings of gender-based force against the female characters in these plants, are besides summarised in this Chapter, taking to a set of decisions about how Joyce Carol Oates uses gender-based force as a tool with which to demo humanity’s defects and to discourse societal-level decomposition, through the usage of relationship dislocations and issues of loss and self-loss.
Chapter 2: Towards a Societal-Level Understanding of Rape and Gender-Based Violence
This Chapter will discourse how colza has come to be understood, at a social degree, through an analysis of the appropriate literature, and will look at how women’s rightists have appropriated colza as a tool with which to run against what they see, and term, our ‘patriarchal’ society. The relationship between feminism and sexual force is hence discussed at great length in this Chapter, which will inform subsequent Chapter of the thesis, which will discourse gender-based force in the selected plants of Joyce Carol Oates. This Chapter besides provides some treatment of what is understood by gender-based force, and how sexual force against adult females came to be understood in the model of ‘gender-based violence’ .
Brownmiller’s 1975 ‘classic’Against Our Volition: Work force, Women and Rapeis, basically, an drawn-out statement based on her cardinal premiss that work forces realized, in prehistoric times, that they could utilize their genital organs as a arm, and that, therefore, since this clip, human males have realized they can ravish, which leads to her cardinal decision that ‘…rape has played a critical map. It is nil more or less than a witting procedure of bullying by which all work forces maintain all adult females in a province of fear.” . Many faculty members, women’s rightists and non-feminists likewise, have argued that this cardinal claim is instead generalised and across-the-board, and that non “all men” usage colza to maintain “all women” in a province of fright. Rape is, for illustration, known to be used in war clip to corrupt enemy military personnels, but colza,per Se,is non a common plenty, societal-wide, phenomena, to be labeled, as Brownmiller ( 1975 ) labels it, “a witting procedure of bullying by which all work forces maintain all adult females in a province of fear.” .
This sweeping generalisation of colza, its intent, and the extent of colza in society, is non helpful, and is dismissed as ‘feminist rubbish’ by many of the really people that such a work should be aiming: legislatures, police officers, attorneies and medical professionals, all of whom trade with colza victims, and rapers on a regular footing, and who would welcome a work dedicated to understanding the history of the politicization of colza. The book has been rejected by many, hence, as utmost and as non utile for the arguments environing women’s place in society ; as many argue, Brownmiller’s suggestion that adult females should prosecute in ego defense mechanism in order to fit themselves against possible rapers is non helpful, in that society should put adult females on an equal terms, in footings of supplying an equal platform to describe colzas, and for rapers to have an equal sentence for their offense, and should non merely switch the load of avoiding colza on to the shoulders of adult females, who, she seems to propose, if they do non protect themselves adequately, through larning self defense mechanism techniques, leave themselves bare to assail by work forces, “all” of whom are rapers. Many argue that this line of concluding takes colza, and its legal recompense, back to the yearss when people thought a adult female deserved to be raped because she had non looked after herself good plenty, or had dressed provokingly and so hence somehow ‘asked’ the adult male to ravish her.
Whilst Brownmiller’s thesis is utmost, nevertheless, it was an highly successful book in footings of its impact on politicising colza, and redefining colza as a gender offense, as a manner through which our patriarchal society keeps adult females ‘in their place’ . Brownmiller’s book, basically, “gave colza its history” as many have argued [ 1 ] . This thought has been extended by Susan Griffin in her 1979 bookRape: the Power of Consciousnesswhich argues that rapers are non single work forces, but instead a merchandise of our patriarchal society, which is a merchandise of our political system [ 2 ] . Therefore, colza, argues the feminist literature on this issue, is a tool used by patriarchs against less dominant females in order to subordinate them. Griffin, in her essay entitledRape: The All-American Crime,took this statement farther, reasoning that colza was really a category issue, and that it is embedded in the traditional household model of Western society [ 3 ] . These hyper-feminists have hence placed colza steadfastly in its political topographic point, as a tool used by a ruling patriarchate in order to subordinate the ‘weaker’ females. This reading will non, nevertheless, be recognized by many modern adult females, who are successfully taking their lives, independent of work forces, and who do non, in any manner, believe they live, and work, in a patriarchal society. Griffin’s work is possibly dated, now about three decennaries old, and we have even had a female Prime Minister since so, and Western society has moved on from being a society in which adult females are low-level to males ; adult females now head companies, and now accept traditionally male functions, in military service, for illustration [ 4 ] .
Due to this, and the realisation, in the wake of the esthesis that followed the publication of Brownmiller’s book, that statistics about social degrees of colza show that 75 % of adult females havenonbeen raped, and that of the 25 % of adult females who admit to being raped, the huge bulk of these have been raped in the place by a known spouse, the displacement turned off from understanding colza to giving an apprehension of “sex that occurs under pressure” , force per unit area being used as the cardinal specifying factor in whether any sexual act that occurred was consensual or could be consideredcolza. This alteration in the definition, and understanding, of colza, gave freedom to the many 1000s of adult females who were on a regular basis being raped in their places by their partners or spouses, and to the 1000s of adult females who ( as the term would subsequently be coined ) , had suffered ‘date rape’ , as this displacement in the nomenclature provided these adult females a manner in which to specify their maltreatment. For these adult females, this displacement in the apprehension, and definition, of colza would supply them with an mercantile establishment with which to understand, place and therefore expose, their maltreatment.
Groth ( 1979 ) provided a definition of colza [ 5 ] that offered a method of separating between colza and ‘sex under pressure’ , which worked towards extinguishing the differentiation between force and persuasion, therefore killing the line between colza and seduction. A more recent definition of sexual force comes from Kelly ( 1988 ) , which states, “Sexual force includes any physical, ocular, verbal or sexual act that is experienced by the adult female or miss, at the clip or subsequently, as a menace, invasion, assault, that has the consequence of aching her or degrading her and/or takes away her ability to command intimate contact.” . Whatever the definition of colza that is used, or applicable under jurisprudence, nevertheless, adult females will ever be vulnerable to ravish, as they are, by and large, physically less strong than work forces, as we will see in the fictional plants of Joyce Carol Oates, which present instances of colza as portion of the narrative, and which show how annihilating colza can be, for the immediate victim, and for the victim’s households, who themselves besides become victims through the colza act.
Chapter 3: Discussion of Gender-Based Violence in the Selected Works of Joyce Carol Oates
Chapter 3 ( entitledDiscussion of Gender-Based Violence in the Selected Works of Joyce Carol Oates) will discourse the selected plants of Joyce Carol Oates in general footings, foremost, in footings of giving an overview of the characters and secret plans present in the plants, and will so travel on to discoursing the Acts of the Apostless of gender-based force in these plants, in peculiar the colzas of Teena ( inRape: A Love Story) and Marianne ( inWe Were the Mulvaneys) , and the false future colza of Connie inWhere Are You Going, Where Have You Been? .The Chapter will so travel on to look at how this gender-based force nowadays in these selected plants can be understood in the current model of understanding sexual force against adult females as gender-based force. The Chapter will so travel on to look at how the reader responds to these word pictures of sexual force, and to a treatment of the relationship between maleness and force, the building of maleness and muliebrity in the texts, and the disenfranchisement of the adult females victims, through the Acts of the Apostless of the sexually aggressive, commanding, male characters.
All of the texts chosen for the intents of this paper concern force against adult females, and colza. Indeed, most of Carol Joyce Oates works concern force against adult females, perpetrated by work forces, or are darkly violent, or are about household decomposition or dysfunctional households. Her fiction could non be described as an ‘easy read’ , both for the topics she chooses to compose about and the manner in which she writes i.e. , frequently circumstantially descriptively and in really luxuriant prose, yet her work is admired by faculty members and 1000000s of readers likewise [ 6 ] , for what they gain from their readings of her texts.
Rape: A Love Storybasically follows the lives of Teena Maguire and her girl Bethie, following their determination to take an stray way place, and Teena’s pack colza on this stray way. The narrative follows the relationships of Teena and Bethie, and their relationship with the local townsfolk following the colza. The relationship of John Dromoor, a immature police officer, with Teena and, peculiarly Bethie, following the colza, is besides of critical importance for the narrative, as he takes them under his wing and really avenges the un-prosecuted colza by taking justness into his ain custodies.
We Were The Mulvaneysdescribes the descent of a antecedently successful, externally loving, household in to a autumn from grace, following the colza of their precious girl, Marianne. The household consists of Michael and Corinne, male parent and female parent, their three boies, Mike Jr. , a successful jock, Patrick, a budding scientist, and Judd, and their girl, Marianne, a beautiful cheerleader, who is cherished by all the household members. The girl Marianne is raped on the Eve of her prom, by the boy of a household friend, and, following this, the household have trouble coming to footings with the event. The male parent, Michael, refuses to accept that it happened, and that it was enacted by the boy of a friend of the household, and, after the girl refuses to attest against the male child, he sends his girl off to populate with relations, and so falls into alcohol addiction, finally losing his roofing concern, and the household farm, which is lost due to bankruptcy. The two boies can non stand what happened to their girl, in footings of both the colza and her being sent off, and they finally flee the place, with Patrick, old ages subsequently, revenging Marianne’s colza by trying to kill the raper. The narrative, narrated by Judd, the youngest boy, fundamentally follows the lives of the household, and ends with the household being re-united by Corinne in the new household place, minus Michael, who dies of alcohol addiction.
The short narrativeWhere Are You Going, Where Have You Been?follows Connie, a reasonably miss, who thinks the universe revolves around her, and who looks down on everything and everyone that is connected to her, apart from her few friends, and her meeting with Arnold Friend, a menacing adult male, much older than her, who, it is implied in the narrative, will finally ravish, if non besides kill, Connie. During the narrative, we see how Connie and Arnold Friend meet for the first clip – she sees him in a auto when she is being led off by another male child – and how, one twenty-four hours, Arnold Friend arrives at her household place, cognizing everything about her, and inquiring her to travel with him for a thrust in his auto. Connie, scared, does non desire to travel with him, but following menaces from him that he will harm her household, aswell, if she does non go forth with him, she finally succumbs to his will and make up one’s mind to travel with him. What follows from this determination, we do non cognize, but the menacing, immorality, tone of the narrative and the word picture of Arnold Friend, leads the reader to believe that he will at the really least colza her, if non kill her [ 7 ] .
It is implied, in Oates text, that Connie was attracted to Arnold Friend the first clip she saw him. Their meeting is described as such, “Connie couldn’t aid but allow her eyes wander over the windscreens and faces around her, her face glittering with a joy that had nil to make with Eddie or even this topographic point ; it might hold been the music. She drew her shoulders up and sucked in her breath with the pure pleasance of being alive, and merely at that minute she happened to peek at a face a few pess from hers…..she couldn’t aid peeking back” , with Connie taking pride, subsequently, in the fact that she must hold looked beautiful, alluring to him, when she foremost met him, recorded by Oates as “…and her cheeks warmed at the idea of how she had sucked in her breath merely at the minute she passed him – how she must hold looked to him.” . Therefore, it is implied that Connie found Arnold Friend interestingly attractive when she foremost saw him, and that she was pleased that she had captured his attending from the first minute. That he subsequently arrived at her place, when her parents were off from place, was besides, at first, welcomed by Connie, for, as Oates describes, in response to a suggestion of a drive from Arnold Friend, “Connie smirked and allow her hair autumn free over one shoulder.” .
Connie is, basically, a reasonably small miss who toyed with the emotions of work forces, chat uping with them in order to acquire what she wanted. This sexual immatureness was, basically, what led her to the destiny that is implied she would endure at the custodies of Arnold Friend ; without pardoning force against adult females in any manner, had Connie non flirted, rather openly, with this adult male, he possibly would non hold sought her out, and she possibly would non hold sealed her destiny in such a manner. This does non in any manner condone the actions of Arnold Friend, or force against adult females in any signifier, but Connie’s sexual immatureness, and her unusual assurance, due to her implied good expressions, is a factor that should be considered when critically reading the narrative in footings of a model of gender-based force. This ambivalency that is created in the heads of the reader is replicated in the reactions of the townsfolk in Oates’Rape: a Love Storywho somehow holes in their heads that Teena was really responsible for the pack colza, that she someway invited it, by being rummy and walking down an stray way that tardily at dark, by have oning ‘suggestive’ apparels, and by, by and large, being the type of adult females that looks as though she deserves to be abused. This maltreatment is replicated in the eventual test of the rapers, at which Teena is humiliated and subjected to further, psychological, force. Possibly, therefore, what Oates is proposing through her fiction is that adult females should hold the freedom to move as they wish, to dress as they wish, and to be free to go nevertheless they wish, without the menace of force against them, and that it is work forces who take advantage of this new-found freedom of adult females to be violent against them. Under this model, so, adult females are dual victims, much buttocks Teena is portrayed to be, foremost because of the pack colza and so because of her humiliation at the test. Indeed, Teena wishes she had died. This issue of dual penalty is besides echoed inWe Were the Mulvaneys,which chronicles the colza of Marianne and so her outcasting from her household following the colza ; which one of these would be most painful, in position of her incredibly strong ties to a highly closely knit household, would be difficult to name.
Under this model of looking at the gender-based force nowadays in Oates’ novel, there are many ways of looking at how Oates nowadayss this type of force to her readers: is Oates possibly, for illustration, proposing that these adult females somehowdeservedthis intervention, and that is why they have been punished twice, or is she proposing that force against adult females, gender-based force, is still non addressed right at a social degree, in footings of penalizing the culprits, and protecting the victims ( the existent victim, and their households ) from farther injury, which, itself, leads to farther penalty and injury for the victims, and so, their households. Reading Oates’ fiction, peculiarly these three texts, it is hard to separate between these two readings of her work, for, as we have seen, Oates does paint each three adult females who were raped, or who, the text infers, will be raped, i.e. , Teena, Marianne and Connie, as really flirty adult females, all of them sexually immature in some sense, whether this be inexperienced, sexually, as in the instance of Connie, or unaware of their sexual power, as in the instance of Marianne, or abusive of their ain sexual power, as in the instance of Teena, who believes that nil can go on to her, until something awful does go on to her, and who really has flirted with her eventual Jesus, prior to her pack colza, despite the fact that he is a married adult male.
This sexual immatureness, from wherever it stems, and nevertheless it manifests itself, does, nevertheless, lead to awful effects in each of the texts, with each colza ( or inferred, hereafter, colza, as in the instance ofWhere Are You Going, Where Have You Been?) taking to relationship dislocations. In the instance ofWe Were the Mulvaneys,as we have seen, the colza of Marianne leads to the eventual dislocation of the Mulvaney household, and the dislocation of relationships between Michael Mulvaney and his concern associates, and wider than this, to the dislocation of relationships between the Mulvaney’s and their once near knit circle of friends. The whole book is centred around the decomposition of this one time strong, near, household which was revered in the local town. In the instance ofRape: A Love Story,the relationship between Teena and Bethie and the local town is called into inquiry, with the town turning against them, which antecedently had acted, for this individual female parent and fatherless kid, as a kind of extended household. Interestingly, nevertheless, in this text, the relationship between Bethie and her female parent is strengthened, in some sense, following the colza, but this is possibly a effect of Bethie’s victim position, in which she reverts from being Teena’s kid to being Teena’s changeless carer, as a effect of the colza and her feeling that she so has to take attention of her fragile, devastated female parent ; in this sense, Bethie herself has become a victim as she loses her childhood artlessness, in some sense, from witnessing the colza, and so loses yet more of her childhood through holding to care for her female parent. Connie’s household inWhere Are You Going, Where Have You Been?will, evidently, it is inferred, be devastated when they return from their twenty-four hours out to happen their girl losing, although they will ne’er hold any manner of cognizing that Connie, in some sense, sacrificed herself in order that Arnold Friend did non make any injury to her household. Therefore, besides. Connie’s household will endure loss and will endure the dislocation of the relationship with Connie, as Connie will no longer be present. On a deeper reading of these texts of Oates, hence, it is apparent that Oates sees force against adult females as being force against households and, wider than this, against society. All the colzas, perpetrated against sexually immature adult females, as we have seen, lead to loss, self-loss, and to disfunction, family- and community-wide.
In footings of the audience, or readers, response to the texts of Joyce Carol Oates that are under treatment here, as we have seen, the reading of the gender-based, sexual, force against the female characters in these texts is hard, and extremely personal, depending on one’s ain peculiar reading of the characters and one’s ain reading of the issue of colza. As we have seen, all these adult females were, or it is inferred, would be, raped, and all the adult females were sexually immature in some sense, in footings of either being inexperienced ( Connie ) , or unaware of their sexual attractive force ( Marianne ) , or in denial of their possible to be attacked ( Teena ) , and therefore all these characters represent, to some extent, a big proportion of adult females out at that place in the general population, all of whom, as we have seen, due to the fact that, whatever their degree of sexual adulthood, are at hazard of onslaught from males, due to their lesser physical stature. Therefore, the plants of Carol Joyce Oates discussed here do it clear that adult females, of any size, form or persuasion, are at hazard of sexual force, and that this force can hold durable, annihilating effects.
Readers of Joyce Carol Oates plants, in peculiar these plants, are non in for an easy clip when they read her plants, as the word pictures of the sexual force are frequently really in writing, with really long, detailed, descriptions of the force. The force is frequently tinged with threat aswell, as in the instance of the suspense developed through the descriptions of Arnold Friend inWhere Are You Going, Where Have You Been? ,and in the instance of the witnessing of the pack colza by Bethie inRape: A Love Story.Therefore, Carol Joyce Oates represents sexual force in all of its terrifying world, such that the reader can place, wholly, with the victims, and the experience they were forced to populate through, offering the reader, through her usage of threat, a durable experience of the Acts of the Apostless described, evidently retroflexing the feelings of a adult female who has been the victim of sexual force. The victims of the violent Acts of the Apostless in Joyce Carol Oates plants are, as we have seen, besides really disparate characters, each really different from the other, once more, as we have seen, retroflexing the incidence of colza in general society, which can go on to any adult female, irrespective of her physical visual aspect, her age, her position in society. Joyce Carol Oates is hence a realist when authorship, in that her novels represent the possibility of existent Acts of the Apostless committed against existent adult females.
In footings of how the relationship between maleness and force is represented in these selected plants, as we have seen, all the expressed Acts of the Apostless of force in these selected plants is committed by males against female victims. In footings of how Oates constructs maleness, nevertheless, in these plants, this is a complicated issue, as each of the male characters in each of these plants is really different, such that there is non one over-arching ‘masculine’ type. For illustration, Teena’s rapers are portrayed as rummy, with herding behavior, at the clip of the colza, but as ‘normal’ young persons after the existent colza, about proposing that the drink was responsible for what happened ( which, interestingly, used to be a manner in which adult females who had been raped were denied a just hearing, through reasoning that because the adult females had been drunk, she had hence someway ‘deserved’ to be raped ) . Therefore, these work forces are someway emasculated by the fact that they were imbibing, and excused of the act, by the local community, by the really fact that they had been intoxicated and Teena had evidently, by taking that stray way to take, been ‘asking’ to be attacked. Oates contrasts Teena’s group of rapers with Dromoor, the immature police officer, who, in the book, takes on an about fatherlike function, to care for Bethie and, through this, to finally seek to acquire some justness for Teena and for Bethie. This character therefore represents the ‘traditional’ male function, with Dromoor taking on the function of fatherlike carer and supplier ( of support and of justness ) .
Marianne’s raper, a comfortable male child, from a really nice household, represents another type of maleness, for Oates, that of the respectable male, from a respectable household, who could non perchance hold done something so basal as assailing a miss, for, of class, every miss would desire to give themselves to him, as he was such a ‘catch’ . Oates therefore sees maleness as a really disparate identifier, with word pictures of really different masculine characters provided inWe Were the Mulvaneys,in peculiar. For illustration, Marianne’s male parent, Michael, identifies himself as male through his function as a supplier for his household, and through his laterality in the local community. When his girl is attacked, it is non expressed in the text, but one imagines that he feels guilty that he could non protect his girl from holding to see this, and it is this, and his awkward handling of the injury, which leads to his ultimate ruin, as he can non get by with what has happened. In some sense, so, Michael moves from being a carer, a supplier, to an maltreater, denying Marianne, as he does, entree to him, which causes her deep psychological and emotional jobs. Is Oates proposing here, so, that all work forces are capable of both extents of ‘masculinity’ , of being a carer, a supplier, and besides of being an maltreater? This is, once more, a profoundly misanthropic reading of the texts, but one reading that is surely present as an undertone in the text, to be made explicit.
The most externally ‘masculine’ character in these selected texts is Arnold Friend, who is endangering through his really maleness. We do non acquire the feeling of his attraction, but we do acquire the feeling that he is physically magnetic, in that he demands one’s attending, and gaining controls one’s imaginativeness. He is ‘all man’ , like the Marlboro adult male, and we do acquire the feeling that he merely escaped from a James Dean/Wild West movie, with his love of ‘all-American’ music and his peculiar manner of walking, for illustration. He, possibly, in this sense, embodies modern American adult male, maleness. His physical stature is non traditionally thought of as male but he is physically ascendant, through the threat he generates. Arnold Friend is possibly the male character most likely to be thought of as a ‘rapist’ , although, as we have seen through the analysis of academic plants on colza, there is, truly, no such thing as a ‘typical’ raper, with colza taking topographic point anyplace, even in the place, and with the bulk of colza victims really cognizing the culprit.
Therefore, maleness is constructed in really different ways in these selected plants, and is used, by Oates, to foreground really different aspects of maleness, and of females, and society’s responses to maleness. In Joyce Carol Oates’ works, maleness is seen as a menace, as a support, as an maltreater ; it is a many and varied construct, and Acts of the Apostless in many and varied ways upon the female characters in these selected plants. Joyce Carol Oates hence does non look to subscribe up to the “all work forces are repressers of all women” theories of colza of Brownmiller ( 1975 ) , as she sees work forces as more multi-faceted, more complex, than this. The politicisation of colza, by women’s rightists, as we have seen in Chapter 2, is hence used as a background to the texts of Oates, but Oates sees the issue of sexual force against adult females more in the general footings of gender-based force, non as a patriarchal secret plan to keep overall laterality against the female sort.
In footings of how maleness and muliebrity is constructed in these selected plants, as we have seen, maleness is constructed by Joyce Carol Oates in many and varied ways, with the male characters in these selected texts stand foring the spectrum of males we see in our society, from ultra-masculine, to effeminate, to ‘normal’ males. The female characters in these selected texts are likewise multi-faceted, both across characters and within characters ( witness Connie’s apparent assurance, which crumbles in the face of her fright when faced with Arnold Friend ) . All of the female characters in Joyce Carol Oates selected plants, as discussed here, have, as we have seen, one thing in common, nevertheless, and that is their sexual immatureness, in some sense, in footings of either being inexperienced ( Connie ) , or unaware of their sexual attractive force ( Marianne ) , or in denial of their possible to be attacked ( Teena ) . Oates seems, therefore, to follow to the theory that any adult female can be raped, whatever her position, but it is unusual for an openly-declared ‘feminist’ author to pick the female characters that show marks of sexual immatureness to be the 1s that are raped, supplying fuel for the fire of those who still subscribe to the position that ‘women signal, in some sense, that they can be attacked’ .We Were the Mulvaney’swould hold been a really different book, for illustration, had Corrine, non Marianne, been attacked, as wouldRape: A Love Storyhad Bethie, non Teenie, been attacked, as wouldWhere Are You Going, Where Have You Been?if June had been attacked, non Connie. By taking to hold the onslaughts occur against the ‘most likely’ mark characters, Oates does, somehow, play in to the custodies of those who subscribe to the position that ‘women signal, in some sense, that they can be attacked’ . If Oates had been a somewhat courageous author, and had chosen to compose about a random onslaught on June ( proposing day of the month colza, for illustration ) or on Bethie ( under-age colza ) , so the books might hold had something new to state about the issue of gender-based force, and might hold contributed something new to the on-going argument about colza and its ‘place’ in society.
Joyce Carol Oates makes it really clear, through her authorship in these selected plants, that aggressive, commanding, work forces ( the lawbreakers ) have the consequence of disfranchising their female victims, as we have seen, which can be read as an effort by Joyce Carol Oates to supply a voice for the 1000s of adult females who are the victims of sexual force and who do non describe this force, either through shame, or fright of farther force, for illustration. Indeed, many of the readers of Joyce Carol Oates’ plants are adult females who have been raped, who try to do sense of their maltreatment by reading how the adult females in these texts have coped with their onslaught. This ‘surface’ reading of these selected plants can be taken deeper, nevertheless, in the context of the feminist literature, which suggested that society is patriarchal and that “all men” are a menace to “all women” , when we look atWe Were the Mulvaneys,in which Marianne feels every bit much violated and lost by her father’s reaction to her colza as she does by the existent colza. Marianne was shouting out for her male parent to handle her the same as he treated her before the colza, did non desire to be sent off, as she wanted her father’s support during the hard clip, and urgently wanted to see her male parent once more, at some point, which she was denied, due to his decease. Marianne was hence double punished, foremost by the existent colza and secondly by her father’s alienation from her. Is Oates proposing, hence, that all work forces, even one’s ain male parent, will, finally, ache you? This subject, this thought, is replicated in the intervention of Teena by the attorneies at the test, who humiliate her ( supplying excess penalty ) and by the townsfolk who ostracise her following her pack colza ( supplying yet more penalty ) . Oates, hence, provides more than sufficient grounds of the disenfranchisement of adult females following sexual force at the custodies of aggressive work forces, and besides, on top of this, she provides grounds for how relationships can interrupt down following such force. Oates is sufficiently misanthropic to propose that even a male parent can allow a kid down, perpetuating maltreatment against adult females, by disregarding calls for aid and disregarding the demand for attention.
The plants of Joyce Carol Oates are therefore highly complicated, layering force upon force, and confusing household values and community-level values with sexual force, film overing the boundaries between what is considered ‘fair’ intervention of adult females, through, foremost, expressed Acts of the Apostless of sexual force and so through ill-treatment at times of demand, which Oates clearly sees as maltreatment. Her plants, as we have seen, take ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ as openers, and explores these footings, widely, through different word pictures, which lead to different results and destinies for the characters. Her expressed geographic expedition of gender-based force, and the effects it has on both the immediate victims and the victims’ households, and community, is courageous, for a author, and is possibly best understood in footings of how Oates sees the dislocation of community in North America. This will be discussed in more item in the following subdivision, Chapter 4: Decisions.
Chapter 4: Decisions
This Conclusions subdivision is intended to pull together all of the chief hypotheses about sexual force against adult females, and its apprehension by society as a signifier of gender-based force, and the relationship between feminism and sexual force against adult females, that have been gathered from the reappraisal of the relevant academic literature in concurrence with the analysis of the selected texts of Joyce Carol Oates. The penetrations gathered from the textual analysis of the selected plants of Joyce Carol Oates, in footings of gender-based force against the female characters in these plants, are besides summarised in this Chapter, taking to a set of decisions about how Joyce Carol Oates uses gender-based force as a tool with which to demo humanity’s defects and to discourse societal-level decomposition, through the usage of relationship dislocations and issues of loss and self-loss.
This thesis has provided an analysis of gender-based force in selected plants by Joyce Carol Oates. The thesis has provided a multidimensional analysis of two of Oates’ novels,Rape: A Love StoryandWe Were The Mulvaneys, and one of her short narratives, entitledWhere Are You Going, Where Have You Been?and has discussed the relationship between maleness and force, the building of maleness and muliebrity in these plants, and the disenfranchisement of the adult females ( who are victims ) and the male figures ( who are the lawbreakers ) . In add-on, because all of these plants contain colza scenes, the relationship between feminism and sexual force has besides been discussed, in the context of the ‘rape literature’ including Susan Brownmiller’sAgainst Our Volition: Work force, Women and Rape.
Chapter 2 ( entitledTowards a Societal-Level Understanding of Rape and Gender-Based Violence)discussed how colza has come to be understood, at a social degree, through an analysis of the appropriate literature, and looked at how women’s rightists have appropriated colza as a tool with which to run against what they see, and term, our ‘patriarchal’ society. The relationship between feminism and sexual force was discussed at great length in this Chapter, which informed the subsequent Chapter of the thesis, which discussed gender-based force in the selected plants of Joyce Carol Oates. This Chapter besides provided some treatment of what is understood by gender-based force, and how sexual force against adult females came to be understood in the model of ‘gender-based violence’ .
Chapter 3 ( entitledDiscussion of Gender-Based Violence in the Selected Works of Joyce Carol Oates) discussed the selected plants of Joyce Carol Oates in general footings, foremost, in footings of giving an overview of the characters and secret plans present in the plants, and so moved on to discoursing the Acts of the Apostless of gender-based force in these plants, in peculiar the colzas of Teena ( inRape: A Love Story) and Marianne ( inWe Were the Mulvaneys) , and the false future colza of Connie inWhere Are You Going, Where Have You Been? .The Chapter so moved on to look at how this gender-based force that is present in the selected plants can be understood in the current model of understanding sexual force against adult females as gender-based force. The Chapter so moved on to look at how the reader responds to these word pictures of sexual force, and to a treatment of the relationship between maleness and force, the building of maleness and muliebrity in the texts, and the disenfranchisement of the adult females victims, through the Acts of the Apostless of the sexually aggressive, commanding, male characters.
This Conclusions subdivision will now pull together all of the chief hypotheses about sexual force against adult females, and its apprehension by society as a signifier of gender-based force, and the relationship between feminism and sexual force against adult females, that have been gathered from the reappraisal of the relevant academic literature in concurrence with the analysis of the selected texts of Joyce Carol Oates. The penetrations gathered from the textual analysis of the selected plants of Joyce Carol Oates, in footings of gender-based force against the female characters in these plants, will now besides be summarised, taking, as we have seen, to a set of decisions about how Joyce Carol Oates uses gender-based force as a tool with which to demo humanity’s defects and to discourse societal-level decomposition, through the usage of relationship dislocations and issues of loss and self-loss.
The plants of Joyce Carol Oates are therefore highly complicated, layering force upon force, and confusing household values and community-level values with sexual force, film overing the boundaries between what is considered ‘fair’ intervention of adult females, through, foremost, expressed Acts of the Apostless of sexual force and so through ill-treatment at times of demand, which Oates clearly sees as maltreatment. Her plants, as we have seen, take ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ as openers, and explores these footings, widely, through different word pictures, which lead to different results and destinies for the characters. Her expressed geographic expedition of gender-based force, and the effects it has on both the immediate victims and the victims’ households, and community, is courageous, for a author, and is possibly best understood in footings of how Oates sees the dislocation of community in North America.
It is clear that Oates sees North American society as a society in diminution, although she idealises the ‘traditional’ household web ( as seen inWe Were the Mulvaneys, for illustration ) , and laments the diminution of these webs, as shown by her intervention of Teena, a individual female parent, inRape: A Love Story.It can be argued that she uses sexual force against adult females, what she sees as gender-based force, one of the last leftover unfairnesss in society to be still prevailing, as an identifier of social dislocation, with each of the onslaughts, in these selected plants, taking to breakdown, of relationships, of households, of society. Joyce Carol Oates’ plants are hence approximately much more thanmerelygender-based force, as we have seen, as they encapsulate narratives of dislocation, of diminution, of social maltreatment.
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