The Construction Of Identities In Joyce Carol Oates’s Recent Novels

Recently the issue of identity has drawn much attention from many areas insocial and humanity studies. Its importance has been increasingly projected alongsidethe world-wide changes in politics, economy and ideology. The discussion of the issueof identity has also been closely associated with the disintegration of colonies and theacceleration of globalization. Influenced by philosophy, psychology and sociology,more and more attention has been paid to the issue of identity in literary criticism,which frequently regards it as something fluid and changing rather than fixed andindependent, and as something free from predetermination. American writer JoyceCarol Oates continues her realistic style of writing and with her sharp observation ofAmerican social reality, she has expressed her concern over identity in post-industrialand postmodern context in her recent novels published in the first ten years of the21stcentury. This dissertation focuses on four recent novels by Oates between2003and2007to discuss how she reveals the anxiety and frustration of the characters in theirconstruction of cultural, racial, social and gender identities.Through depicting the story of some German immigrants in The Gravedigger’sDaughter, Oates keeps a watchful eye on people’s struggles and confusion about theircultural identity that is no longer a shared and collective one, but a changing andconstructed one. In the text Oates portrays the characters who adopt differentstrategies to cope with their cultural identity crisis. No matter what strategies theyadopt--the total abandonment, the reliance upon the traditional or the reshaping of anew--they suffer from mental pains and spiritual alienation. The construction ofcultural identity is a continuous and never-ending process.Portraying post-Vietnam America against the background of civil rightsmovement, Black Girl/White Girl exposes the pervasive nature of racism in theUnited States in1970s. The issue of racial identity is exhibited through the whitenarrator’s confrontation with her own identity. In the text, Oates makes it clear thatthe black racial identity is constructed as “inferior,” the marginalized Other. The story of the protagonist shows how African Americans are otherized in the Americansociety and how otherness brings about spiritual isolation and psychologicalalienation that lead to the tragedy of death. More importantly, Oates implies a strongpossibility of the transgression of the accepted racial division constructed by thedominant racial ideology by blurring the boundary between truths and lies.The analysis of The Tattooed Girl is undertaken from the perspective of socialidentity theory. There are signs of differences in profession and educationalbackgrounds as well as sharp economic disparity between the poor and the rich. Thesesigns in turn compose class distinction and the rigid hierarchy of social identities.Being economically and socially disadvantaged, the lower class in the novel with asubordinate social identity experiences personal struggles and strives for meresurvival while the middle class in the novel with a privileged social identityundergoes spiritual suffering due to the traumatic memory of the family past. Oatesalso presents a utopian desire of the lower class for an upward mobility so as tochange their social identities. However, this utopian desire of altering social identityboundary is just a dream. As a result, in the end of the story, the deaths of the twocharacters seem to indicate the incompatible conflicts between social classes.My study analyzes gender identity in The Falls, regarding gender as a social andcultural construct manipulated by regulatory practices. The hero’s suicide can beinterpreted as a resistance against the compulsory gender pattern of heterosexualitymaintained by regulatory practices and the dominant ideology. Moreover, Oatespresents another main female character as a person who is forced to turn herself into atraditionally accepted and normative wife-mother model, subjecting herself to thenorms of femininity imposed by the patriarchal division of gender identity.In a sense, the study of identity construction is in essence to examine theconflicts and the confrontations between the dominance and the subordination, thecenter and the margin, and the privileged and the disadvantaged. Accordingly, whatOates brings under critical scrutiny in the four novels is the influence of regulatorysocial discourses on the identity construction of the individuals who confront theentrenched boundaries of culture, race, class and gender. Moreover, this dissertation intends to uncover the humanism behind Oates’s realistic portrayal of the frustratedand alienated characters and her sympathetic approach to their marginalizedexperience. My study will also serve as a flatstone on the pavement, offering,hopefully, a step forward toward the excavation of the full stature and importance ofOates’s works that are rich resources worthy of exploration.