Witness: Reflections on Detention in Joyce Carol Oates\u27s Work

Throughout her career, Joyce Carol Oates has resisted the urge of others to label her a feminist writer, insisting that she be considered a writer, independent of biological gender. As America’s “chronicler of the middle class,” she has given voice to countless invisible female character types, but this is only one concern among many. Oates is incredibly active, but rather than to actively incite, she uses her prolific pen to create testimonies to contemporary American life, seeking particularly to give voice to the voiceless among us. In spite of the notions of crime and justice being central to her fiction since her first published story in the late 60s, “In The Old World,” any incarceration alluded to in her writing has tended towards the metaphorical as Oates has often chosen to focus on the detrimental effects of crime on victims. However, two works published in 2014 – a novel, Carthage; and an edited story collection, Prison Noir – combine to create testimonies to prison life in the United States and raise questions about the nature of the system that puts people there. In her introduction to the collection, Oates writes: “hardly to our credit, the United States locks up nearly 25 percent of the world’s prison population, while having only 5 percent of the world’s overall population. Or, in other terms, the United States incarcerates more than 2.2 million individuals, a far higher rate per capita than any other nation.” This is at once a statement of fact and a critique seeking to combat feelings of indifference on the part of the general public from a writer who has engaged with prison populations throughout her life by exchanging correspondance with inmates and even teaching a prison writing workshop in 2011. This paper will discuss the depiction of incarceration experiences and prison visits by outsiders in several Oates stories – “How I Contemplated the World,” “San Quentin,” “High,” “Dear Joyce Carol” – to shed light on the way in which her consistent engagement with America’s imperfect prison system has culminated in her work editing a volume of inmates’ fiction

Fiction in Fact and Fact in Fiction in the Writing of Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates draws extensively on news stories, as well as on elements of her own family’s past, to find inspiration for her works of fiction. She has written about the Chappaquiddick incident involving Ted Kennedy and the JonBenet Ramsay murder case. She has worked the Niagara Falls Love Canal environmental scandal into the framework of The Falls and taken inspiration from sordid events from her own family’s past in the beginning of The Gravedigger’s Daughter. However, in none of these examples does Oates purport to relate the precise real-life “facts” of the historical events. Indeed, for an author who believes in the multiplicity of truths such a task would be superfluous, if it was in fact possible, given what she perceives as the inherently “error-prone” nature of our species. “Language,” she writes in her essay “On Fiction in Fact,” “by its very nature tends to distort experience. With the best of intentions, in recalling the past, if even a dream of the previous night, we are already altering – one might say violating – the original experience, which may have been wordless and was certainly improvised.” In response to what she sees as the problematic nature of language, memory and the artificial nature of writing, Oates has cultivated a self-described “psychological realism” that seeks to depict a greater realm of truth beyond the world of facts, that is to say the truth of emotion and felt experience, “states of mind [which are] real enough – emotions, moods, shifting obsessions, beliefs – though immeasurable.” This article compares both fiction and non-fiction works by Oates – notably, A Widow’s Story, Sourland, The Falls – in a discussion of the fluctuating frontier between the two genres and the notion of psychological Truth that this tenuous relationship reveals

Joyce Carol Oates: Fantastic, New Gothic and Inner Realities

Joyce Carol Oates fait appel, de manière récurrente dans ses nouvelles, à des événements d’ordre surnaturel : des bruits émanant d’un autre monde peuvent déboucher sur des découvertes macabres ; des créatures fantastiques peuvent cohabiter avec les personnages ; des expériences peuvent se dérouler dans la zone liminale entre rêve et réalité. Pour leur part, les personnages ne se posent pas de questions sur la réalité des différents événements surnaturels survenant dans le récit. De ce fait, les nouvelles s’intéressent non pas à ces événements, mais plutôt à la façon dont ils peuvent être employés comme outils d’exploration de la psychologie des personnages. Cet article examine les apparitions fantastiques dans quatre nouvelles de Oates — « Fossil-Figures », « The Temple », « Secret Reflections on the Goat-Girl » et « Why Don’t You Come Live With Me It’s Time » — afin de voir comment Oates utilise le « réalisme psychologique » dans ses nouvelles gothiques pour représenter l’état d’esprit des différents personnages

Elizabeth Spencer’s “Owl”: Building Psychological Tension through Ominous Portents Tanya Tromble

La nouvelle “Owl” d’Elizabeth Spencer prend comme point de départ le mythe largement accepté de la nature inquiétante de l’appel du hibou puis construit habilement la tension, non pas par le biais de l’action, mais par le recours à l’allusion, à la juxtaposition et à des références au domaine émotionnel du personnage. Pour comparer ce qui est culturel à ce qui est original dans l’œuvre de Spencer, cet article lit la nouvelle en la comparant à trois autres œuvres : I Heard the Owl Call My Name de Margaret Craven, “The Corpse Bird” de Ron Rash et “Owl Eyes” de Joyce Carol Oates. Chacun de ces textes associe la notion de mort au cri du hibou qui se produit par séquences de trois. Parmi les quatre œuvres en question, Spencer réalise le plus grand effet gothique de la manière la plus économique, en appliquant apparemment à la lettre les conseils énoncés par Oates dans son essai “Building Tension in the Short Story”. Spencer utilise divers artifices pour évoquer la présence obsédante du rapace. Le chiffre trois régit la structure de l’œuvre de plusieurs manières, intégrant ainsi la fréquence du cri du hibou dans la structure même de l’histoire. Le personnage principal, Ginia, s’efforce de séparer les vérités rationnelles des superstitions, en interprétant les événements de sa vie quotidienne à travers le prisme de la légende du chant du hibou qu’elle a apprise étant enfant. L’idée de perte est continuellement évoquée jusqu’à ce que la répétition de cette notion lui donne un effet de permanence. Ces caractéristiques et d’autres encore contribuent à faire de “Owl” un bel exemple de l’effet gothique

Loss and Haunting in Joyce Carol Oates’s “Anniversary” and “The Haunting”

Au début de sa carrière, Joyce Carol Oates a élaboré une théorie de la nouvelle qu’elle a largement suivie par la suite. Pour elle, le genre de la nouvelle reproduit un univers psychologique et parle à l’inconscient comme l’illustre nombre de ses textes où se développent, dans des espaces liminaux fluctuants, des expériences relatives à la conscience ou à l’inconscient. Cet article montre comment certaines théories psychanalytiques ou psychologiques autour de la spectralité ou des désordres affectifs limites peuvent expliquer l’utilisation que propose Oates de la hantise. Dans « The Haunting », les cris inquiétants émanant de cages à lapins dans un sous-sol représentent le traumatisme lié à la perte d’un père. Dans « Anniversary », une femme qui a récemment perdu son mari attend avec impatience l’apparition de son époux défunt et découvre à sa grande surprise que ses étudiants croient aux fantômes

Thrill or Angst? Metaphysical Implications of Rewriting the Detective Plot in Joyce Carol Oates's "The Falls"

International audienceA growing number of Joyce Carol Oates's novels are a peculiar sort of "whydunit." In Oates's The Falls (2004), her detectives occupy a middle ground between the Golden Age detective and the hard-boiled hero - one example of the metaphysical detective story in her fiction that resists even this wide-ranging designation

Enigme interminable : Comment Joyce Carol Oates réécrit le roman policier

From the beginning of her career fifty years ago, Joyce Carol Oates has incessantly devoted both her fiction and non-fiction writing to the exploration of the mysteries of life. Several themes are consistently present in her fiction, including the investigation into what constitutes the individual, how people relate to the world around them, the problems that arise in interpreting one’s experiences, and the difference between dream and reality. The hybrid nature of Oates’s work defies easy categorization. However, more and more of her novels recall elements of detective and crime fiction, though the writer herself prefers the label “mystery and suspense” stories. Such a distinction is far from trivial as the four works analyzed in this study, Rape: A Love Story, The Tattooed Girl, Beasts and The Falls, correspond only partially to the conventions of detective fiction. The goal of this study is to examine the way in which Oates rewrites detective fiction, making it correspond to her enigmatic vision of the world, giving it a more human dimension that perhaps speaks more fully to contemporary readers.Depuis le début de sa carrière il y a cinquante ans, les écrits de Joyce Carol Oates – ses récits de fiction tout autant que ses récits non-fictionnels – n’ont cessé d’explorer de manières diverses les mystères de la vie. Etudier ce qui constitue l’individu, ce qui le caractérise dans sa relation avec le monde, les problèmes qu’il peut avoir pour interpréter ses expériences et sa façon de comprendre la différence entre rêve et réalité sont des thématiques que l’on retrouve dans toute sa fiction. En ce qui concerne la forme qu’elle adopte pour véhiculer ces notions thématiques, ses œuvres ont toujours manifesté une certaine hybridité et on arrive difficilement à les classer dans une catégorie particulière. De plus en plus, les romans d’Oates rappellent la fiction policière mais l’écrivaine préfère parler d’histoires de « mystère et suspens » plutôt que d’employer le libellé « roman policier ». Elle a peut-être raison car bien que faisant penser au roman policier, les œuvres étudiés – Rape : A Love Story, The Tattooed Girl, Beasts, et The Falls – ne correspondent que partiellement aux conventions du genre. Cette thèse à pour but d’examiner la façon dont Oates réécrit le policier pour le plier à sa vision énigmatique du monde, le rendant ainsi plus humain et plus pertinent aux lecteurs contemporains

Witness: Reflections on Detention in Joyce Carol Oates's Work

International audienceThroughout her career, Joyce Carol Oates has resisted the urge of others to label her a feminist writer, insisting that she be considered a writer, independent of biological gender. As America’s “chronicler of the middle class,” she has given voice to countless invisible female character types, but this is only one concern among many. Oates is incredibly active, but rather than to actively incite, she uses her prolific pen to create testimonies to contemporary American life, seeking particularly to give voice to the voiceless among us. In spite of the notions of crime and justice being central to her fiction since her first published story in the late 60s, “In The Old World,” any incarceration alluded to in her writing has tended towards the metaphorical as Oates has often chosen to focus on the detrimental effects of crime on victims. However, two works published in 2014 – a novel, Carthage; and an edited story collection, Prison Noir – combine to create testimonies to prison life in the United States and raise questions about the nature of the system that puts people there. In her introduction to the collection, Oates writes: “hardly to our credit, the United States locks up nearly 25 percent of the world’s prison population, while having only 5 percent of the world’s overall population. Or, in other terms, the United States incarcerates more than 2.2 million individuals, a far higher rate per capita than any other nation.” This is at once a statement of fact and a critique seeking to combat feelings of indifference on the part of the general public from a writer who has engaged with prison populations throughout her life by exchanging correspondance with inmates and even teaching a prison writing workshop in 2011. This paper will discuss the depiction of incarceration experiences and prison visits by outsiders in several Oates stories – “How I Contemplated the World,” “San Quentin,” “High,” “Dear Joyce Carol” – to shed light on the way in which her consistent engagement with America’s imperfect prison system has culminated in her work editing a volume of inmates’ fictio

The Dangerous Garden of Joyce Carol Oates's Short Stories

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Elizabeth Spencer's "Owl": Building Psychological Tension through Ominous Portents

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