A pleasant Sunday reading of literature is an activity that many people in the world enjoy. There are not many things to do in this world that are as appealing as snuggling up to a tree, in a sunlit park, accompanied by a cool breeze, and enjoying a good old-fashioned novel. That is - until the novel gives the poor, unsuspecting, reader far too close for comfort insight into the inner workings of a serial killer's mind. Welcome to the world of Joyce Carol Oates - it is not one easily traversed by the faint of heart. Her world is littered with abusive fathers, compacted bones, shattered lives, and of course, serial killers. Like other authors who delve in the world of the morbid, she has been one of the most renouned and well-known American authors since the 1960s. In just a few short story selections featued in various issues of The New Yoker - ID, Landfill, Zombie, and Spider Boy - Oates shows who ever decides to take the plunge into her work why she is a phenomenal author.
Words - the tools of Oates' trade, are featured in her work. Characters in her short stories listen to the resonance, and remember certain words from time to time. Words are emphasized to create greater emotion and connection. In ID, for example, ID is spelt out "eiii-dee" and described as "like a gull's cry bourne on the wind, rising and snatched away, even as you strained desperatley to hear it." Oates describes the word ID in this way to hint at the story's core meaning. The entire short story is about a thirteen year old girl who has to identify - "ID" - her mother's dead corpse, and how, even after doing so, she cannot cope with her true identity. Her identity, like the gulls' cry described, rises and is snatched away. The word's emphasis and repition allow it to connect events and ideas more effortlessly, and give the entire short story more command over the reader's emotions. In another short story, Landfill, the pronoun, "Hector Campos, Jr." is used time after time again to emphasize that the poor boy - who was taken out with the garbage and later compacted after a night of fraternity endorsed drinking - was actually a person, with a home, a family, and a place in life. The reader is forced to remember him, and his sad tale, every single time his name is used.
In short stories Spider Boy and Zombie, Oates uses more than just one word to bloster her work's meaning and effect - resonating phrases are inserted into the texts. In Spider Boy, the first line is "There are places in the world where people vanish." This line is spoken by the father of the tweleve year old boy protaganist, Phillip, in an attempt to cover up his malicious deeds - deeds that are implied to be something along the lines of the molestation and murder of hitchhikers. The phrase remains in Phillip's thoughts throughout the story, and every time he ponders the phrase, the reader is reminded of his father's decit. Embedded in Zombie is its own chilling phrase - "Now we're going to turn over a new leaf." This phrase is quite the sadistic set of words; as the protaganist of Zombie remembers this phrase, he is performing a lobotomy on a person who he has deemed fit to become a "zombie." And the phrase was not originally spoken in relation to the creation of zombies. This protagainst has already commited a crime or two - and is a registered sex offender. This phrase is repeated many times, and with each repition, it intensifies the already present eerie feeling.
Zombie also reveals a common theme of Joyce Carol Oates' writing. She explores the idea of identity using different characters in different ways to raise questions about the concept. In Zombie, identity is a key factor in determining if a person would be an acceptable canidate to become a "zombie." He determines that those without an identity, or those with such little identity that most would not recognize their dissapearnce would be the perfect specimens for his projects.
"A safer specimen for a zombie would be somebody from out of town. A hitchhiker or a drifter or a junkie (if in good condition). Or from the black projects downtown. Somebody nobody gives a damn for. Somebody who should never have been born."
There is also a paragraph, explaning in explicit detail, identifying what the protaganist believes a "zombie" should be and do. A true zombie would be mine forever. He would obey, saying, "Yes, master" and "No, master." He would kneel before me, saying, "I love you, master. There is no one but you, master." And so it would be. A true zombie could not say a thing that was not but only a thing that was. His eyes would be open and clear, but there would be nothing inside them seeing. Nothing passing judgement. Like you who observe me and who think your own secret thoughts - always and forever passing judegement. A zombie would say, "God bless you, master." He would say, "Fuck me in the ass, master, until I bleed blue guts." He would beg. He would be respectful at all times. He would never laugh or smirk. He would cuddly like a Teddy bear. He would rest his head on my shoulder like a baby. Or I would lay my head on his shoulder like a baby. We would lie beneath the covers in my bed in the caretaker's room listening to the March wind and the bells of the Music College tower chiming, and we would count the chimes until we fell asleep at exactly the same moment.
It is important that what a "zombie" embodies is defined - so that all who read the description recieve a glimpse into the mind of the protaganist, and Joyce Carol Oates can continue to keep her readers entranced by the horrors that are born in this man's mind. In ID, which focuses on this theme of identity, Lisette Mulvey is used to make Oates' readers question their own circumstances in life, and in turn, forces them to reconsile with those circumstances. This little girl is so blind that she cannot mereley begin to accept how depressing her life is, but Oates uses her glorious words to let her readers realize the girl's situation. In Landfill, Hector Campos, Jr. loses his identity, and then loses his life. He is pushed by his fraternity and parents to he point where he is no longer himself - he is only a pledge and an engineering student. His roommates even comment that (referring to Campos as "Scoot"), "...he kind of kept to himself, kind of obsessed about things...You had to care a lot abou Scoot's interests- that's all he wanted to talk about, in kind of a fast, nervous way." In Spider Boy Phillip has to change his name in an attempt to remove the shame beset upron his family by his father, and the hitchhikers taken by his father have no identity other than the names given to them by the boy. In this story, Phillip's mother is running away from her husband's identity, because it is such a horrible thing to be identified with a man of such foul deeds. Phillip, on the other hand, simply stands by and does not comprehend his situation until he is called in for a sort of interrogation. And when the boy identifies his knowledge of his father's deeds, his mother goes berserk. She blames him for newfound shame that will be placed upon the family. All in all - this woman cannot avoid her identification with her husband, and no matter how much she attempts to hide her shame, it prevails through all obstacles. The fact that the hitchhiker victims have no name point to another instance in which Joyce Carol Oates has characters without identities suffer.
In speaking of creepy fathers, another common aspect of Oates' writing peers through the window blinds of her text. In all four selections - fathers are present, and each has a negative affect on each protaganist. In ID, Lisette's father is quite the abusive fellow - he chases her through their home, raging at her, cursing at her, until, in the midst of the madness, she falls down the stairs and breaks her eye socket. In Zombie, the protaganist's father condems him for being homosexual - which leads to the protaganist himself rebelling against his father and the world in the form of his attempts to create "zombies." In Landfill, Campos' father pushes him to the point where he no longer has his own identity. He is far too harsh and demanding of the boy, and it drives Campos over a cliff edge that he cannot possibly return from. And in Spider Boy, of corse, Phillip's father plays a negative role in his life. Phillip is forced to move because of his father, he is forced to change his name, and issues between him and his mother arise. The poor boy is decieved by his own father! In the world of Joyce Carol Oates, the father is suspect.
Tread lightly upon the works of Joyce Carol Oates, for they are relentless in their morbid ways. Do not doubt that the disgusting, the horrid, and the terrible will take place. Do not doubt the disturbing images, and chilling tales. But most of all - do not doubt the power of Joyce Carol Oates' words, for none of the above feelings would have surfaced without them.
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