This is a presentation about the famous writer Joyce Carol Oates, created by S. Tsimmerinova and O. Karpovich

1. Joyce Carol Oates
Sofia Tsimmerinova
Olga Karpovich
The 4th year, group 2

2. Biography
*was born in 1938 (76 years old)
*Joyce Carol Oates was raised on her grandparents' farm in
rural upstate New York. She later wrote that her parents'
working-class backgrounds contributed to the “harsh and
unsentimental world” of her childhood, where life was a
“continual daily scramble for existence.” Oates' childhood
community was the basis for Eden County, the setting of
many of her works. Despite their tenuous existence,
Oates' parents encouraged their eldest daughter's creative
development and she began to form narratives even
before she could write.
*prolific writer, began her career at the tender age of 26,
has written some 70 works

3. *…many awards, nominations for Pulitzer Prize
*(she herself thinks she would be remembered for the
novels “them” and “Blonde”)
*married Raymond Smith in 1961 “a marriage of like
minds — both my husband and I are so interested in
literature and we read the same books; he'll be reading
a book and then I'll read it — we trade and we talk
about our reading at meal times it's a very
collaborative and imaginative marriage”
*lost her husband in 2008
*six months of near suicidal grieving for Raymond Smith,
met Charles Gross, a professor in the Psychology
Department and Neuroscience Institute at Princeton,
and in early 2009, Oates and Gross were married

4. Black Water
*use of sudden changes between several narrative levels
*quick skips between all the different levels of time and place
→ “stream of consciousness” technique
*“breaks” in the type of narration
*little ellipses, mostly in italics – graphic device
*flashbacks
*long, unstructured sentences, which go on for nearly a whole
page, sometimes separated by commas, sometimes not – also
the characteristic of the “stream of consciousness” technique:
first commas between the single sentences, which disappear
later
*break in the narration and it changes to another character's
point of view
*caesura (цезура, пауза, перерыв)

5. *she took an inspiration for many books from real events
*most of the time she was interested in countryside poverty
(influence of her childhood)
*sexual harassment
*class contradictions (классовые противоречия)
*lust for power
*women's childhood and youth
*sometimes supernatural
*she doesn't approve of romanization of suicide: she has
always liked strong characters who go on living
*In the early 1980s Oates started writing short stories in the
genres in the Gothic style and horror stories. She said that
at that period she was strongly influenced by Kafka and
James Joyce

6. A Widow's Story
*seems to be writing for her own
emotional and mental catharsis
*Widow's Story – creative non-
fiction=memoir
*style is formal. The paragraphs and
chapters of the book are laid out in a
coherent way and her sentences have
structure and clarity
*logical and chronological order
*The writing is formalized

7. Thank you for
attention!