An Analysis On Oates' Female Consciousness In Them

In twentieth century, America had experienced several Women's Liberation movements, but women's situation was not completely changed. Men were still dominators in all walks of life including in family. Women were designated subservient roles. Women of lower class not only had to face the pressure that economic poverty brought them. They also had to suffer from the threats and oppression from their opposite sex. They struggled themselves in pain and had no opportunity to develop their personal talents and determine their own selfhood. They were so weak and feeble that any man seems to be able to change their fate.Joyce Carol Oates is a distinguished novelist, poetess and playwright in contemporary America. She is versatile and prolific. Her extraordinary talent in writing attracts all people in the literary circle. Because violence is her usual topic, her novels often concern American social evils. That is also the reason why she has also received censure from critics with traditional literary standards and few people analyze her works from the view of female consciousness. Them known as a notable advance in Oates' maturity as a writer, is a peak of the literary creation in her early stage. She has got a breakthrough in writing style and content-design. This quasi-autobiographical novel delicately combines realistic and naturalistic writing style. It shows us American people's miserable life, especially women's fate from 1930s to 1960s. Women were mentally and materially controlled by male-oriented society. Through the protagonists, Loretta and Maureen's life experience, Oates manifests a process of the development of female consciousness. Loretta, the mother, is a woman completely controlled by men. She is passive and obedient. She has no idea of breaking through such bondage. Her father, husband and brother control her life in different ways and at different phases. Her daughter, Maureen though superficially faces reality with silence and patience, she is quite different from her mindless mother. Her heart is full of desire of damaging all. She tries any means tochange her fate. By her depiction of female images, Oates shows her profound sympathy for women of lower class and great dissatisfaction to the social reality. Oates also involves her life experience as a woman and a woman writer in writing them. As a writer, because of her prolificacy and violent topic, she has to be burdened with occasional cavil and pressure from reviewers. Therefore, them with certain female conscious color, has shortened the distance between her female images and feminism.Them is written in Oates' early period of literary creation. Immature writing techniques make it impossible to be independent from the influence of her literary predecessors. Historical scenes and objective third-person description make her approach male-oriented literary stream. Female images with rebellious thoughts, though have some breakthrough in action, they are finally unable to escape from the confinement of men. Oates only provides us the situation in which women are oppressed. She does not find a way out for them. These restrict the expression of Oates' female consciousness and put it in an embryonic stage.This dissertation, centered with the text, analyzes Oates' female consciousness in them with the aid of culture criticism and feminist theories. It will lay a foundation for further investigation of her literary creation process and the development of her female consciousness.