Something that Joyce Carol Oates does so incredibly well is differentiate between the text centering the man versus the woman. It’s quite clear who is speaking or thinking in each section based on the elegance of the prose or the structure of the sentences. Something else that Oates is able to do well is not only help us readers differentiate between the speakers, but see the differences and similarities between men and women. What’s the difference between a man and a woman who both long to kill? Their reason for wanting to kill. The woman speaks repeatedly of not wanting to kill but feeling like she wants to to stop the man, to harm him for harming her in the best way she knows how. To express all the rage and emotion she’s been holding back. The man, however, is also unsure if he wants to kill her or not, but decides he will only if she “acts out.”
A perfect parallel I loved about how these two points of view coincided was their means of murder. The woman planned to use her sewing shears and stab them into his throat. The man planned on strangling her. The metaphor is explained beautifully by this quote: “In the throat, the male is as vulnerable as the female” (191). Words, in this story, are each of the characters’ downfall. Neither wants to hear the other speak unless it’s something pleasant (or from the man, preferably no talking at all). Alluding to the throat as a vulnerability represents so much more than just the possible location of premeditated murder.
“What a man wants, she thinks, is a woman whom other men want but the woman must not seem to seek out this attention or even be aware of it” (201). This story does such an amazing job of getting into the heads of men and women in their rawest and purest forms, when it deals with sex, and explaining the other away. It does well to convey to the reader how men and women both view the act of sex and how each other should be before, during, and afterwards. There is so much to unpack in this story, but these are just some of the things that really jumped out at me.
I didn’t notice the parallel between both of them planning to kill the other by the neck. Good observation linking it to that line!
I loved how you connected their words to their actions. Words really are each of the characters downfall. Either so much can be said even with little speech or so little can be said with a lot of speech.