Unlikely Heroines: Self-Destructive Sexuality and Narrative Identity-Building in the Fiction of Joyce Carol Oates

Jenaeth Markaj

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Unlikely Heroines: Self-Destructive Sexuality and Narrative Identity-Building in the Fiction of Joyce Carol Oates

于Best Served Cold: Studies on Revenge

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Jenaeth Markaj

Jenaeth Markaj
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类型:: 章节

Page Range:: 145–152

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9781848880436_017

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This paper addresses the unique contributions of Joyce Carol Oates to contemporary women’s fiction. Although her voluminous body of work has received considerable critical acclaim, the explosive sexuality and violence depicted frequently in her writing, in addition to the apparent passivity of her female characters, have drawn harsh criticism. Feminists in particular have condemned her narratives for condoning female victimization. While at first glance, such an interpretation might seem justified due to the graphic nature of the subject matter, it neglects a crucial redemptive pattern that surfaces repeatedly in her writing. Oates posits and demonstrates narration as a cathartic process of identity development that initiates the emergence of authentic, autonomous female voice. Her writing affirms the importance of considering not only the events unfolding in the course of a novel, but the narrative process by which the author articulates these events when considering the nature of a work’s significance to gendered experience and authorship. This generative process, when considered as a means of redefining personal identity, emerges as a more fulfilling, in essence, more substantive form of retaliation than the type of revenge traditionally played out in the narrative setting –catharsis for the title character in the form of a triumphant and violent act may appear the epitome of vengeance in the context of the novel. But how much more unapologetic and revolutionary is a woman’s refusal to depict rebellion in service to the reader’s desire for a satisfying conclusion in favor of a more understated and sincere testament to self-fulfillment through narration?

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Best Served Cold: Studies on Revenge

ISBN:: 9781848880436

出版社:: Brill

印刷出版日期:: 29 Apr 2010

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Classical Studies	Literature and Cultural Studies

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Unlikely Heroines: Self-Destructive Sexuality and Narrative Identity-Building in the Fiction of Joyce Carol Oates

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Best Served Cold: Studies on Revenge

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