them by Joyce Carol Oates
"them" by Joyce Carol Oates is a novel that delves into the complexities of family dynamics and the impact of violence on personal identity. Set against the backdrop of Detroit in the mid-20th century, the story follows sixteen-year-old Loretta Botsford, whose life takes a sudden and tragic turn when her brother, Brock, commits murder. This incident sparks a chain of events that profoundly affects Loretta's relationships, particularly with her eventual husband, Howard, and their children.
As Loretta navigates a tumultuous life marked by domestic strife, personal loss, and the challenges of parenthood, her son Jules grows up grappling with his own identity and emotional experiences. The narrative explores themes of self-discovery, the influence of familial expectations, and the ramifications of societal pressures. Oates weaves a rich tapestry of characters whose lives intertwine amidst the struggles of urban life, domestic violence, and the search for belonging. The novel ultimately presents a poignant commentary on the cyclical nature of trauma and resilience within the context of family and community.
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them by Joyce Carol Oates
First published: 1969
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Psychological realism
Time of plot: August, 1937-1967
Locale: Detroit, Michigan
Principal characters
Loretta Botsford Wendall , a wife and motherBrock Botsford , her brotherRita , her childhood friendHoward Wendall , her first husband, a police officerJules Wendall , her sonMaureen Wendall andBetty Wendall , her daughtersNadine , Jules’s loverPat Furlong , Loretta’s second husband
The Story:
In August, 1937, sixteen-year-old Loretta Botsford looks into her bedroom mirror and assesses herself, giddy in the belief that she is in love. Annoyed with her brother, Brock, whom she sees as shifty and malicious, she grudgingly makes supper for him before going out for the evening. In the course of arguing with him about the shiftlessness of their father, recently fired, Loretta notices that Brock has a gun.
The next morning, Brock finds a boy in Loretta’s bedroom and shoots and kills him. After realizing what her brother has done, Loretta runs to her friend Rita’s house in desperation, with Rita attempting to calm Loretta but offering no solution. Loretta leaves Rita’s house and sees a police officer watching her at the end of the street. She wonders if he knows what has happened and if he is waiting for her to confess. She takes him to the scene of the crime. He tells her that everyone will know what she had done with the boy before he died, and that he will do the same to her. The officer’s name is Howard Wendall.
Now married to Howard, and pregnant, Loretta begins living with him on the south side of Detroit, glad to be away from the home that she considers a dump and the family she considers hopeless. Just when Loretta believes that she will have a settled, normal life, Howard is suspended from the police force because of his illegal activities, and the Wendalls move to the country with Mama Wendall, her husband, and their daughter, Connie; this is the worst possible scenario, as far as Loretta is concerned.
With her domineering mother and a sullen, broken-spirited husband, the one bright spot in Loretta’s life is her son, Jules, who seems different from the rest of the family—lively and joyful and always involved in a new activity, sometimes creative and sometimes destructive. With his sister, Maureen, he is playing in the barn one day. He lights a match and drops it into a pile of hay, burning down the barn and receiving a whipping from his grandmother.
In the meantime, while Howard is in Europe, fighting in the war, Loretta receives letters from her friend Rita, wondering how she is and when she will visit. Longing for city life and to be away from her mother-in-law, Loretta announces that she and the children are moving to Detroit. After a long night of name-calling and threats from Mama Wendall, Loretta, Jules, and Maureen leave, taking a bus to Detroit. Although Jules is confused and intimidated by big-city life, Loretta feels as if she is finally home again and resumes her routine of visiting friends and going out at night, narrowly avoiding being arrested for soliciting one evening.
Jules attends Catholic school, and at the age of twelve develops a crush on a nun, mainly because of her passionate piano playing. From this point on, he seems to realize that he is different from other boys his age, more sensitive and attuned to the special, hidden qualities that others, especially women, keep to themselves. Throughout his life he openly approaches girls and women who appeal to him, sometimes with tragic consequences, as in the passion he develops for Nadine, the niece of an employer. Nadine wants to run away, so they travel to the Southwest, staying in cheap motels. One day, Jules feels deathly ill and is in and out of consciousness. He wakes up to find himself alone; Nadine had left him, driving his car.
After spending some time in the West doing odd jobs, serving a stint in the military, and even being a subject in a research study, Jules returns to Detroit. He sees Nadine in a restaurant. Although she is married, they start a passionate affair that ends with Nadine shooting Jules while they are taking a walk; she then turns the gun on herself. They both survive, but do not see each other again.
Meanwhile, Loretta has remarried following the death of Howard in an accident at work. Daughters Maureen and Betty have to adjust to a new man in the house, Pat Furlong. Maureen is an overachiever, and is proud to be home-room secretary at school. She spends much of her time in the library, which she finds peaceful and civilized compared to her home life. She is traumatized when she loses her secretarial notebook, and feels she let down not only herself but also the nuns who gave her the secretarial position. She seems to be giving up her dream of having a career and living in her own apartment, finding that there is an easy way for her to make money after she accepts a ride from a man and receives money for her services to him. This leads to money from other men as well. Furlong spots her one day in a strange man’s car, then beats her so badly when she gets home that it takes Maureen thirteen months to recover; Furlong is sent to prison.
After her recovery, Maureen attends night school and realizes that she wants a house and a husband more than anything. She decides that she will marry her English composition instructor, who is already married with children. They begin an affair when he offers to drive her home, and they eventually marry. Jules visits her in the aftermath of the fires, looting, and killings of the 1967 Detroit riots, but Maureen closes the door on him and the rest of the family when she realizes that she has the normalcy that she had always wanted and that she will soon have the baby to complete the picture. Jules, in the brief conversation they have at the door, says that he loves Loretta and will always think of her.
Bibliography
Cologne-Brookes, Gavin. Dark Eyes on America: The Novels of Joyce Carol Oates. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005. An analysis of selected significant works by Oates, with a focus on exposing her philosophical and cultural worldviews. A valuable addition to studies of Oates’s wide-ranging work.
Johnson, Greg. Invisible Writer: A Biography of Joyce Carol Oates. New York: Plume, 1998. A biography of Oates that draws on private letters, journals, and interviews to reveal the details of her development as a writer in her formative years, her study of writing and publication in her university years, and her career as a writer and professor in her later years.
Milazzo, Lee, ed. Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1989. A collection of pieces by various interviewers from early in Oates’s career on subjects such as her prolific output, the gothic nature of much of her work, depictions of love and violence in her stories and novels, her writing process, and her writings on boxing.
Oates, Joyce Carol. The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Oates describes her reading and writing experiences in school, discusses her favorite poems from childhood and the craft of writing, and offers self-criticism.
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates, 1973-1982, edited by Greg Johnson. New York: Ecco, 2007. A wide-ranging collection of entries that traces Oates’s life from her time as a professor at the University of Windsor through her move to Princeton. She describes the joys and frustrations of writing as well as spending time with friends and family. Includes Oates’s philosophical explorations and musings on the human condition as well as a record of her productivity as a writer.
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Joyce Carol Oates: Conversation, edited by Greg Johnson. Princeton, N.J.: Ontario Review Press, 2006. This collection of interviews with Oates from 1970 to 2006 in publications such as Atlantic Monthly, Newsweek, Paris Review, and The New York Times Magazine includes her thoughts on the art of fiction, her “lighter” side, and Marilyn Monroe, the subject of her novel Blonde (2000). The volume also includes a brief chronology of her life.
Wesley, Marilyn. Refusal and Transgression in Joyce Carol Oates’s Fiction. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993. A feminist analysis that focuses on the family as portrayed in Oates’s fiction. Contends that the young protagonists of many of her stories and novels commit acts of transgression that serve as critiques of the American family.