Feminist Consciousness of Aggression and Violence in the Short Stories of Joyce Carol Oates

Abstract

Joyce Carol Oates's short stories“The Vampire,” “Lover,” “Gun Love,” and“Secret, Silent”explore feminist consciousness as well as action to contribute for the liberation of women. In order to achieve true equality, women must acknowledge all similarities shared between themselves and men, not just the positive similarities.These stories associate the negative aggressive and violence attitudes in the nature of women characters.That aggression and violence displayed by women come to threaten the gendered system upon which western society is founded, a system which designates strength, control, and socioeconomic power as the birth rites of men.Therefore, Oates resists the gender discrimination of her society by making the female characters revolutionary.