Joyce Carol Oates Satire

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The frequent “violence”, “abuse” and “conflict” that are ever present in Joyce Carol Oates’s writing, coupled with Oates’s morbid appearance and her uncanny resemblance to actress Shelly Duvall from Stephen King’s “The Shining”, might imply that Oates’s past/childhood held proverbial abusive events from family, lover or a stranger. But as one delves deep into the abundant biographies about Oates’s, surprisingly, the grim nature of Oates’s literary prose is not analogous to her past….only fragments of her past/childhood are intertwined in her writing. Then, did Oates’s dark imagination and grim writing derive from literary infatuation, her distinct religious background or her fascination with the “American Tragedy”? Although the posed question might be somewhat unknown, what is known is the contrasted criticism toward Oates’s works, specifically in regard to her style of writing and her frequent use of descriptive violence. Through the perspectives of several biographies…show more content…
This provocative writing often springs forth negative criticism towards Oates’s works. Despite lack of antecedents in oats life, many writers are conducive to the proliferation of her literary prose. Coupled with Faulkner and Kafka, Oates’s admitted other important influences to be “Freud, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky and Melville” (Joslin 5). For instance, Eden County the setting of Oates’s novel and short stories, is based on a milieu in which is grew up as with “William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County, or Margret Laurence’s town of Manawaka” (Tolomeo 2). Also certain similarities are present in Oates’s works and D.H. Lawrence. The most prominent is Lawrence’s and Oates’s obsession to sexuality… similar to Lawrence, Oates’s is fascinated with the power and compelling force of sex (Waller 2). This sexual fascination is of course visible in her works, more specifically in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You
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