Raven's Wing by Joyce Carol Oates
"Raven's Wing" by Joyce Carol Oates is a poignant short story that explores themes of perception, indifference, and the complexities of marital relationships. The narrative centers around Billy, a thirty-two-year-old man, and his twenty-four-year-old wife, Linda, who is pregnant with their first child. Despite their new marriage, Billy exhibits a lack of passion and interest in Linda, leading to a cycle of teasing and empty conversations between the couple. His fascination with a two-million-dollar racehorse named Raven's Wing, which has been injured, serves as a catalyst for personal reflection.
Through his connection with the horse, Billy begins to confront his own emotional detachment and the inadequacies in his perception of both Linda and their life together. The story subtly contrasts his excitement about the horse with his indifference towards Linda, highlighting the emotional barriers in their relationship. As the narrative progresses, small gestures such as gift-giving and the sharing of intimate moments suggest a gradual shift in Billy's awareness and appreciation of Linda. The story ultimately invites readers to reflect on the deeper meanings behind routine interactions and the transformative potential of unexpected connections.
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Raven's Wing by Joyce Carol Oates
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1985 (collected in Raven’s Wing, 1986)
Type of work: Short story
The Work
“Raven’s Wing,” a story in the volume of the same title, first appeared in Esquire and was included in The Best American Short Stories, 1985. It is a brief story, told with simplicity and subtlety and without the violence and passion of much of Oates’s other work, presenting a slice-of-life view of a rather ordinary marriage.
Billy is thirty-two years old and has been married to his twenty-four-year-old second wife, Linda, for barely a year. Though Linda is pregnant, Billy feels little passion for or interest in her, and he treats her with indifference and condescension. Linda, in turn, to stimulate his attention, baits, teases, and spites him. Their conversations are empty and end in noncommittal bickering.
Billy, who likes racing and gambling, becomes fascinated with a two-million-dollar racehorse named Raven’s Wing after it is crippled during a race. Linda cannot understand Billy’s fascination with the horse’s sheer size and value—he tells her that she lacks the adequate “frame of reference.” He resourcefully finds a way to visit Raven’s Wing in Pennsylvania, where it is recovering from major surgery, and, eye-to-eye with it, feels a sense of connection, an implicit mixture of awe, sympathy, and trust.
The story ends a short time later in two brief scenes. Billy gives Linda a pair of delicate earrings and finds excitement in watching her put them on. Weeks later, as he talks on the telephone, Linda comes to him warmly, holding out a few strands of coarse black hair, and presses close against him.
In “Raven’s Wing,” rather than stating Billy’s true feelings, of which he himself is only hazily aware, Oates suggests them through the details of external reality. Billy’s boredom with his home life is contrasted by his unexpected fascination with the racehorse. When he has “the vague idea” that Linda is pregnant with “another man’s baby,” and when he has sudden violent impulses toward her, he is responding less to her character or behavior than to his own inner discontent. In reality, it is his own “frame of reference” that is inadequate.
Oates’s story is about perception—about how things appear differently through the blurring lens of familiarity and routine. At one point, Billy remembers seeing a beautiful woman on the street; only after a moment did he realize that it was Linda, unusually dressed up and looking very sexy. At another point, Linda, seeking to engage him, says that if men had to have the babies they probably would not do it; Billy barely hears her, just as he does not appreciate how full his own life truly is, if he would only recognize it.
It is the encounter with Raven’s Wing that helps him to see. His fascination with the crippled creature betrays an unconscious awareness of the crippled state of his own psyche. Billy’s astonishment at the size, beauty, and value of the prize animal implicitly compares with the insensitivity of his attitude toward Linda. Similarly, the millions of dollars spent to save the horse for stud purposes humble Billy and bring home the reality of Linda’s pregnancy, of the very human power they share to love, to support, and to create.
The end of the story suggests, through the gift of the earrings, a more comfortable intimacy and Billy’s heightened awareness of Linda, indicating that the nature of their relationship has undergone a slight but very important shift. The black hairs that Linda holds, which are never explicitly identified, are a good luck souvenir from the mane of Raven’s Wing.
Bibliography
Bender, Eileen Teper. Joyce Carol Oates: Artist in Residence. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
Bloom, Harold, ed. Modern Critical Views: Joyce Carol Oates. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.
Cologne-Brookes, Gavin. Dark Eyes on America: The Novels of Joyce Carol Oates. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005.
Creighton, Joanne V. Joyce Carol Oates: Novels of the Middle Years. New York: Twayne, 1992.
Daly, Brenda O. Lavish Self-Divisions: The Novels of Joyce Carol Oates. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1996.
Johnson, Greg. Invisible Writer: A Biography of Joyce Carol Oates. New York: Dutton, 1998.
Johnson, Greg. Understanding Joyce Carol Oates. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1987.
Wagner-Martin, Linda, ed. Critical Essays on Joyce Carol Oates. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1979.