Subject:  Re: Violence
 Date:  Mon, 16 Feb 1998 14:44:20 -0800 (PST)
From:    joyce l merritt 

Cyrano:

I, of course (or perhaps it isn't "of course", but it's true) agree with
you about all people containing the germs of violence, and about JCO
illustrating the point, especially if we don't fixate on physical violence
as the only form of violence.  Even so, it seems to me (and I'll defer to
you if you don't think the statement holds up, as you're far better read
in JCO than I am--I very much admire your command of her work overall)
that JCO has a strong tendency to present physical violence as a strategy
used preferentially by at least many men (and boys), and as a threat that
forms an element in any other forms of violence that these men employ.  I
think that sheer physical brutality is not as common a strategy among her
female characters, even as a threat.  In the cases I can recall, the
female characters are more likely to use or threaten to use verbal,
psychological, and "wealth" resources or the threat of them to do their
violence, rather than muscles, guns, knives, etc.  It seems to me to be a
special occasion (usually for vengeance) when JCO has a female character
use physical violence.  Which brings up another point:  frequently JCO's
female characters are violent in response to suffering something, whereas
there are many instances of male characters being violent for what,
morally speaking, we might call "no good reason" (though I think JCO is
very aware of the old male rationalization of violence towards females,
including rejection and subjugation, as being a response to the "cruelty"
and "provocation" of females in being attractive to males, perhaps the
most common of all blame-the -victim excuses). 

One other thought:  while violence may be directed primarily inward or
outward, does it ever go 100% in one direction?  Don't all perpetrators of
violence towards others also do violence to their own spirits by these
actions?  And don't those who habitually do inner violence to themselves
find ways to take out their hurts on others as well, often by what is
called passive-aggressive behavior? 

Steve



Subject:  Re: FOXFIRE, MAN CRAZY SERIES
Date:  Mon, 16 Feb 1998 15:03:30 -0800 (PST)
 From:   joyce l merritt 


Ivan/John:

I feel as if we ought to acknowledge your statement to us, as otherwise it
might come across as trying to sweep under the rug a piece of information
that might seem uncomfortable to many people;  as readers of JCO we've had
lots of opportunities to consider the dangers of sweeping things under the
rug.  You may have felt the need to "defend" yourself, but I, at least,
don't see that any of us here need to defend ourselves to the others as
long as we are not harming the others.  You are whoever you are, which for
purposes of the group (as opposed to personal friendships with you) is
someone who has shared insights with us all.  we just know more now than
we used to about where some of the insights come from. 

Steve



Subject:  Children
Date:  Mon, 16 Feb 1998 18:33:23 -0800 (PST)
From:  joyce l merritt 


I've just read JCO's review essay on the reissue of "The Bad Seed" that
can be accessed through the web site.  Didn't someone in Tone Clusters
recently mention JCO's reference to the film "The Brood" and that it
relates to "Winterthurn"?  I can't find the E-mail in question, but if I'm
remembering correctly, then I certainly agree with whoever brought up the
point. 

The main reason for this message is to ask the group for thoughts about
something that occured to me while reading JCO's review.  She mentions
various reasons for people in the US taking so enthusiastically, starting
in 1954, to presentations of children as evil owing to possession, bad
seeds/blood/genes, etc, but she doesn't explicitly mention one of the
reasons that seems most important to me:  I think many people in the U.S. 
want to be relieved of responsibility for children, and welcome reasons to
dislike them.  A lot of us don't want to think that if our children have
become beatniks (in the '50s) or hippies/flower children ('60s & '70s) or
even liberals/secular humanists (or maybe stockbrokers/attorneys if we
have different political views) ('80's & '90's), much less gone on
welfare, gone to prison, gotten executed, or whatever we're ashamed of
given our opinions, we could be responsible.  If there are children who
are just plain bad and irredeemable, it's not our fault and we're good
people.  Whereas, if we think that children are innocent and angelic, then
it must all be our fault if we can't find enough other people to pin the
blame on.  This way, people can claim that it really doesn't matter that
much how we take care of our children, people:  the good ones will turn
out good, and the bad ones can (should) be punished and gotten rid of, and
they deserve whatever happens to them.  An especially pleasing thought
because children are not only a nuisance but a reminder of our mortality. 
It brings to mind Wilfred Owen's assertion that World War I was really a
war of old men against young men. 

I can't recall any JCO parents specifically expressing this view, but I 
think a lot of them would find comfort in it.

Steve



Subject:   Re: Violence
Date:  Tue, 17 Feb 1998 11:32:42 EST
 From:   Cyranomish@aol.com

Hi, Steven.  Yes, outright physical assult in JCO's work and out here in the
world is more apt to come from males.  As for the inward/outward issue: few
things in life are 100% -- certainly not this.  I found the story "The Girl
Who Was To Die" in WILL YOU ALWAYS LOVE ME a very chilling tale of the
indirect violence that women can inflict and/or unleash upon others.  For
those of you who read or have read it: What do you make of the scene in the
kitchen with the ice cubes?  What is the young woman trying to do with them?
My classes are always unnerved by that strange interlude, and I have no clear
idea myself.  Cyrano



Subject: 
 Date:   Tue, 17 Feb 1998 17:35:19 -0500 (EST)
 From:   Jennifer Nash 

hi all...
i was having a discussion w/ some friends yesterday about the nature of
art. do you think it is necessary for the author to empathize with the
protagonist in order for the novel or story to be successful? does jco
empathize with the protagonist of zombie? i am reading the awakening
(chopin) right now and reading some criticims written about the novella at
the time it was written and a few criticims said that it was unfortuante
that chopin empathized so much with edna pointillier... im wondering if it
is possible for an author to create a believeable story without that
relationship between author and protagonist...
 - jen

"my eyes had seen that conjectural and secret object whose name men usurp
but which no man has gazed on: the inconceivable universe."

- borges



Subject:  Re: Children
Date:   Tue, 17 Feb 1998 20:38:51 EST
 From:  Cyranomish@aol.com


JCO has a story in THE SOPHISTICATED CAT -- is it "The White Cat"?  I'm not
sure of the title. SPOILER: In it, a little girl does something violent and
blames it on the family cat.  You have to read it twice to understand what her
kindly, well-meaning parents might have done to precipitate such a deed. When
I saw what it was, I realized it was a common kind of attitude about time --
the kind of remarks you hear all the time -- that caused the child to
intervene in a violent manner to stop the process.  I personally do not
believe in "naturally bad" children.  Cyrano



Subject:   Re: Children
Date:  Tue, 17 Feb 1998 19:00:25 -0800
 From:    Randy Souther 


Cyrano,

I think you're talking about "Nobody Knows My Name" in TWISTS OF THE TALE: AN
ANTHOLOGY OF CAT HORROR.

Randy



Subject:   Re: Children
Date:   Wed, 18 Feb 1998 10:05:36 EST
From:   Cyranomish@aol.com


Hi, Randy.  Yes, that's the one.  I discovered it last summer around the same
time I found her story "The Blue Ball" in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.  That
was such a strange, Borges-like tale that I was surprised to find it in a
mainstream genre magazine.
Cyrano



Subject:   Re: Children
Date:   Wed, 18 Feb 1998 10:19:14 EST
From:   Ehaggar@aol.com

No, no Cyrano---"The White Cat" is of one of JCO's most wonderful stories,
written in an almost 19th century style, in which an older man suddenly finds
himself hating the beautiful white cat he bought for his younger wife----it is
not a spoiler to say that he clearly equates the beautiful spoiled cat with
his faithless wife---but everyone please read it, it's marvelous!!!!


Ellen Haggar



Subject:  MAN CRAZY, Therapist/Patient Affairs
 Date:  Wed, 18 Feb 1998 11:01:02 +0000
From:   "F. Schwartz" 


Hi gang, Francie here. I finally read MAN CRAZY, and I was expecting a
whole chapter, at least, on the relationship with the therapist! 

What I mean to say is, I think you all extrapolated a helluva lot out of
very few words ("I'm a doctor. We don't judge."). I found the
"resolution" quite unsatisfactory, almost flippant. Almost movie-like
way of ending it. And I found no evidence of a counter-transference
seduction, either. You guys really imagine there's more to this one than
meets the eye!

Not to say that I don't agree with the several comments about the strong
mother-daughter dynamic. 

My instinct tells me that because jco was somewhat *less* empathetic
toward Ingrid, she short-changed her, ending-wise, with the arbitrary
"white knight" solution... the therapist is divorced/separated, that's
about all we know about him. So it's all kosher and cozy.

I think jco felt much more deeply about Zombie. And had more affection
for the girls in FOXFIRE.

Anyway, that's my take. I just got the call from our local library, and
I will have in my possession Martin Amis's "Night Train" within the
hour! I'm salivating just thinking about it.

Cheers!

Francie



Subject: Re: Cats
 Date:  Wed, 18 Feb 1998 14:54:34 EST
 From:   Cyranomish@aol.com


Hi, Ellen.  Yes, now I remember that one too.  I got the two cat stories mixed
up.  JCO has a children's book coming out this fall called COME MEET MUFFIN.
I'm betting that Muffin is either a cute kitten or a pint-sized manifestation
of the abyss.  Cyrano



Subject:   Re:
Date:  Wed, 18 Feb 1998 17:09:37 EST
From:  cambre@juno.com (john cambre)


IMHO, one of the earmarks of a great writer is to create vivid,
realistic, and natural characters that are UNLIKE themselves. But that
doesn't mean the author embraces the character's attitudes or cheers
their behaviors. 



Subject:    Re: your mail
Date:    Wed, 18 Feb 1998 16:19:52 -0800 (PST)
From:  joyce l merritt 

Jen:

I suspect the answer depends on what you mean by "empathize".  Too much
sense of identity between author and protagonist can undermine the
author's artistic judgment;  the author may write about what she/he would
like to be or is afraid of being, and may invent a plot based on what
she/he thinks "ought" (in either a positive or negative sense) to happen
to her/him. 

Of course, many authors write about characters who are meant to be quite
unlike the author (according to the author's self concept).  Yet, I
suspect that the very fact that the author has conceived of this character
(even when the character is taken from "real life", it is still the
author's conception to make this person a character) means that some sort
of minimal connection exists, although the author may not be aware of it
and may reject the idea if questioned.  As I think that most people, under
the right (or wrong) conditions, are capable of a far broader ranger of
behavior than they imagine, including writers, I don't find it hard to
believe that that a writer could form connections with many sorts of
characters, although it may often be exaggerating to call these
connections "empathy".  What about JCO and "Zombie", for example? 

Steve



Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 19:52:30 -0500 (EST)
From: Jennifer Nash 
Subject: Re: your mail


Steve,
Actually I was wondering a lot about JCO and Zombie and how she felt
towards the character she created - the fact that she implanted me in his
head meant that by the end of the novel, I understood the rhythms of his
thoughts, they became second-nature to me. That's what frightened me so
much about that novel(la?) - by the time I got to the end, I was used to
the mindset of an unstable person. And then I was ripped out of his head
and forced into my own world trying to reconcile the two...
So I do wonder how JCO, or any author for that matter, feels about the
relationship between themself and their protagonist regardless of what
kind of person the protagonist is. Miguel De UNamuno wrote a wonderful
novel called Niebla where he and his protagonist, Augusto Perez, come face
to face and debate about who is more real, Augusto for being who the
reader remembers when the novel is over or Unamuno because he has control
over Augusto...it is one of the most gripping and poignant moments of
fiction that I have ever encountered.
Whew. I *am* rambling here...
Anyway, I'm still not quite sure -- I understand that the author must feel
a connection to the protagonist since the author spends so much time
creating the protagonist. What I wonder is if, after all is said and done,
the author can empathize (ie. feel for and like the protagonist) simply
because they have created it...
Anyway, it's just been swimming around in my head for a few days so I
figured I would share it with everyone else.
i hope everyone is having a wonderful day,
 - jen

"she felt like some new-born creature, opening its eyes in a familiar
world that it had never known."

- kate chopin



Subject:  Characters & Empathy
 Date:  Wed, 18 Feb 1998 20:53:58 -0500 (EST)
 From:   Matthew A Cheney 


This is a topic that could lead to awful generalizations, but it's
interesting nevertheless.  Where might Proust or the Joyce of "Portrait of
the Artist" fit in?  Or, to be contemporary, Edmund White in "The
Farewell Symphony"?  The question may not be so much a question of the
author's empathy or distance from the characters, but more the author's
overall perspective.  Intention is important, too: think "Candide", or
Donald Barthelme, Borges or Beckett or Barth. Actually, Virginia Woolf
could provide a fascinating perspective on this, since her fiction was so
close to her inner life, if not necessarily her outward experiences (see
also her essays such as "Mr. Bennett & Mrs. Brown" for discussions of
what's important about characters).

If I'd read any books recently that I really hated, I'd try to use those
for examples, but I've been lucky in my picks over the last few months, or
at least uncritical...

To turn to our very own JCO, here's something she said in the introduction
to the 1979 Best American Short Stories volume: "One can _say_ that a
novel is this or that, based upon the novels one has happened to have
read; one can _say_ that the short story must be this but not that, it
'must' have an ending, or characters, or a coherent linear development;
one can say anything at all.  But commentary on art can only help to
elucidate already existing art; it cannot prescribe, and it certainly
cannot predict.  Art is an expression of imaginative freedom."
(Admittedly, that quote brings this discussion into a far broader, perhaps
dangerously serious range, but I love it!)

Matt Cheney



Subject:   Re: Characters & Empathy
Date:   Wed, 18 Feb 1998 21:06:26 EST
 From:   Cyranomish@aol.com


Hi, Matt.  That's a great quote.  Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
Cyrano



Subject:  Re: Empathy in Art
Date:   Wed, 18 Feb 1998 21:56:45 -0500
From:    "Anthony" 

I think that Joyce Carol Oates is a writer who is *perceived* to have a
great deal of empathy for her characters.  that may be attributed to a true
empathic feeling on her part but then again it may be due to the
effectiveness of her artistry.   empathy's just one chord in an entire range
of feelings a writer may have about a character.  can you imagine a one
chord symphony?   i'm certain she despises some of the characters she has
created, just as other writers do who depict hateful characters.  maybe she
hated corky corcoran, you'd have to ask her, maybe she was completely
indifferent to him and yet obsessed with depicting him in full flesh.   the
french writer Lautremont is one writer who loathed his characters and
depicted loathsome characters.  it's probably fatuous to say that doestevski
empathized with all of his characters (that would be like loving all the
people in a city like Kiev or New York).  meanwhile, is there empathy for
old Buddenbrooks (is that Dreiser?) in that book.  What about Genet, filled
with hatred and self-loathing?   a kind of neutered literature where a
writer would be expected to "empathize" with each lovingly drawn character
wouldn't even work in children's books.




Subject:  Thoreau Essay
 Date:  Thu, 19 Feb 1998 08:42:07 -0500
From:  cafuller@EVE.ASSUMPTION.EDU (Catherine Fuller)


        Has the group seen the interesting essay on Thoreau by our author
in the current issue of "Conjunctions", Issue Topic:  American Writers on
same?



Subject:   Re: your mail
 Date:   Thu, 19 Feb 1998 09:18:18 +0000
From:  John 

It was once suggested to me, in order to attempt to grasp the gestalt meaning
of a film, to 'analyze' the entire work as if it were one person's dream --
and not necessarily one of the character's in the story.  More likely the
director's or the writer's, tho it could be anyone's.

Perhaps this applies to literature as well, tho would be much more cumbersome
as there is far, far more detail and occurences in a novel, especially a long novel.

But to think of a story, any story, as the dream of one person, within the
diegesis or not, is interesting.  Perhaps one could look upon a story as the
dream of a person imagined by the author.  My bet is that the author
identifies in some way with the 'dreamer', tho not necessarily with all the
'fragments' of the dream.

John



Subject:   Re: Empathy in Art
Date:    Thu, 19 Feb 1998 09:24:55 +0000
From:    John 



eh hmm . .

Dostoevsky did love all his characters, everyone in fact, in a compassionate,
empathetic way.  He struggled for God's all encompassing love.  IT was an
idealistic love.  No character in any of his novels was beyond the allowances
granted by understanding.  Or rather, he never condemned any of his
characters; always struggled to find something in them than anyone and
everyone could relate to -- isn't that a kind of love?

John

PS: Well except, maybe, the pawnlady in C&P.



Subject: Re: Characters & Empathy
 Date:  Thu, 19 Feb 1998 15:15:17 -0500 (EST)
 From:  Jennifer Nash 


Matt,
I agree with Cyrano -- that is a wonderful quote, one which I wrote down
and really appreciate.
Thanks,
- jen

"she felt like some new-born creature, opening its eyes in a familiar
world that it had never known."

- kate chopin



Subject:   Re: Empathy in Art
 Date:   Thu, 19 Feb 1998 15:17:58 -0500 (EST)
From:    Jennifer Nash 


I think this is a pretty interesting commentary -- my one thought is that
if JCO were "apathetic" towards Corky Corcoran, I don't think that she
would be so willing to depict him so precisely. I don't know if a writer
has to "empathize" with their character to create good fiction but I think
over the process of creating good fiction, in the process of creating a
character (loathsome or not) a writer would feel something towards them.

- jen

"she felt like some new-born creature, opening its eyes in a familiar
world that it had never known."

- kate chopin



Subject:  Re: Empathy in Art
Date:  Thu, 19 Feb 1998 17:42:09 EST
From:   Cyranomish@aol.com


Hi, John.  I agree.  Reading BROTHERS KARAMAZOV this month and feeling very
sad about Smerdyakov -- unpleasant guy that he is.  JCO makes a similar
statement in BECAUSE ITS BITTER etc.  in regard to the unsavory fellow Jinks
murders.  I'll look for it later to quote y'all.  Cyrano



Subject: Re: Empathy in Art
Date:  Thu, 19 Feb 1998 23:10:54 -0500
From:   "Anthony" 

It's hard to argue with what you say, John, but what about all those bent
and misshapen characters in THE POSSESSED?   I suppose you could say that he
loved them all, too, in the same way that you have a spot of melanoma
growing upon your skin--you have it removed and put it in a glass jar for
everyone to see how ugly it is.

I know this is a JCO group but there are some parallels of psychology
between the two writers, or at least a deep and abiding interest in the
psychology of the passions and impulses.



Subject:  Re: Empathy in Art
 Date:  Thu, 19 Feb 1998 23:23:16 -0500
 From:  "Anthony" 


I don't argue with what you say either, Jen.  I read somewhere that writing
that novel was, to JCO, one of the most difficult and arresting things she
ever did.  So I wouldn't say she was indifferent to ole Corky Corcoran
either, the good-bad normal-crazy guy that he was.  I think the greatest
thing about it is that you never really condemn the guy because you know or
met someone just like him who caused a lot of problems, a lot of pain, and
you kind of wonder what you were doing hanging around with someone like that
and feel guilty because you really liked him, kind of, in a vague sense
where you think there must be something wrong with yourself, too, for liking
him.



Subject:  Re: Empathy in Art
Date:  Thu, 19 Feb 1998 23:24:09 EST
From:  Cyranomish@aol.com


Ah, here's that quote I mentioned from BECAUSE IT IS BITTER.  It occurs when
Iris is talking with Jinx about the despicable Little Red: "I know there's a
way of seeing him so you couldn't hate him or want him dead [but] I don't want
that perspective or that sympathy."  SPOILER: This willful blindness -- or
failure of the imagination -- on Iris's part results in a nasty payback on the
day of JFK's assassination.  That "perspective" or "sympathy" she mentions is,
I think, the kind of idealistic compassion that John/Ivan cited in
Dostoevsky's fiction.  In my opinion it's the ingredient that makes an artist
truly great ... and it's not achieved without a struggle.  Cyrano 



Subject: Re: Empathy in Art
 Date:  Thu, 19 Feb 1998 23:31:27 EST
From:   Cyranomish@aol.com


A quick p.s. on Genet -- whom Jen mentioned.  It always seemed to me that he
pushed WAY beyond contempt & loathing for his characters, investing even the
grungiest jailbirds with beauty & sometimes a whiff of romance.  I was
delighted to read in one of his essays that he had a deep love for THE
BROTHERS KARAMAZOV and would have to put it aside after reading just a page or
two because it gave him so much to think about.  Cyrano



Subject:  Re: Empathy in Art
Date:  Thu, 19 Feb 1998 22:10:35 EST
 From:    cambre@juno.com (john cambre)


I must confess I've never read the Brothers K, (despite having a minor in
Russian studies). FD was a philologist, no? I just wonder, because the
name Smerdyakov reminds me of the Russian word "Smyert", meaning "death".
Could be coincidence. Or it could come from the same root.



Subject:  Re: Smerdyakov
Date:   Fri, 20 Feb 1998 12:08:22 EST


From:   Cyranomish@aol.com

Hi, John.  I've read some FD biographies, but I never saw that he was a
philologist (he trained to be an engineer in the military before he was
sentenced to 8 years in Siberia).
As a writer, he undoubtedly trained himself in philology and many other
academic fields. I'm so happy to be speaking with someone who knows Russian
because I always suspected FD chose meaningful names for his characters.  I
figured that  Smerdyakov had some ominous word at its core -- my guess had
been "stink" or "foul"
but "death" makes sense.  Thanks for the info. I'm rereading BK this winter,
so I may be asking you about some other name.  Oh, here's one: Miusov; he's a
minor character, but an intriguing one. Does his name have any special
significance in Russian?
     JCO has a couple of good articles on FD's novels, which Randy has
thoughtfully included in the Full Text section of the web page.  Cyrano



Subject:   Re: Hey . .
Date:  Fri, 20 Feb 1998 12:26:28 EST
From:   Cyranomish@aol.com


Hi, Ivan.  I wanted to also reply to your observation about the bitterness
attending so many of the love scenes in JCO's work.  It's a fact that love is
also a struggle in her works -- it's no free ride on a cloud of bliss.
There's a neat little scene in THEM.  Jules and his great, tormented love
Nadine are on the road.  Jules goes out to get groceries one day and sees a
group of cops kidding a black guy about a maiming he had just suffered when
his angry girlfriend threw a pan of boiling sugar-sweetened water at him.  The
cops think his story's funny and make him repeat the line "Sugar sticks!" over
and over.  That's the end of the scene, but I think it's a mini-recapitulation
of a JCO theme: that the people we love have the power to hurt us the most.
Their "sugar" sticks. (and burns like hell) -- ask any estranged couple.
Cyrano



Subject:  BITTERNESS
Date:  Fri, 20 Feb 1998 13:33:28 -0800
From:   composer2@juno.com (D. C. C.)


Cyrano--Your line is certainly true: The ones we love the most have the
power to hurt us the most.  Definitely true and definitely an Oates
theme.  I would argue, though, that bitterness is not the correct word
for the emotion that accompanies the love scenes in JCO's work.  I think
it is more of a certain regret that the characters hold about getting
involved in that particular instance.  I am citing, in particular, Corky
and the others in WHAT I LIVED FOR.  I don't think the characters were
"bitter" towards anyone (maybe a touch of internal bitterness, but not
enough to make it a trait), but definitely reluctant and at times
regretful.  This is also true of WE WERE THE MULVANEYS, CHILDWOLD,
FOXFIRE, and others.  This is also not to say that the characters were
always without feelings of bitterness, but maybe guilt and regret are a
tad more appropriate in general.

DAVID C.
MICHIGAN



Subject: 
Date:  Fri, 20 Feb 1998 16:29:40 -0800 (PST)
 From:  joyce l merritt 


I think that one of Corky Corcoran's more appealing characteristics is
that, even though he's a shady dealer (in more senses than he might
admit), he's also very trusting.  And, naturally, everyone he trusts
betrays him.  I don't think JCO is condemning trust as such, but
blindness;  at least since the time of his father's murder, Corky has
cultivated blindness, and as long as he does so it ruins even his good
qualities. 

Does anyone know the meaning of the name "Karamazov"?  I know that it
starts with the Turkic element "kara" meaning "black", which has been
borrowed into various Russian names, and I'm certain that Dostoyevsky
meant the reader to be aware of that meaning, as at some point a minor
character (I think drunk, but in vino veritas perhaps) addresses one of
the Karamazovs as "Chernomazov", substituting the Slavic "black" element. 
I have always assumed that Smerdyakov's name was associated with "death" 
(I'm no linguist, but I did find out about the word "smyert" a long time
ago).  Does "Smerdyakov" as a whole mean something? 

As Dostoyevsky wrote very consciously as a Russian Orthodox believer, I
think he felt it his duty (but it appears to have come naturally to him,
at least up to a point) to at least try to love all of his characters, and
not to assume that any of them must be beyond the workings of divine
grace.  He seems to have wanted to remind us of the element of original
sin in absolutely everyone, even "nice" characters such as Father Zosima
or Myshkin in "The Idiot".  When a character is presented as disgusting, I
think Dostoyevsky meant that as a challenge both to the other characters
and to his readers. 

Steve



Subject:  Re: BITTERNESS
 Date:  Sat, 21 Feb 1998 09:53:03 +0000
From:  John 


Ok, I probably should have said 'bittersweet' rather than bitter, or
bitterness.  

John/Ivan



Subject:  Re: Empathy in Art
Date:  Sat, 21 Feb 1998 10:02:57 +0000
From:   John 


Anthony,

Your point is a good one and is difficult for me to answer.  Especially in
regards to the Possessed.  I haven't read it in about 8 years and was, at the
time, my least favorite book by Dost.  Having been reading much about Dost
lately, though, I am very anxious to read it again.

The melanoma analogy -- I have no proof of this, only a feeling, that Dost did
not write The Possessed in order to reveal to us how ugly these people were --
only as a portrayal of how people can become 'trapped' by ideas, especially
ones that do not include God (or God's love) in their scope.  The fact that
each of the characters have tragic, dismal demises is perhaps important.  My
point is, I guess, that Dost never portrayed characters in an undignified
light simply to further disgrace them -- but to reveal this potential and
relevant aspect of humanity -- something which Dost never could have done as
well as he did without having struggled to understand these 'characters'.

Also, the characters in the Possessed are very much like the Petravshky (sp?)
circle--and probably much like he himself was before his arrest and its
traumatic aftermath.

John/Ivan



Subject:  Re: Empathy in Art
Date:  Sat, 21 Feb 1998 16:04:13 -0500
From:  "Anthony" 


You have a good memory, John/Ivan, eight years after reading the book.  It
*was* a hard book to read for me as well and it's not one of my favorites
within his works, either.  Yet, it was almost prescient in its historical
context.  The decline and persecution of the aristocracy.  Decline being the
keyword, whether you apply it to the pseudo-aristocracy or the
pseudo-revolutionaries who taunted them.  It's pretty sad, too.  You rather
like the old aristocratic guy with all of his pretenses, all hat and no
cowboy as they say in Texas--I can't remember the old guy's name.  That
Petrasky Group -I can't spell it either-- a real bunch of mother f'....s....
You couldn't blame anyone for being swept away, it probably would have
happened anywhere....now, then, sooner or later....



Subject:  Re: circles within circles
Date:  Sat, 21 Feb 1998 18:18:31 EST
From:   Cyranomish@aol.com


Actually, the Petrashevsky Circle was mainly a reading group.  FD joined it
because the mistreatment of the enslaved peasantry at that time deeply
disturbed him.  As some members became more radical, they formed an inner
Palm-Durov Circle: those were the ones who got into trouble with the
government.  Cyrano



Subject:  Female Beauty in JCO
Date:  Mon, 23 Feb 1998 03:11:54 +0900
From:   "Sunhyung Kim" 


In Foxfire, we can see how JCO is questioning the concept of beauty in our
 society. How the concept of beauty is related to the issue of power.

There are two prominently beautiful girls in Foxfire Gang, one is Rita O'hagan
 and the other is Violet Kahn. Theirs is the prototype of the beauty

that will draw man's violent attention. (see how violence is always
 interrelated with sex) The features of their beauty tell us something. Baby
 girl,
a grown up body with retarded mind. Snow white vulnerability and
 dependence(which remind me of Persia, an adult female body with a mind
 that
never grew up). 

Now JCO is uncovering the ideology of beauty like Susan Sontag does in her
 essay "Beauty". Once upon a time in Greece beauty was a term for

both sexes, a term for the perfect harmony of body and soul. But now in our
 times it's not so. Beauty is usually used as a term applied specifically

to women. Second sex, Sontag argues. Beauty is a conceptual mask for all the
 secondary, superficial virtues. It defines women only in terms of

physicality. It denies them wholeness. 

Well, now back in Foxfire what interests me is Rita O'hagan's surprising
 transformation.  When Rita (Hayworth) O'hagan becomes fierce and

independent Fireball, she bids farewell to her beauty. She must still look
 gorgeous, but nobody says anything about her beauty any more. And

Legs goes to Red Bank trying to protect Violet Kahn. Kahn is a nuissance, a
 dependent burden, very much due to her beauty. 

JCO, however, goes further than Sontag. While rejecting and criticizing the
 "beauty" of a kind, she also presents us a whole new concept of

beauty or attraction. It's Legs Sadovsky. What a character. We picture her very
 beautiful...though JCO is very reluctant to use the banal, polluted

word "beauty" for her. I get the impression that she's redefining the strong
 positive beauty "through" the characterization of Legs Sadovsky. An

essay(or a criticism) can never do that. Only a superb fiction can..... 

 
(Sorry for missing a beat on this topic) 
 
Kim 
from Korea, 
 
currently reading "Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes"
I love this man! 



Subject:  Re: circles within circles
Date:  Sun, 22 Feb 1998 14:05:22 -0500
From:   "Anthony" 


Tnx Cyrano--that's one of the many things I didn't know.  



Subject:  Re: Female Beauty in JCO
Date:  Sun, 22 Feb 1998 17:48:30 EST
From:   Ehaggar@aol.com


To Kim et al

Hi KIm--you didn't miss a beat on the female beauty thing in JCO---I brought
it up and I don't believe anyone followed it---I think you are absolutely
right that JCO questions the position of beauty is our society.  Your examples
from FOXFIRE I thought were terrific---Rita is beautiful but vulnerable,
Violet is beautiful but her beauty makes her kind of a nuisance, and Legs is
beautiful in a way that is so different that JCO doesn't want to exactly call
her that.

It interests me, though, that so much of JCO's work deals with beautiful
women----whether these women are dealt with violently or kindly or both by
men, the main characters are always lovely.  On the rare chances when they are
NOT beautiful, that lack of beauty is the whole point of the story.  There is
almost a fairy-tale sameness to this, but I am not sure that I approve of the
fairy-tale.   Has JCO fallen into society's trap, or does she think we have?
Does she think heroines who are not beautiful have no power to excite our
interest or sympathy?

Ellen Haggar



Subject:  greetings!
Date:  Sun, 22 Feb 1998 21:16:32 -0500 (EST)
 From:  MMILLER@desire.wright.edu


my name is sarah and im a junior in high school. im doing a political/
sociological criticism on Black Water for my AP English clas. If anyone has
 any insights or comments on this topic, I would really welcome the help.
 Thanks!!



Subject:  Re: greetings!
Date:  Mon, 23 Feb 1998 00:34:37 -0500 (EST)
From:   Jennifer Nash 


sarah,
it seems like a lot of people have been asking about black water
recently...
what are you thinking of focusing your paper on? how are you going to
approach the political/sociological criticism?

- jen

"she felt like some new-born creature, opening its eyes in a familiar
world that it had never known."

- kate chopin



Subject: Re: Female Beauty in JCO
 Date:   Mon, 23 Feb 98 16:44:14
From:  "Frank Malgesini" 

Ellen

I`ve noticed that, about her protagonist often being beautiful or at 
least not plain, except, as you say, in certain specific situations like 
The Rise of Life On Earth. 

Not only beautiful but in many cases similar in appearance to Joyce Carol 
Oates.

But I wonder if there is really a fairy tale sameness to them. The 
personalities she describes are so varied. For some reason, your remark 
brought to mind John Fowles. In many ways I like his books very much but 
the girl is always the same girl in every story despite changes in name and 
circumstances. That`s not the case with Joyce Carol Oates.

I think too that the protagonists are not always strikingly beautiful. They 
are often only beautiful, as almost everyone is, at least at certain times 
and in certain contexts. 

Both Kim and you mention Foxfire. The charismatic individual is Legs, and 
Maddy, the narrator, is the one who moves beyond Foxfire and escapes the 
atmosphere that made it necessary. Neither of them are ever precisely 
characterized as beautiful.

When I was reading Foxfire, I remember thinking of a little play I used to 
teach in the early seventies called The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in- 
the-Moon Marigolds in which the protagonist escapes from her terrible home 
environment through an excitement with science. Maddy finds some kind of 
salvation in contemplating the universe. Although it is true as you 
commented earlier that the lives of professionals and academics in 
Oates`stories are confused and corrupt, the university is a fairly 
consistent escape from negative circumstances for the adolescent 
protagonists of her stories. 

Intelligence, knowledge, independence are more important varibles than 
beauty, aren`t they, for her protagonists? I can`t seem to say what I`m 
trying to. Maybe I need to think about it a little more.

Frank

Frank Malgesini 
fmalgesi@uach.mx
Facultad de Filosofia y Letras
Universidad Autonoma de Chihuahua



Subject:  Re: Violence
Date:  Mon, 23 Feb 98 16:44:23
 From:   "Frank Malgesini" 

There have been quite a few messages over the past few days on the subject 
of abusive and violent relationships. I wonder if these may be only extreme 
examples of a more general pattern. Perhaps every love relationship, maybe 
every human relationship in Oates involves a struggle for dominance by one 
person over another. The abusive relationships that have been exlored are 
simply more blatant or more defective, more extreme examples of something 
that all human relationships embody.

Oates uses the final stanza Stanley Kunitz`s poem, "Lovers Relentlessly", 
as the epigraph of her story "The Wheel of Love". I think the whole poem 
can be taken as an analysis of a relationship pattern that recurs 
constantly throughout Oates`work.

Lovers Relentlessly

Lovers relentlessly contend to be
Superior in their identity:

The compass of the ego is designed
To circumscribe intact a lesser mind

With definition: tender thought would wrest
Each clean protective secret from the breast;

Affection`s eyes go deep, make morbid lesion
In pride`s tissue, are ferocious with possession;

Love`s active hands are desperate to own
The subtly reasoned flesh on branching bone;

Lovers regard the simple moon that spills
White magic in a garden, bend their wills

Obliquely on each other; lovers eat
The small ecstatic heart to be complete;

Engaged in complicate analysis
Of passionate destruction, lovers kiss;

In furious involvement they would make
A double meaning single. Some must break

Upon the wheel of love, but not the strange,
The secret lords, whom only death can change.

Frank Malgesini 
fmalgesi@uach.mx
Facultad de Filosofia y Letras
Universidad Autonoma de Chihuahua



Subject:  Re: Female Beauty in JCO
Date:  Mon, 23 Feb 1998 17:51:50 -0500 (EST)
From:  Heather L Ormiston 


        The idea of beauty in the characters of Foxfire is very
interesting to me. In my reading of the book Oates almost seems to
interpret beauty as something that hinders the girls from their true
selves. Both Violet and Rita are the feminine "pretty" ones, and each of
these girls is characterized as somewhat weaker than Maddy and Legs, at
least in Legs' descriptions of the girls. The only use she has for beauty
is when she can use it to manipulate the men in the novel. Legs' reactions
to beauty are common to young women who have suffered either physical or
sexual abuse. Another thing that I have noticed is the leaning towards
androgeny that some of Oates' female characters have. Most strikingly,
Legs and Marianne in We Were the Mulvaneys. This could also be tied into
abuse and the reactions that it causes in young women towards their
physical appeaarance. After some preliminary research in the fall, it is
apparent that Oates has done her homework in fleshing out her female
characters. But, why should that surprise me? :)
Heather



Subject: Re: Female Beauty in JCO
 Date:  Mon, 23 Feb 1998 16:18:59 -0800 (PST)
From:    joyce l merritt 


If you're going to talk about beauty in "Foxfire", isn't physical beauty 
a secondary issue, at least for the members of the group?  It looks to me 
as though the members of Foxfire found their most important beauty in 
independence (from what they saw as a predatory society), followed by the 
beauty of their camaraderie, followed by the beauty of acts of revenge 
(until the kidnapping went wrong).  My impression is that Foxfire took 
intense esthetic pleasure in these kinds of beauty.  Physical beauty of 
the "I'm appealing to men" variety was weakness (or even treason) to 
them, so of course they despised and distrusted it.  Legs' physical 
beauty to Foxfire (as opposed to what anyone else would have seen as 
beautiful) was in her prowess, not her facial features or her 
measurements.  I think JCO, without leaving out conventional beauty, 
marginalizes in this book more than in some others.

Steve



Subject:  Re: Violence
Date:  Mon, 23 Feb 1998 16:36:23 -0800 (PST)
From:   joyce l merritt 

Frank:

Surely the most general pattern is natural selection, whereby not only is
every individual in competition with every other individual, but every
gene within every individual is in competition with every other gene in
that individual, as well as with every gene in every other individual. 
Cooperation helps those who engage in it up to a point, so you get
multicellular, multigenetic organisms such as humans, and cooperative
behaviors such as sex (which at its most fundamental, whatever else it may
be about, whatever permutations it may take, and however important those
factors are to the individuals in question, is about reproducing at least
part of certain sets of genes).  But cheating/abusing/grabbing more than
one's equal share or preventing others from grabbing even just an equal
share, is also advantageous, as long as others don't cheat (or at least as
long as not too many others cheat too much).  These impulses exist to some
extent in everyone, because any descent line of genes that entirely lacked
either would never reproduce successfully in the long term, and would
disappear.  And, of course, the impulses conflict. 

So, if you knew that a species, specifically humans, was intelligent
(whatever that is) and that it reproduced sexually, wouldn't you be able
to predict the existance of some form of sexual abuse, even if you had
never read JCO or any other human writer?  And, of course, there would be
other sorts of abuse, too.  But there would also be sharing and
"unselfishness".  And the mix would have to be wildly unstable. 

I'm not sure if bringing in these terms will be popular, but I'm convinced
that this is the sort of thing (obviously I've left out more than I've
said, or even am capable of saying, about evolution and behavior--and yes,
I do believe that environment is crucial, as well as genes) that lies
behind all the complex beauty in JCO's (and ultimately everyone's)
writings. 

Steve



Subject: jen . . .
Date:  Mon, 23 Feb 1998 20:40:03 -0500 (EST)
From:  MMILLER@desire.wright.edu

I'm thinking of focusing my paper on the sexual power dynamics that affect
 politics, particularly the rape accusations of William Smith, and Clarence
 Thomas' SCnomination. Great quote, by the way. Kate Chopin is great!



Subject:  Re: jen . . .
Date:  Mon, 23 Feb 1998 20:57:45 -0500 (EST)
From: Jennifer Nash 

Thanks for the compliment on the quote -- Chopin is great!

I think thats an awesome paper topic -- when I read _Black Water_ I
thought of what Fitzgerald wrote at the end of Gatsby about Tom and Daisy
being "Careless people" who "smashed up things and people" and then he
says something about how after they smashed things up, they retreated into
their vast indifference. Thats how I felt at the end of Black Water.

- jen

"...we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies..."
- kerouac



Subject:  Re: Who's top dog?
Date:  Tue, 24 Feb 1998 05:41:42 EST
From:  Cyranomish@aol.com


Hi, Frank.  The issue of who dominates in a relationship is, I think, paramont
in JCO's works.  It needn't be a male/female relationshop, either.  SOLSTICE
is a novel about the struggle for hegemony in two women's friendship, and the
story "The Widows," which may have been SOLSTICE's precursor, studies an
intense but temporary friendship between two recently-bereaved women that ends
once it has served its purpose -- the struggle for hegemony ends in a draw.
("The Widows" appears in the collection NIGHTSIDE.)  Cyrano



Subject:  Re: Female Beauty in JCO
Date:  Tue, 24 Feb 1998 10:26:47 -0500 (EST)
From:   Heather L Ormiston 


        I agree that physical beauty is secondary in the girl's ideaology,
but I think it is interesting how they learn to manipulate traditional
images of beauty so that they work for them and not against them. They use
it to begin to find their own source of power over the manipulative male
society around them. Beauty may start out as a primary in the book, but it
certainly fades into the background as the young women realize their own
power. However, in the beginning even Legs notices
physical appearance.Yet, as they grow closer these traditional descriptors
are discarded by the group and replaced by a familial bond that trancends
physical characteristis.  The character of Rita is interesting because
she begins the story as a plump and shy girl who Maddie pities and Legs is
disgusted by. Her evolution in the novel is one of the most interesting
for me. 
Heahter



Subject:  Re: Violence
Date:  Tue, 24 Feb 1998 10:43:18 -0500 (EST)
From:   diamond@math.wvu.edu (Harvey Diamond)


Thanks for writing out the poem, Frank. I think you've hit on something 
here - were I to see this poem unattributed, I would bet the house that
Oates had written it. Looks like a good paper for someone - the idea
in literature that in any intense relationship one must conquer the other,
devour the other, there can be no stable equilibrium. It is surely an 
important feature of the Oatesian landscape.

Harvey Diamond 



Subject:  Re: Violence
 Date:   Tue, 24 Feb 1998 16:39:38 -0800 (PST)
From:  joyce l merritt 


Harvey:

Perhaps JCO doesn't believe that one party has to dominate the other 
quite all the time:  I'm thinking of Samantha and her husband (I can't 
bring his name to mind) in "A Bloodsmoor Romance", who are both inventors 
and who seem to get on amazingly well, and still to be very loving 
towards eachother even after the passing of a number of years.  Of 
course, they have similar interests (obsessions?), and Samantha is able 
to keep inventing even after marriage (unique in this novel).  And the 
book is labeled a romance.  But I wonder if, to some extent, the 
relationship isn't modeled after JCO's relationship with her husband, 
perhaps with their work on the "Ontario Review" especially in mind?  
Didn't Cyrano say that JCO likes to put cameos of herself in some of her 
works?

Steve



Subject: Re: dominance always?
 Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 22:05:44 EST
From:  Cyranomish@aol.com

Hi, Steve.  I'd agree with you on the couple in BLOODSMOOR.  We don't remember
half the couple's names perhaps because they aren't as exciting as the more
turbulent couples.  There are couples who work things out, though, in JCO's
works.  Consider Xavier's friend Murre Pitt-Davies and Therese Kilgarvan --
those two devoted educators -- SPOILER, who join Xavier and Perdita at the end
of WINTERTHURN in a double wedding.  Cameos, anyone?  Cyrano



Subject:  women stereotypes in blackwater
Date:   Tue, 24 Feb 1998 22:38:25 EST
From:  Eka1@aol.com


first of all, the fact that two people are doing term papers on joyce carol
oates and blackwater isn't a coincidence. sarah and i both picked this topic
and we found randy's homepage on the web; we're both really excited to talk to
people that have some wise and interesting insights.

while sarah chose the political viewpoint on the story, i decided to go with
the feminist approach. i was thinking of using basic women stereotypes. for
example, the temptress, and the american princess. it seems like kelly in the
story is trying to be all of these stereotypes in one. she is pulled in so
many directions by society that she can't just be herself. 

if anyone has any comments. i'm open to any.

erica



Subject:  Re: Violence
Date:  Wed, 25 Feb 1998 11:05:36 -0500 (EST)
From:  diamond@math.wvu.edu (Harvey Diamond)


Steve,

        I'm sure you're right and I don't mean to be categorical about
anything relating to JCO - it's simply impressions from my incomplete
readings. But Oates became famous (infamous?), at least initially, for
the violence -- sexual and otherwise --in her works, which was 
perplexing and shocking to those  who otherwise admired her writing. 
The perennial question attached to her was "(But) Why are your works so 
violent?"; From snatches of interviews I recall she would be slightly
impatient with such questions, but would often refer to the violence
in society at large. But beyond violence per se, the idea of conquest and
triumph appears often in the lives of her characters - somehow, in order
to go on living it is not enough to survive, or even overcome. You must
conquer, you must triumph in order to go on living. Life is  
desperation, exhiliration, triumph, and/or destruction - every minute and
every where, in our jobs, in our relationships. This hyper-real world is,
I think, her trademark. One quote along these lines  is from Nightside:

"So it is life we must cling to, arm over arm, swimming, conquering the
element that sustains us."

Harvey Diamond



Subject:  Re: women stereotypes in blackwater
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 12:21:59 EST
From:  Cyranomish@aol.com


I have a question.  What is Kelley's "real self"?  She's not what she tries to
be?  How is she different from other young people who aspire to various goals
and want to change their lives?  Cyrano



Subject:  Re: Female Beauty in JCO
 Date:  Wed, 25 Feb 98 14:14:20
From:  "Frank Malgesini" 

A car-hop at a drive-in comes bringing an order.

" -he was relieved to see how pretty she was. It depressed him when girls 
were not pretty. It was alright if women, adult women, were not pretty 
because . . . because it did not matter so much with them, especially if 
they were married . . . But girls Hal`s age, girls like the car-hop, really 
ought to be pretty.

The Seduction (from The Seduction and Other Stories)

Frank Malgesini 
fmalgesi@uach.mx
Facultad de Filosofia y Letras
Universidad Autonoma de Chihuahua



Subject:  Re: Violence
Date:  Wed, 25 Feb 98 15:16:14
From:   "Frank Malgesini" 

Harvey

That about sums it up, doesn`t it. Hyper-reality. Whatever is happening in 
an Oates story, the emotions are either extreme or on the brink.

Frank Malgesini 
fmalgesi@uach.mx
Facultad de Filosofia y Letras
Universidad Autonoma de Chihuahua



Subject:  Re: Who's top dog?
Date:  Wed, 25 Feb 98 15:24:31
From:  "Frank Malgesini" 


Yeah, Cyrano, Solstice, of all the stories, is where it`s most obvious!

In "Widows" there`s another factor, isn`t there? What`s the role of the 
dead husband, the one who was in the car accident, in the relation between 
the two women?

Frank

Frank Malgesini 
fmalgesi@uach.mx
Facultad de Filosofia y Letras
Universidad Autonoma de Chihuahua



Date: Wed, 25 Feb 98 16:10:12 
From: "Frank Malgesini" 
Subject: Re: Violence

Steve

I`ve read your note over three times. It sounds convincing. Does that make 
Joyce Carol Oates a latter day Herbert Spencer?

I`m not sure I can follow you through the whole argument, but I do think 
that the idea that life is "wildly unstable" is basic to all Oates fiction. 
And I think a motivating force in human action in her stories is the search 
for stability or security. Moreover, the stability or order that the 
characters in the stories of Oates are able to construct is always an 
illusion.

Maybe if we substituted this search for security in a chaotic universe for 
the desire to reproduce I could accept your whole analysis.

I suppose this is completely unrelated to the points we are discussing, but 
one of my favorite poems is a description by Helen Chasin of the difference 
between the way a small child would look at the world and the way we do. I 
use this poem, which is taken from Coming Close and Other Poems published 
by Yale University Press, when I teach Oates` story Convalescing.

Telemann
(To A.C.)

Measure is a guess the mind makes about itself:
gestures and glimpses worked into confidence.

My daughter is excessive in her small age,
takes the world like breakfast,
pricks the raw yolks of mornings
till they run like blood in her mouth.
Skin`s a cage or a fiction.
Names prowl in the tall grass, beasts
tamed into syllables:
cat`s-paw, foxglove, hart`s tongue.
Birds have gone south three times and come back.
She serves up fistfulls of powered rock
to the sea, equitably pours hope
at the sand`s perpetual teatime.

In music things begin and end,
spread, strain, and return into themselves,
are contained: behave well,
like lessons we have learned and been praised for.
Untutored in these comforts, my girl
has her small ways.

Oates characters go through this process of making guesses about the world 
and about themselves and creating a personality from them. The stories 
often occur at the point where the process breaks down, where reality, 
often in the form of a violent event, intrudes upon the measure that that 
they have based their confidence upon.

Frank

Frank Malgesini 
fmalgesi@uach.mx
Facultad de Filosofia y Letras
Universidad Autonoma de Chihuahua



Subject: Re: Violence
From: composer2@juno.com (D. C. C.)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 19:04:25 EST

Great observation!   Very true.  I would subscribe to this argument.  I
may even propose that all of Oates' characters possess these
qualities--that is, there aren't any "neutral" "normal" or intentionally
"bland" characters.

David C.
Michigan

On Wed, 25 Feb 98 15:16:14  "Frank Malgesini"  writes:

>
>That about sums it up, doesn`t it. Hyper-reality. Whatever is 
>happening in 
>an Oates story, the emotions are either extreme or on the brink.
>



Subject:  Re: Violence
Date:  Wed, 25 Feb 1998 16:37:21 -0800 (PST)
From:  joyce l merritt 

Frank:

I think one of the things that you've demonstrated that "Getting and
Spending" embodies (though it also applies to an enormous number of the
examples that various people have mentioned in various context) is that so
many (and I'm strongly tempted to say most--I do agree with your last
message, Harvey--) of JCO's characters don't really believe that
nonabusive relationships are possible.  So they're greedy for what sugar
they can get, and take it from abusive sources because they can't conceive
deep down that there are other sources.  Surely part of what tempts the
narrator of "Getting and Spending" to consider "surrender" is a desire for
human contact that has become warped by interpreting bad experiences to be
the only possible ones. 

One thing that I find significant is how often neither the characters
giving or receiving abuse nor those who observe them actually label the
behavior abusive.  Either they seem to find the abuse normal (or
attractive) or they act as if the elements that make it abusive don't
exist or are only "minor" problems.  I think JCO means to protest this
denial as much as she protests the abuse--indeed, the denial is really
part of the abuse.  And, of course, all of this behavior is commonplace in
the real world.  JCO seems to be determined to insist on it until the
world WILL pay attention.  No wonder she is impatient with people who ask
about the violence in her work;  asking why she writes about violence
would be like asking Dostoyesvsky why he insisted on writing about sinners
("Couldn't you put in a few more nice people, Fyodor?  you have such a
great style;  you're such a great storyteller, but it's so tiring to read
about sinners, sinners, sinners all the time, and most of them not even
rich."). 

Steve



Subject:  Re: Violence
Date:  Wed, 25 Feb 98 17:20:37
From:   "Frank Malgesini" 


Harvey`s quotation from Nightside reminds me of a story from The Seduction, 
"Getting and Spending."  This is a story of a very abusive person who 
tyranizes over his family and whoever else falls within his sphere of 
dominance. I think it also throws light on two other themes that have come 
up recently: Cyrano`s obsevation that "sugar sticks" and another 
observation that love causes pain and that some people therefore resist it.

Ellen spoke sometime ago about the fact that sometimes women in the shelter 
would keep going back to abusive relationships because of the fear of 
facing the world unprotected. On the other hand, in reaction to the 
struggle of individuals for dominance over those they "love", we have 
frequent examples in Oates of characters who flee from human entanglements. 
We see this flight in physical isolation (The Heavy Sorrow of the Body from 
The Wheel of Love)  or in the erection of barriers against intimacy such as 
several of her religious figures construct. The priest in "Through the 
Looking Glass" (Crossing the Border) is an active popular teacher who has 
been able to interact with people only because the priesthood has set him 
apart and allowed him to avoid facing the world. Academic figures often use 
scholarly activity much as priests and nuns use the church.  The 
university, in fact, is repeatedly seen by the protagonists of Oates`novels 
as an escape from the difficulties and complexities of the world. 

(Some Spoilers)

I think "Getting and Spending is a good embodiment of all these themes. The 
antagonist of the narrator is a writer named Roger Craft who is young, 
not-too-well known and the author of a novel called Soul Glutton. In the 
first section we see him regularly mistreat his children and wife. 

"Once he cuffed Johnny on the side of the head, to make him sit still, and 
the sudden violent gesture cost him nothing, he hardly glanced at the boy, 
hardly exerted himself."

Eventually, he kills his younger son. At the close of the story, he is ten 
years older, much more successful, with a different wife and children but 
no change in his relation to his family. The story concludes with his 
words: "Life is a constant risk. It`s cannibalistic but you`ve got to face 
it, struggle with it, emerge triumphant. Write that down. It`s the secret 
of all my work. Write that down. Tell them that."

Roger Craft is cannibalistic. He consummes the people around him, bends 
them to his needs. The first day the family moves in, the narrator at 
dinner watches him hit the children with little provocation and little 
restraint.. He slaps Johnny hard, then later:

"He glanced over in surprise at his weeping child
`Hey, come here,^he said. Johnny ran into his arms and he patted the boy`s 
back." 

Johnny running into his arms despite what seems to be constant mistreatment 
is the most memorable moment of the story. Johnny who is later killed by 
his father seems more vulnerable than, for example, the child in 
"Christmas, 1962" who has at least learned not to think of the abuser as a 
father. For Johnny, the sugar sticks.

Roger Craft is a very unattractive figure and the people around him are 
miserable yet even the narrator is in a sense drawn to him even as she is 
repulsed. She comments that years later she told him, "You`re like someone 
who begins in the corner of an observer`s eye, then takes over the entire 
landscape." She says that she makes this statement bitterly as if she 
herself has struggled against his gluttony and Roger in fact does make 
gluttonous demands upon her each time they meet. In their first encounter 
in 1961, he is overbearing, trying to draw her into his circle and ignoring 
her resistance. "We were friends from the very beginning.  he later tells 
her.

But she escapes. She is one of those Oates characters who resists human 
intersaction. She is in Maine "hiding from people." When the family moves 
in downstairs she is panicked but tells herself, "These people don`t 
matter. They can`t hurt me." But after being around them a short time she 
escapes leaving her things in the rented house. In September, when she 
returns, she finds a note under her door:  "Why did you leave me?" and she 
comments to us:

"Because I might have broken. Suddenly. Because beneath my defiance I might 
have yearned to surrender. Like Johnny and Bob; might have broken suddenly 
wanting his love."

Actually although she spends the whole story escaping she never frees 
herself from his influence, possibly because together with his negative 
traits she is always aware of his energy in contrast to the people around 
him.

Though in this story the dysfunctional family is seen from a distance, the 
dysfunctional relations between Roger and his wives only hinted at through 
sporatic words and gestures and the potential dysfunctional relationship 
between Roger and the narrator both reasserted and truncated at every 
encounter, the elements of abusive relations are clearly suggested -perhaps 
more strongly because so much is left to the imagination.

Frank Malgesini 
fmalgesi@uach.mx
Facultad de Filosofia y Letras
Universidad Autonoma de Chihuahua



Date: Thu, 26 Feb 98 09:44:27 
From: "Frank Malgesini" 
Subject: Re: Violence


Steve

How seldom the behavior is labelled abusive

Yes, isn`t that precisely the problem in The Girl Who Was To Die. Not a 
woman indirectly inflicting violence upon another but an error in 
categorization. The step-daughter misunderstood the true nature of the 
situation of her friend and intervened with fatal results.

Frank

Frank Malgesini 
fmalgesi@uach.mx
Facultad de Filosofia y Letras
Universidad Autonoma de Chihuahua



Date: Thu, 26 Feb 98 09:50:21 
From: "Frank Malgesini" 
To: jco@usfca.edu
Subject: Bibliography


Randy

The format of the bibliography in Celestial Timepiece has been changed. The 
new format not only doesn`t let me in it also jams the program, booting me 
right out of the internet. 

Is there any possibility of once again having the old format as an option?

Frank

Frank Malgesini 
fmalgesi@uach.mx
Facultad de Filosofia y Letras
Universidad Autonoma de Chihuahua



Subject:  Re: women stereotypes in blackwater
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 16:49:30 EST
From:  Eka1 


Kelly, in black water, doesn't know who she is at all. throughout the book she
is constantly stopping herself from saying certain things and changing her
views to make things seem like she wants them to be like they are. she tries
to convince herself that she is what Judith Fryer in the Faces of Eve called
the new woman. she tries to play the role of the woman who is free from the
limitations of society which is the ideal situation for a woman in her
position, but she is dilluding herself. yes, she is an intelligent young
woman, but even through her intelligence there are marks of male dominance and
control. for instance, she graduated from brown university summa cum laude,
but she wrote her senoir dissertation on The Senator. she received high marks
for her intellectual endeavor, but even this amazing achievement is controlled
by The Senator. i think her self-deception is best seen in her thoughts right
before she plummeted into the water. she declares that she deserves to have
her wishes and thoughts heard, but it is too late; she is already sinking to
her death. 

to answer the question, kelly cannot be who she really is because she has no
idea who that person is. the reason she is not like other people her age in
trying to change their position is that she isn't the one who is running her
life. her life is controlled by the men in her life. her perception of the
world is evn controlled by these male figures which is symbolized in the
surgery that her dad made her get to correct her literal vision. kelly cannot
change her life because she is not in control, she is not in the drivers seat.


erica 



Subject:  Re: Violence
 Date:  Thu, 26 Feb 1998 19:07:01 EST
 From:  Ehaggar 

Frank,

I think in The Girl Who Was to Die, the whole point of the story is that the
stepdaughter (the homely awkward wallflower of high school days past)
DELIBERATELY engineers the death of the girl.  That scene in the kitchen with
the icecubes......also, remember the boyfriend is one of the many boys she
herself had hung around with who never showed any interest in her.......this
is murder by proxy.

Ellen haggar



Subject:   Re: Who's top dog?
Date:   Thu, 26 Feb 1998 21:34:27 EST
 From:   Cyranomish 
 
Yeah, Frank.  I'm aware of the dead husband.  What do YOU make of him?  Cyrano



Subject:   Re: Violence
 Date:  Thu, 26 Feb 1998 21:39:57 EST
From:  Cyranomish 


Negative, Frank.  I think Ednella had a pretty good idea of how homocidal her
meddling would turn out to be.  She's like Ivan in the BROTHERS KARAMAZOV,
criminally careless in the way she influences other people to carry out her
agenda.  Cyrano



Subject:  Re: Violence
 Date:  Fri, 27 Feb 98 08:50:15
From:  "Frank Malgesini" 


I think I`d better read the story again.

Frank

Frank Malgesini 
fmalgesi@uach.mx
Facultad de Filosofia y Letras
Universidad Autonoma de Chihuahua



Subject:Re: women stereotypes in blackwater
Date:  Fri, 27 Feb 1998 09:36:42 -0500 (CDT)
From:   ANDREA WRIGHT 


Page 51: "this past year she was determined to be healthy, to be normal,
forcing herself to eat regularly...she slept without sleeping pills."  This
seems to suggest she's regaining control of her life after her relationship
with G, who admittedly loved her less than she loved him (p. 51).  And doesn't
she become a Democrat, to the horror of her politically active Republican
father, to assert personal control?  I agree with some of your assessments, but
it seems that Kelly is aspiring to "normalcy," or the All-American girl image--
which is of course an illusion-- but which nevertheless allows her to gain some
personal control over her life.

AWright



Subject:  Re: women stereotypes in blackwater
Date:  Fri, 27 Feb 1998 18:07:46 EST
From:  Eka1 


i completely agree that kelly, in some ways, is trying to gain control of her
life, but in my opinion, it is just an unsuccessful attempt to become the new
woman. she makes valid steps, but she ultimately puts her life in the hands of
The (drunken) Senator which degrades all of her steps and is the end of her
life. 

erica



Date:         Sat, 28 Feb 98 14:10:25 EST
From: Mark Sutton 
Subject:      The Collector of Hearts


Hello everyone,

I was wondering if anyone knows what stories Oates is collecting in
_The Collector of Hearts:  New Tales of the Grotesque_ and if any were
originally published elsewhere.  I'm currently working on my Master's
thesis, using the stories in _Haunted_ and _Demon and Other Tales_.  I
thought it might prove useful to see how these newer stories compare to
those.

Thanks in advance,
mark sutton

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Last updated 3-3-98
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