We Were the Mulvaneys

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West, N. (2004). Violated Innocence: Joyce Carol Oates's We Were the Mulvaneys and the Question of Childhood Sexual Abuse. MFS Modern Fiction Studies, 50(2), 363-386. This book is about a family- The Mulvaneys. They are a good family; a well-known family in their country home in upstate NY. These family members have names but to be honest with you each one is referred to by about 4 different names and there is such a long introduction to all of them individually that I couldn’t be bothered to actually pay attention to it. There’s a mom, a dad, a few brothers and a sweet darling sister whose innocence is taken from her in one of the worst ways one could ever imagine. Of course the subject matter really increased my emotions. The things this family went through and how they dealt with is enough to break your heart just hearing about it, let alone suddenly becoming very involved. All the characters are sympathetic, even Michael Sr., who is pretty easy to hate. Everyone we encounter is flawed and real and that makes you feel for them so much more. Of course the one you feel for the most is Marianne, the true victim in all of this. Yet, somehow she manages to move on with her life and become the strongest of all the Mulvaneys. She's filled with hope and love and the fact she maintains that after her rape and then the odd rejection of her family is truly amazing. En casi 600 páginas escritas sin prisa, demorándose en las descripciones de personas y ambientes, entramos en la vida de la familia Mulvaney – padre, madre, 3 hijos y una hija – con su vida idílica en la granja de High Point cerca de la pequeña población de Mt. Ephraim. El padre tiene un negocio y una posición social reconocida en la comunidad, para él es muy importante ser aceptado en el Country Club y otras asociaciones y ser respetado por las fuerzas vivas de la localidad. Su mujer, Corinne, es un personaje muy inusual, dedicada a su familia y a su pequeño negocio de antigüedades, con un punto de locura y excentricidad que no le impide ser una madre atenta y cariñosa. Los hijos son populares en la escuela y todo marcha sobre ruedas hasta que se produce un incidente de abusos que cambiará sus vidas para siempre. We Were the Mulvaneys is perhaps the novel closest to my heart. I think of it as a valentine to a passing way of American life, and to my own particular child —and girlhood in upstate New York. Everyone in the novel is enormously close to me, including Marianne’s cat, Muffin, who was in fact my own cat. One writes to memorialize, and to bring to life again that which has been lost.

A father denies his favourite child, and the devout mother unquestioningly goes along with it; the other children react by leaving or messing up; careers and ambitions are thwarted; a plan to execute retribution is hatched, further dividing the family; and, as lives are ruined or put on hold and the scars of the past refuse to heal, nobody talks about “it” – the unmentionable “event.” Este paraiso en la tierra es destruido de la noche a la mañana cuando la hija adolescente, Marianne Mulvaney acude a un baile en el instituto un 14 de febrero de 1976 y es violada por otro de los hijos "populares" de una respetada familia de la zona. Los americanos llaman a este tipo de agresiones sexuales y/o violaciones "date rape" (violación en una cita), una definición apropiada en aquellos casos en los que el agresor generalmente hombre y conocido de la victima voluntariamente programa la agresión a menudo después de haber hecho beber más de la cuenta a su pareja de la cita, la victima luego duda de si ha mantenido estas relaciones sexuales y no lo recuerda bien. Además que el entorno donde se suelen dar estas agresiones en la mayoría de los casos es en Institutos y campus universitarios entre edades desde la adolescencia hasta los veintitantos años. Y doy estos datos porque no es la primera vez que Joyce Carol Oates se ocupa de estos temas, siempre ha estado muy sensibilizada en las adolescentes agredidas y victimas de la violencia. Her latest book, Middle Age: A Romance, introduces just such a character, Adam Berendt, who dies trying to save a young girl from drowning. Berendt enters the wealthy New York suburb of Salthill-on-Hudson and, through the pureness of his heart, persuades its avaricious residents that it is not too late to change. Middle Age is intensely realistic, a facsimile of fraught modern America, particularly the women in it, "who are accustomed to not seeing imperfections in men, though anxiously aware of the smallest imperfections in themselves". Oates was amazed when some critics read it as a piece of satire. "When most people write about the suburbs of America, particularly the women of the upper middle class, they're very satirical and harsh. But I know these women and I see no justification for being cruel to them. They're actually very wonderful people. Some reviewer made the point that the characters were despicable, but that the author showed compassion for them, whereas I didn't feel they were despicable at all. In a world in which there are serial killers and genocide, these people are basically well intentioned." Esta agresión sufrida por Marianne, la hija perfecta y adorada por el resto de su familia, sienta las bases de lo que será la novela. A partir de este momento, habrá un antes y un después en el comportamiento de cada uno de los miembros de la familia con respecto a Marianne y aunque a veces nos parezcan injustos ciertos comportamientos, y no entendamos algunas decisiones tomadas sobre todo por los padres, nada es gratuito aqui, y JCO nos ha dado ya todas las premisas, todas las pistas que marcan estos comportamientos. La Oates no da puntada sin hilo.

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Dopo che me ne sono andato quel giorno, quella domenica di Pasqua, ricordi? Mi sono svuotato. Il veleno che avevo nel sangue è colato fuori. Come fossi stato malato, infetto, e non me ne fossi accorto finché il veleno è scomparso. Però non rimpiango nulla. Penso che la vendetta debba essere bella. I greci lo sapevano. Sangue chiama sangue. Credo che l’istinto della “giustizia” sia innato, presente nei nostri geni. Il bisogno di ristabilire l’equilibrio.» A lesser writer would have offered up sentimentality, cheesy redemption monologues and copious tears. Oates is after something more complex, more textured, and ultimately more real.

Primarily, I wanted to write about family life —the mysterious and seemingly autonomous “life” of the family that is made up of individuals yet seems to transcend individuals; the joys, the sorrows, the continuity of jokes and humor; the shared pain; the conflicted yearning for freedom simultaneous with the yearning for domesticity; always, the unspeakable mystery at the heart of the family. I wanted to write about complex lives as they are interwoven with one another, always defining themselves in terms of one another. I read that last run-on sentence four times before comprehending it. And in the same paragraph (!) we get: If you are also looking for a book with easily identifiable heroes and villans to relate to, cheer for and boo and hiss at, then again, this is not a book for you. The characters Oates' draws are human, with all their flaws and weaknesses. Every single one of them is unpredictable, at time unfathomable, at times loveable, and at time detestable. Just like life itself. Judd imagines but does not invent. He’s the intellectual and moral center of the novel, as it is presented in terms of language. It’s fitting that he’s a newspaper editor and writer. Many people in families feel themselves in repositories of the family narrative —as Judd says, he is assembling a kind of family album, not writing a “confession.” Nuestras vidas quedan definidas por los antojos, caprichos, crueldades de otros. Esa telaraña genética, los lazos de sangre. Era la más antigua maldición, más antigua que Dios. ‘¿Me aman?, ¿me quieren? ¿Quién me querrá, si no lo hacen mis padres?’.Oates employs various narrative techniques and symbolism to enhance the novel's depth. The shifting narrative perspective allows readers to engage with each character's thoughts and emotions, fostering empathy and understanding. The symbolism of the family farm, once a symbol of unity, becomes a representation of loss and fragmentation. Between 1968 and 1978, Oates taught at the University of Windsor in Canada, just across the Detroit river. During this immensely productive decade, she published new books at the rate of two or three per year, all the while maintaining a full-time academic career. Though still in her thirties, Oates had become one of the most respected and honored writers in the United States. Asked repeatedly how she managed to produce so much excellent work in a wide variety of genres, she gave variations of the same basic answer, telling The New York Times in 1975 that “I have always lived a very conventional life of moderation, absolutely regular hours, nothing exotic, no need, even, to organize my time.” When a reporter labeled her a “workaholic,” she replied, “I am not conscious of working especially hard, or of ‘working’ at all. Writing and teaching have always been, for me, so richly rewarding that I don’t think of them as work in the usual sense of the word.” The story's very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski's mastery of postmodernist and cinema-derived rhetoric up the ante continuously, and stunningly. One of the most impressive excursions into the supernatural in many a year. Marianne works hard at the Green Isle Co-Op, waiting for the day when her mother will call her up and say that her father wants her to return home to High Point Farm. She is loved and respected by her co-workers, but she avoids closeness. She cries when she is by herself. When the director's assistant leaves, the director discovers that Marianne has the drive and intelligence to be second in charge; he increases her responsibilities. Like most of the young women at the co-op, Marianne has a crush on Abelove, the director, and is honored to work closely with him. As one Mulvaney child says about his family late in the book, “It’s like things are in code and the key’s been lost.”