Analysis Of Joyce Carol Oats Rape A Love Story

As Alice was going through major hell during the rape and even after the rape, it seemed as it was not taken seriously by others. Alice describes her pain, fears, and many problems that came along the way when it came for fighting for herself and the after effect of the rape. Being a rape victim was not easy, and Alice showed many signals that she needed more than just comfort, but sadly many of them failed to provide that for her.

Oates herself admits the connection, claiming she wrote the story "after having read about a killer in some Southwestern state" (Reaske and Knott 720) in a magazine. Oates' use of an actual story around the time she wrote her piece shows how she was intensely affected by the violence that occurred around her during the time she lived in. This touches on Biographical Criticism, which stresses both the life of the author and how that life affected them as an artist. The story Oates draws from is that of Charles Schmid, who (perhaps with an accomplice - though this was never proven) raped and killed a young girl named Alleen Rowe. The details of this story are undeniably repeated in Oates' tale through both the plot and the characters. Connie, the victim in Oates' story, has much in common with actual victim Alleen. Both were fifteen at the time of their encounter with their predator. Both had just finished washing their hair and were home alone when their attackers came to their house. Both girls were lured from their house into the arms of their attacker: Connie was presumably headed for the remote wilderness with him, while Alleen was actually taken there. Alleen was raped and beaten to death, and the threat of rape is frighteningly apparent for Connie - though the question of her death is left up to the reader. Connie's attacker tells her, "'I'm your lover. You don't know what that is yet, but you will'" (Oates 710). The predators of both girls also had much in

In the story, “Where are you Going, Where Have you Been?” the author, Joyce Carol Oates, uses literary devices to convey a message about the loss of innocence. To be more specific, Oates’s characterization of the protagonist, Connie, specifically shows the actions leading to her innocence being taken from her. The literary device of characterization gives a clear picture Oates thoughts at the time she wrote the story, expressing concern for young girls who are at risk of having their innocence taken from them.

Following the examinations of Twyla and Roberta’s experience after the assault, one of Twyla’s ending statements constitutes one of the most significant and explicit results of trauma. As the girls by the

Guilt, Fear, and Rejection: Loss of Innocence in“Life after High School In her short story, “Life After High School,” Joyce Carol Oates explores the loss of innocence experienced by the main characters, Barbara “Sunny” Burhman and Zachary Graff, through the use of literary devices such as story structure and characterization. In order to emphasize the loss of innocence in both characters, Oates divides her story into three distinct parts. She begins by looking back on Zachary calling at Sunny’s window on what she describes as “that last night”. In the third person narrative, Oates briefly depicts the circumstances of that night, as well as Barbara’s later feelings toward the event.

The archetypal rape victim flaunts her femininity, clad in skimpy clothing whilst walking through darkened parks. The archetypal rape victim is asking for it. At least, that’s the argument used by Teena Maguire’s neighbors to justify her assailants raping her. In Joyce Carol Oates “Rape: A Love Story”, by aligning Teena with the archetypal rape victim, the author employs the switching between second and third point of view, irony, the progressively dismissive diction, as well as the short syntactic structure to emphasize the raw objectiveness of rape in an attempt to delineate the minimizing of rape, and highlight the injustices committed when rapists evade jail time on the basis of technicalities. Written mostly in third person, with the

What Janie’s grandma experienced was not warm, caring love. Getting love was the worst thing to ever happen to Nanny. The child conceived by the horrific effects of the rape, Leafy, was also sexually assaulted at a young age. One day Nanny explains to Janie, “But one day she didn’t come home at de usual time and Ah waited and waited, but she never come home all dat night… De next mornin’ she came crawlin’ in her hands and knees… Dat school teacher had done hid her in the woods all night long, and he had donerped muhbaby and run on off just before day” (Hurston 18). This shows that someone as sensitive as your first love and virginity can be the worst thing to ever happen to a little girl. Leafy gave birth to Janie and left the newborn with her mother, Nanny, to live the rest of her life drinking away the pain. When Nanny explains how Janie’s mother left it further highlights the idea of love being the worst tragedy in one’s life. The rape left Janie’s mother absolutely broken, to the point she could not raise the child. Janie never met her mother and never got the love she wanted from her maternal mom. The love and sexual interest the Crawford women hoped to get wasn’t what they

The masochistic relationships that Janey engages in illustrate the extent of her psychological trauma. She falls in love with abusers, over and over again, hinting at the symbolic and structural violence heteronormative patriarchy commits against women. Janey experiences various masochistic relationships that erase her explicit consent, or her explicit rejection of the abuse she endures. Of one of her violent affairs, Janey writes in her diary, “I didn’t want to

    “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” one of O’Connor’s best works, describes a family on a trip to Florida and their encounter with an escaped prisoner, The Misfit. Although “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is an early work in O’Connor’s career, it contains many of the elements which are used in the majority of her short stories. The grandmother, a selfish and deceitful woman, is a recipient of a moment of grace, despite her many flaws and sins. A moment of grace is a revelation of truth. When the grandmother calls The Misfit her child and reaches out to touch him, the grandmother has a moment of grace that enabled her to see The Misfit as a suffering human being who she is obligated to love. The grandmother realizes that nothing will stop The Misfit from killing her but she reaches out to him despite this. The Misfit rejects her love and kills her anyway. This moment of grace is very important

Patricia Lockwood’s The Rape Joke is a risky composition- not because it discloses information about Lockwood’s personal rape experience, but because it does so from a comedic stance, ridiculing the unfortunate event and the events leading up to and after it. While the creation of the poem was prompted due to the sexual assault she experienced, the content and subject are not centered around the incident or the assaulter but around rape culture and the sociological concept of victim blaming, from both society and oneself. There is no such thing as a rape joke-the joke is the incredulous ways society has guided people to respond to it.

In order to properly view a story from a feminist perspective, it is important that the reader fully understands what the feminist perspective entails. “There are many feminist perspectives, and each perspective uses different approaches to analyze and interpret texts. One is that gender is “socially constructed” and another is that power is distributed unequally on the basis of sex, race, and ethnicity, religion, national origin, age, ability, sexuality, and economic class status” (South University Online, 2011, para. 1). The story “Girl” is an outline of the things young girls

Jacobs’ narrative is open and honest in its depiction of sexual harassment, describing the nature of the abuse and the tortured emotional state it leaves its victims in. Though the narrative tells of a girl’s life over one hundred and fifty years ago, it remains timely in its reminder that many suffering women do not have the ability to safely end the harassment they face every day, and yet, they continue to endure the consequential

The tone of this story is one of fear, regret, and guilt. The story first leaves the reader with impression that it may be a recount of the life of a daughter who was lost due to neglect. Soon it is evident

Barnett, Pamela E. “Figurations of Rape and the Supernatural in Beloved.”  Pmla, vol. 112, no. 3, 1997, p. 418., doi:10.2307/462950. In this article, Barnett discusses how the presence of sexual violence and outright rape throughout the novel, Beloved, maintain a particularly powerful impression upon the characters who have endured such trauma. Furthermore, the rape that the characters experienced impacted how the women interact with their motherhood.

Some might be outraged at the notion that rape is not to be considered a tragedy. It is, of course, a horrific act. One that inflicts so much damage that it can cause PTSD type triggers in survivors. Rape is a before/after moment, people who experience it begin to think of how life was before and now after the event. For instance, with the character Salima, her life before the incident included a loving family with her “good husband” (35) and