Lisette Mulvey would be a typical middle school student if she didn't have have to worry about getting prescription eye drops, about her scars, or the dead nerves in her face. She would be a typical middle school student if her father hadn't have broken her eye socket, nose, and mentally damaged her for life. She'd be normal if she didn't have to wear dark-purple tinted prescription glasses, and if her vision wasn't horribly clouded and blurred. She'd be just like everyone else at her tender age of thirteen years if she realized that her life is horribly void of a responsible, sane, parental figure. But, Lisette Mulvey is not a typical middle school student - she is the protagonist of Joyce Carol Oates' short story, ID.
Among her other issues, her parents are divorced, her mother goes out with whoever, whenever, and does whatever, without telling her daughter when or even if she will be returning, and her father is a figure existent only in her thoughts, because as far as she knows, he is a sergeant in the Army. Yet, somehow, this girl thinks that her life is not so terrible. She's more concerned about boys, her friends, and being "mature." In the story, these are the only things that Lisette actually acknowledges. This poor being has far more problems than she cares to see, and Joyce litters her work with clues alluding to Lisette's additional not mentioned issues.
The first issue not directly addressed by Lisette is her rather lacking ability in determining character. Lisette is interested in a boy by the name of JC - a boy who has been held back for multiple years, so he is significantly older than the other students and therefore more likely to exploit a younger girl, a boy when asked if he had ever shot a person who just just shrugs and laughs, and a boy who the other students know as a person that “you didn't trifle with.” Lisette doesn't see the issues with this boy - she only sees his "silky black hair falling across his forehead," but because Oates implements the other, more negative details, the reader is clued in on Lisette's fault.
The second issue that Lisette does not see, but the reader does, is the fact that her father has some problems with controlling his anger. She cannot see that the fact that her father "[was] shouting behind her, swiping with his fists - not meaning to hit her" as a complication in her life. She loves her father, and thinks that, "Daddy didn't mean to hurt me." Oates' descriptions of the event once again, clue the reader in on the true conditions of Lisette's life.
Lisette's mother is the central issue the entire story. She tells her daughter that she is a blackjack dealer at the Casino Royale. There are many clues that inform the reader that Lisette is not being told the truth about her mother's profession. Her mother has never given a direct answer to Lisette's questions about what she does for a living, and furthermore, her mother does not want her to wear lipstick, a common symbol of the desire to be sexual. Now - these two clues don't seem to be too significant in determining what Lisette's mother does for a living, but additional clues revealed at the climax of the story tie everything together. A dead woman is found in a drainage ditch outside of a sleazy motel -- not an uncommon place for a freshly slain hooker -- and Lisette is brought to a morgue to identify this woman. Lisette is shown a red jacket and a handbag, in which there is a wallet, in which there is an ID. The jacket, handbag, and wallet resemble garments owned by Lisette's mother, and the ID is revealed to be Yevette Muvley's. Lisette's mother is a dead prostitute. Yet, when even presented with her mother's dead mangled corpse, she cannot see that her life is horrible.
Lisette is blind, and Oates even alludes to her blindness in multiple ways. Glasses are a common symbol for needing aid with seeing correctly, and Lisette wears her glasses everyday, all day. Lisette also identifies people by their features, race, and sex. She does not once mention that she knows a person in her life by their personality. She is blind to characteristics that make people who they truly are. Additionally, Oates employs the color purple to identify negative things in Lisette's life. Lisette's lipstick is a luscious purple color, and Lisette's mother, in a flash back, leaves purple kiss marks all over her then husband, and even Lisette's glasses' lenses' are tinted purple.
Because this girl is so blind to the terrible circumstances of her life, she can deny her reality. And she does not deny this reality because she is a young girl, and therefore immature, she denies it because the denial of things that are detrimental in life was actively practiced by her mother. Lisette's mother knew who and what she was - but she told her daughter otherwise. She never admitted that she was a prostitute. She was a "blackjack dealer" at a "casino."
In the end, when Lisette is confronted with her mother's dead body, she cannot cope with the truth. She denies the truth again and again, telling herself that it is not possible, because her mother just simply cannot be the "thing" on the steel table. She instantaneously is taken to a bathroom, where she almost throws up. Almost - Lisette catches herself. That corpse was not her mother. She then demands to be taken back to her school, so she can continue living her life. She wants to see JC, and eat lunch. When she arrives, Lisette's friend Keisha inquires if she is “O.K.” to which she replies, while laughing into the “bright buzzing blur,” “Sure I'm O.K. Hell, why not?” She returns to the girl who knows only what she has seen, and she had not seen her mother earlier that morning. She continues to live in a daze. She refuses to cope with the reality of her life. And that's the end of Joyce Carol Oates' tale.
Every work is created for a reason - whether for simple pleasure, or to teach a lesson, or some other reason. This work, ID, was written to make its readers think. It was written to make its readers think about the true circumstances of their own lives, and how they deal with them. Lisette's story is simply the means in which Oates uses to begin the train of thought.
Oates, Joyce Carol. "ID." The New Yorker 29 Mar. 2010: 80-88. Print.
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