Essay Questions

How does Oates use Della Rae to explore racism?

Della Rae’s predicament elevates the junction between paucity and bigotry: “ Della Rae was a dirty girl we’d hear. It was just something you knew. There were certain dirty girls and Della Rae Duncan was one of them. Some of us thought that Della Rae was a dirty girl because her skin was dirty, and her clothes. Her skin looked stained, like wood. She was a short heavyset girl with sizable breasts. A bulldog face. Large thick-lidded eyes and a snaky scar on her swollen upper lip. She was almost nice-looking except she was ugly. She was shy except for her quick temper.” Della Rae may not be explicitly immaculate but her skin color and scarcity underwrite the perception that she is dirty. In such a problematic society, she would not have been pigeonholed as dirty if she were white and well-heeled. Deficiency is linked to racism for it is bound up with the detriments (which typify dirtiness) that are supposedly part of being black.

How does “Blame the Victim Mentality” encumber Marianne from finding justice?

Oates writes, “They said, Tell us.She said, Only what I know.They said, Tell us!—so that justice can be executed.She said, I was drinking. I was to blame. I don’t remember. How can Igive testimony against him!How many times Marianne Mulvaney was to repeat these words. To her parents, to anyone who questioned her. Including two Mt. Ephraim police officers when, the morning following Michael Mulvaney’s “disruptive and disorderly behavior” at the Lundts’ house, they came to High Point Farm to question her in her parents’ presence. I was drinking. It’s so hard to remember. I can’t swear. I can’t be certain. I can’t bear false witness.”

Marianne is the resounding casualty yet she faults herself for being raped. Zachary would have been culpable because he aggressively breached her sexuality without her approval. The ‘blame the victim’ mind-set is a psychological stratagem that Marianne operates to circumvent censuring Zachary for his criminality and to rationalize her predicament. Additionally, impugning drinking is a formula of Projection that heartens Marianne to denunciate herself; consequently, Zachary is not chastised since the victim becomes an unqualified deterrent in the provision of solid proof that would make Zachary blameworthy.

Which means do Marianne’s family members exploit to disremember her rape?

Plainly, Marianne’s rape emphatically offends all her family members psychosomatically. Oates elucidates “No one would be able to name what had happened, or would wish to name it: rape was a word that came not to be spoken at High Point Farm. What were the words that were spoken? I remember abuse— assault—taking advantage of—hurt. Those were words I heard, or overheard, though these too were not uttered openly (that is, in the presence of Patrick or me) as one might not speak openly of cancer, of death. The perpetrator, who was Zachary Lundt the son of Morton and Cynthia Lundt, was always referred to as he, him. Unless Dad was speaking, raging. The bastard. The son of a bitch. The fucker. (When Dad had been drinking, I mean. Other times, he wouldn’t be talking much at all.)”

The family exploit Avoidance when it elects not to unambiguously assert the expressions ‘ rape’ and “Zachary Lundt’. The thoughtful avoidance is intended to subdue the reminiscences of Marianne’s rape and the offender. Besides, the dad’s intoxication is an auxiliary mechanism to inhibit the reminiscences. Intoxication would bid him a sequential reprieve of not envisaging Marianne’s rape. They would not painlessly overlook the occurrence no matter how much Avoidance the exploited though. Perchance if they had sought ultimate psychotherapy they would have overwhelmed their trauma instead of unhealthily curbing it.