Theme: Violence

        "When people say there is too much violence in [my books], what they are saying is there is too much reality in life." Joyce Carol Oates does not believe that her written works are particularly violent, but rather believes that her writing portrays reality in a way that doesn't sugar-coat anything. She finds it offensive that people (like me) jump to the conclusion that something must have happened in her lifetime to influence her to write about such topics. In her own essay, "Why is Your Writing So Violent?" she says, "it is always an insulting question; and it is always sexist;" a male writer would never be asked the same question. 
        Another issue that Oates brings to light is how men and women are "designated" certain topics to write about based on their gender.  Oates states: "It was once put to me directly, and no doubt has often been suggested by indirection, that I should focus my writing on 'domestic' and 'subjective' material, in the manner (for instance) of Jane Austen or Virginia Woolf, that I should leave large social-philosophical issues to men." This view expressed by Oates reminded me of the article we read in class, "When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision," by Adrienne Rich. In this article, an identical view is shared, even in the reference to Virginia Woolf:


        No male writer has written primarily or even largely for women, or with the sense of women's criticism as a consideration when he chooses his materials, his theme, his language. But to a lesser or greater extent, every woman writer has written for men even when, like Virginia Woolf, she was supposed to be addressing women. If we have come to the point when this balance might begin to change, when women can stop being haunted, not only by 'convention and propriety' but by internalized fears of being and saying themselves, then it is an extraordinary moment for the woman writer-and reader (20).


        Interestingly, both of these articles were published within ten years of one another, Rich's in 1972 and Oates's in 1981, which means that these were the ideas being expressed during that time period. Oates's writing must have helped to open the door for other women writers when it came to the harsh topics that she chose to write about that were generally considered "male topics." Does this mean that Oates's writing was revolutionary towards a women's feminist movement? I have yet to explore Oates's role as a feminist; however, I am sure that I will find plenty on this new unearthed topic.