Traumatic Childhood in the Age of Consumerism: A Critical Reading of Joyce Carol Oates’s My Sister, My Love

A Critical Reading of Joyce Carol Oates’s My Sister, My Love

Abstract

Joyce Carol Oates recurrently articulates her antipathies for capitalist drives that visit the trauma and deprivation on the children in contemporary America. Oates in her fictions documents instances of child abuse and torture, often including the horrific cases of defilement and turbulent experiences. Undoubtedly, Oates’s insightful engagement with this vexatious subject in many of her fictions testifies to her emphasis on the massive prevalence of the problem in the society. The present paper seeks to study her recent novel My Sister, My Love (2008) that in offering a bone-chilling picture of child exploitation uncovers the overwhelming consumerist ideology and social pathologies of the seemingly welfarist nation. Simply stated, the novel stridently satirizes the accelerating commercial progress of America that not only disrupts the ethical sensibilities of individuals but also stymies the children from growing into responsible citizens. The essay will focus on Oates’s social critique in My Sister, My Love that indicts both the proliferating media and cultural fascination for gripping sensationalism as distorting the collective awareness about the ills of child abuse.