Stalking by Joyce Carol Oates

First published: 1972

Type of plot: Psychological

Time of work: The early 1970's

Locale: Apparently a U.S. suburb

Principal Characters:

• Gretchen, the thirteen-year-old protagonist
• The Invisible Adversary, the taunting figure that she follows

The Story

On a cold, gritty November day, Gretchen follows the Invisible Adversary through muddy fields and past vacant buildings to a shopping mall, then to a Big Boy restaurant, and, finally, to her own suburban home. It is a landscape littered with the debris of a burgeoning middle America, with its developing tract home subdivisions, detouring traffic, gas stations, banks, restaurants, and stores. The realistic portrayal of the landscape is infused with the sensibility of a young teenager who is so detached from her surroundings and other people that she displays an utter disregard for the consequences of her actions.

Gretchen has hours for her game of stalking on this Saturday afternoon, and her sheer plodding determination is menacing in its relentlessness. In contrast to the Invisible Adversary, who has "long spiky legs brisk as colts' legs," Gretchen "is dressed for the hunt, her solid legs crammed into old blue jeans, her big, square, strong feet jammed into white leather boots that cost her mother forty dollars not long ago, but are now scuffed and filthy with mud. Hopeless to get them clean again, Gretchen doesn't give a damn." Her face, too, is strong, yet neutral and detached. More than just teenage angst, Gretchen's impassivity seems to reflect a deeper discontent and the possibility for destruction.

As the Adversary taunts her, Gretchen follows him through a field to a new gas station that has not opened in the six months that her family has lived in the town. The new building now has broken windows, and snakelike tar has been smeared on the white wall. Cars move past her as they detour because of construction on storm sewer pipes. She remembers the Adversary, and after jumping over a concrete ditch stained with rust-colored water, she contemplates a closed bank before entering the Buckingham Mall. She always seems to notice her surroundings, especially the geometric shapes of signs and the vacancy of buildings, with an aloof impartiality. She barely acknowledges the few people who enter her consciousness. Instead, she plods along, following the Adversary with quiet excitement and with a cunning, patient attitude.

Once inside the mall's drugstore, as a salesgirl's attention is diverted by another customer, Gretchen shoplifts a tube of light pink lipstick. Despite the Adversary's finger-wagging admonishment, she steals a package from a cardboard barrel without knowing or caring what it is. With the Adversary trotting ahead of her, Gretchen calmly enters another store. In the bathroom, she smears the lipstick onto the mirror and then tosses the tube, shoplifted toothpaste, toilet paper, and a cloth towel down the toilet until it clogs. Gretchen's next act of quiet destruction occurs when a boy bumps her into a trash can; she methodically spills its contents. After a ritual stop in Sampson Furniture, she enters Dodi's Boutique where she takes several dresses into a dressing room. She steps on a white wool dress, smearing mud on it, and breaks the zipper on another.

With the same methodical pursuit of the Adversary, she next enters a department store. She catches a glimpse of her mother on an escalator. Gretchen's mother does not see her, and Gretchen makes no effort to make contact with her mother. This stalking is just between the Adversary and the girl. Gretchen eats at a Big Boy restaurant while the Adversary waits outside. After eating, she follows the Adversary to the highway. She waits and then sees the Adversary dart out in front of a car. She follows the staggering and bleeding Adversary to an upper-middle-class neighborhood, giggling that he walks like a drunken man. He leads her to a large colonial house, and she is entranced at the blood spots the Adversary has left in the foyer. Her boots leave a trail of mud in her empty house; her mother must still be shopping, and her father is out of town. Gretchen settles down on the goatskin sofa to watch a rerun of a "Shotgun Steve" show. Chillingly, with the stalking game at an impasse, Gretchen decides, "If the Adversary comes crawling behind her, groaning in pain, weeping, she won't even bother to glance at him."

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.