JCO: RE: We were the Mulvaneys

Hi Julie:

I haven't read "Naked", so I can't comment specifically on that story.  About rape in the JCO works that I have read (a fair number), I would say that the description "they suggest that rape is inevitable, that women like, desire, or deserve rape, and construct women as always already victims or victimized" is not accurate (there are elements in society that do indeed present women and rape in those terms, as we're all unfortunately aware, but not JCO).  The closest part of this quote to applying to JCO's work generally probably would be the part about rape being inevitable.  Not that I believe that JCO thinks that it is inevitable as an occurance, but rather that it inevitably is a risk.  That sense of risk permeates much, maybe most, of her work.  But isn't she just being realistic?  Can anyone (and I literally mean anyone, though of course the risk is highest for women) say, I have not been and cannot and will never be raped?  Thank goodness that rape isn't inevitably part of the "modern female coming-of-age story", but isn't having to consider the possibility of rape part of that story?  Given JCO's determination to look at our violent society, wouldn't it be a whitewash to exclude rape, effectively a slap in the face to rape victims by repeating the old pattern of denial? (Aren't we getting close to "We Were the Mulvaneys" territory now?)  There are of course JCO characters who are raped and who are very much victim-types, such as the narrator of "Man Crazy", but surely a main, perhaps the main, point of that story is to show how someone might reach the state of being such a victim (JCO has said that she knew some women in upstate New York who developed victim roles in their lives, and that one element in her writing is to investigate why anyone would do that).  Other JCO characters are not passive in this way;  they work to avoid being raped, or they don't simply accept being victims if they are raped ("Mysteries of Winterthurn" is too rich of a novel to be given just one characterization, but surely it is, among so many other things, a rape revenge story).  I've never read any work of JCO's where characters expressed or exemplified degrading attitudes toward women (not just about rape) where it wasn't clear that JCO thoroughly disagreed with them.  But because the attitudes remain common in the real world, I would be disappointed in a serious writer who never wanted to explore them.  JCO is too good an artist to do this in terms of "'I hate women', said the disgusting jerk in a loathsome voice".  Apparently because she's not so unsubtle, some people have managed to misunderstand her.  I hope this all makes sense.

 

Steve

 

 

I am writing a piece on We were the Mulvaneys and in particular the representation of rape. I have come across an essay by Christine Atkins "'This is What you Deserve' : Rape as Rite of Passage in Joyce Carol Oates's 'Naked' - which seems to me to be a feminist criticism on the portrayal of rape in this particular short story. Atkins criticizes Oates as it aligns itself with 'cultural rape scripts' - which she sees as:

'problematic because they serve to justify and/or deny male sexual aggression toward women through the perpetuation of false beliefs about rape. They suggest that rape is inevitable, that women like, desire, or deserve rape, and construct women as always already victims or victimized.'

She accuses 'women writers such as Oates' of not challenging rape scripts but instead making rape part of the 'modern female coming-of-age story.'

 

Has anyone seen this particular article or any responses to it or have any comments on to what extent the Mulvaneys might be seen as 'problematic' in the Atkins sense?

Julie W