Joyce Carol Oates: A Modern Writer - Essay Example

Joyce Carol Oates Joyce is an American born in 1938 in Lockport, New York. Joyce was the oldest in a family of three children. Her mother Carolina raised her as a Catholic, but she is now an atheist. She grew up in a working class farming community in Millersport. She published her first book in 1963 ‘By the North Gate. Since then, she has published over forty novels. Scholars in literature classify the modernist period as between the years 1900 to around 1965 (Potter 32). It is during this period that the world underwent profound changes such as war and industrialization. The profound changes made writers during this period to respond in a variety of ways through their literary works. Modern authors embraced the use of formal stylistic devices and thematic characteristics in their work. This paper will look at the characteristics that manifest in modern authors, and how Joyce can get regarded as a modern writer. Special focus will get provided to her novel, ‘we were the Mulvaneys’. Just as the changes that marked society at the birth of modernist literature, Joyce’s novel depicts changes that occurred in the Mulvaney family. The novel shows the destruction and reconstruction of an American family. In her novel, ‘We were the Mulvaneys’, she writes about the Mulvaney family which existed from the 1960’s to mid 70’s. At the start of the novel, the Mulvaneys’ represents a typical family like the ones seen on television. They sit after dinner and play games together. The love the family members shared for each other gets depicted in the first chapters of the novel (Joyce 74). The members who lived a simple life were so united, and they enjoyed each other’s company. They got admired for being a model for a perfect family. However, tragedy strikes the family when the daughter gets raped by a son from a well to do family. This marks the beginning of the family’s destruction. The eldest son Patrick struggles to identify himself as anyone other than a Mulvaney. The father, Michael grows into a disillusioned figure after the community defends her daughter’s rapist. He got so angry when she did not press charges against her assailant. It was for this reason that he sent her away to stay with a distant relative in Salamanca as he could not look at her own daughter the same way he did before (Joyce 234) Corrine, the mother who was once cheerful struggles to deal with the harsh reality. Marianne gets forced out of the home, has trouble growing up and become her own person. The father gradually becomes an alcoholic, and he lost his respected reputation as a business man. The destruction of the family represents a common thematic issue for modern authors as Joyce. In ‘we were the Mulvaneys’, Joyce uses individualism. Individualism is a common stylistic device employed by modernist authors (Potter 66). The novel emphasizes on how the members of the Mulvaney family struggle to keep their heads above water in the face of their tribulations. Modernist authors employ this device to show how characters adapt to a changing world. In a traditional society, the community surrounding the Mulvaney family would have defended Michael’s daughter and not her rapist. Joyce tries to show how each individual of the Mulvaney family tries to cope with the harsh reality of the rape. Joyce devotes equal time to all the Mulvaney’s in her novel. She employs Judd, the family’s baby as the narrator. The novel also strays from the narrator and engages the reader with Patrick’s or Marianne’s thoughts. The author depicts the stories of each member of the family by employing individualism. It focuses on how much each character struggles to overcome their obstacles. This provides more interests to the individuals than the community surrounding the family. The use of individualism in her work marks Joyce as a modern author. In her novel, ‘we were the Mulvaneys’, Joyce also employs figures of speech. The use of figures of speech in her work marks her as a modern author. She uses literary techniques such as symbolism, syntax, and imagery in characterization of Judd Mulvaney who cuts across as an insightful and clever young man (Bradshaw & Dettmar 46). The author uses Judd’s thoughts to depict his world. She also characterizes Judd through syntax when she allows him to think for himself and becoming enlightened by his own nature. The author employs symbolism when Judd stares into a pool of water. The water represents life as a whole, and his stare represents deep thought. The use of literary techniques to describe situations in her work shows that Joyce is a modern author. Through her novel, Joyce also deals with the theme of destruction and reconstruction. The portrayal of this theme in her work shows that the author is cognizant of the destruction and reconstruction the society around her underwent during her growth (Bradshaw & Dettmar 198). The Mulvaney family undergoes destruction after the rape. After almost two decades of pain Mike gradually became an alcoholic, and he lost his respected reputation as a business man., the family meets once again at Corinne’s new home. It was a family reunion at Corinne’s place, which she shared with a friend. When they met the family had extended as it included spouses and grand children. The novel ends with the Mulvaneys re- uniting and becoming a full circle again. The novel shows how the family fell apart and got mended again. The book is engrossing at certain points but spins out to extremely sorrowful moments. It only takes a mistake in the girl’s life to push the once model family to its knees. The community also reacted by condemning and stopping to associate with the family. The victim of the crime is the one who got blamed, and this depicts what goes on in the modern times. Through her novel, ‘we were the Mulvaneys’, Joyce Oates cuts across as a modern author. Through the themes she addresses in the novel, she represents the characteristics that engulfed her. The author presents the destruction and reconstruction of the Mulvaney family. She uses literary techniques associated with modern authors such as symbolism, syntax, and imagery to detail the family (Potter 123). She also emphasizes on each individual character of the Mulvaney family to detail her novel. Modern authors pay detail to the individual who gets valued higher than the society. Through her novel, ‘we were the Mulvaney’, Joyce Oates clearly shows her modern period through the depiction of the Mulvaney family. In the novel, Joyce shows the situations that face the modern family. The narrator also addresses vices that people in modern time encounter like alcoholism and rape. Works Cited David Bradshaw, Kevin J. H. Dettmar. A Companion to Modernist Literature and Culture. New York: Wiley, 2006. Oates, Joyce Carol. We were the Mulvaneys. New York: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated, 1997. Potter, Rachel. Modernist Literature. Edinburgh: EDINBURGH University Press, 2012. Read More