Joyce Carol Oates American Dream
Most Americans grow and dream of their ‘American Dream’; however, but do most Americans stop to think if they are following a bandwagon or an unnecessary tradition? Joyce Carol Oates refers to her characters as them in her 1969 novel them. The Great Depression was a time when women especially, desired to have a spouse and family to take care of. Throughout the novel, some of Oates’s characters, such as Loretta, become one of them by achieving a certain aspect of their American Dream. Thus, Joyce Carol Oates’s philosophy of writing novels, essays, and short stories as versatile and violent influences the way she depicts Detroit between 1930-1960, and her toils and triumphs of her life. Understanding who Joyce Carol Oates is will allow her audience
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Her novel them caused some positive pivots in her life, but also developed some negative criticism. The novel falls at the point where she writes a “trilogy exploring three different parts of American society” (“Joyce”, Encyclopedia). One of America’s most historical events was when Americans suffered through The Great Depression, which is utilized in the beginning of her novel when Loretta, one of her main characters, grows up in a household where Loretta’s parents are struggling with money. This novel was the third of the trilogy and it “won Oates a National Book Award at the age of thirty two” (“them” 261). Oates’s novel them is set mainly in Detroit, Michigan where she and her husband Raymond Smith lived during the 1960s riots (Cash). Depicting the 1960s race riots in them “Oates’s work was often criticized for its violent themes and images” (Showalter 139). Multiple readers and critics received her work as intense or brutal. Joyce Carol Oates herself thought that “some criticism is plainly envious...perhaps critics (mainly men) who charged me with writing too much are secretly afraid that someone will accuse them of having too little with their lives” (Showalter 138). But on the bright side, there were some positive critics who believed that after publishing them in 1969 it was “a pivotal decade in Oates’s career” (Campbell). In addition to that, a critic wrote, “Miss Oates is getting increasingly good at sneaking us into situations the full insanity of which explodes only after we’re imaginatively committed to them” (Adams). Oates’s work is continuing to interest America’s reader with her style of
Her novel them caused some positive pivots in her life, but also developed some negative criticism. The novel falls at the point where she writes a “trilogy exploring three different parts of American society” (“Joyce”, Encyclopedia). One of America’s most historical events was when Americans suffered through The Great Depression, which is utilized in the beginning of her novel when Loretta, one of her main characters, grows up in a household where Loretta’s parents are struggling with money. This novel was the third of the trilogy and it “won Oates a National Book Award at the age of thirty two” (“them” 261). Oates’s novel them is set mainly in Detroit, Michigan where she and her husband Raymond Smith lived during the 1960s riots (Cash). Depicting the 1960s race riots in them “Oates’s work was often criticized for its violent themes and images” (Showalter 139). Multiple readers and critics received her work as intense or brutal. Joyce Carol Oates herself thought that “some criticism is plainly envious...perhaps critics (mainly men) who charged me with writing too much are secretly afraid that someone will accuse them of having too little with their lives” (Showalter 138). But on the bright side, there were some positive critics who believed that after publishing them in 1969 it was “a pivotal decade in Oates’s career” (Campbell). In addition to that, a critic wrote, “Miss Oates is getting increasingly good at sneaking us into situations the full insanity of which explodes only after we’re imaginatively committed to them” (Adams). Oates’s work is continuing to interest America’s reader with her style of