But I digress. In 1961, she earned an MFA at the University of Wisconsin and got married. I love Joyce Carol Oates. I love her for being able to write three books a year. Her work is characterized by often unbearable violence, and this violence emphasizes her characters' struggles to define themselves against their oppressive environments.
Women often struggle against sexual oppression, against victimization, against stereotyping.
When a woman finds her identity in marriage in the Oates world, she often also finds herself caught in an alienating parody of the American dream. Oates, the farm girl from upstate New York, has never forgotten about the demands of family, traditions of land and culture and religion, the things that shape us all and against which we fight in order to define and save our own lives. Oates is also thoughtful, taking on our social myths with her generous and outlandish love of all things American. May she long find the time and energy to continue her remarkable work well into the next century. We will all certainly be reading every word she wishes to write for us.