Automobile Writing In Joyce Carol Oates’s Novels

As a product of industrialized society,the automobile is not only a convenient means of transportation,but also bears specific social attributes and cultural characteristics.The automobile occupies a unique place in American culture because it is an extremely complex and rich object of meaning,symbolizing power,wealth,freedom,evasion and success.At the same time,as a product of modern technological civilization,the automobile also brings significant negative impacts,such as traffic accidents and environmental pollution and so on.Joyce Carol Oates(1938-),a famous contemporary American writer,loves to write about automobiles,and automobiles are involved in almost every novel.She grasps the pulse of the times,perceptively perceives the salient features of a particular era,captures the automobile that best represents the American way of life,and presents class,gender,race and other issues in the American society.This thesis takes the automobile writing in Oates’ s novels as the research object,summarizes the types of her automobile writing,analyzes the reasons why Oates is keen on automobile writing,and further explores the function and significance of her automobile writing.The introduction briefly introduces the research object and problems,the research status of Joyce Carol Oates,and the innovation and research methods of the thesis.The text is divided into three chapters.The first chapter focuses on three types of automobile writing in Oates’ s novels.First of all,the most prominent feature of Oates’ s automobile writing is the full grasp of automobile brands.According to the era in which the characters lived,Oates arranged for almost every driver to match the era of the automobile brand.In addition,in her works from the late 1960 s to the 1980 s,Oates reflected the construction of the class identity through her characters’ consumption of automobile brands.Secondly,after the1980 s,Oates began to write about automobiles from a feminist perspective,and regarded driving as a symbol of power.Third,automobiles are objects that produce violence.After the1980 s,Oates focused on violent scenes of traffic accidents.Since the 1990 s,Oates focuses on the process of criminals using automobiles to escape smoothly.At the same time,Oates also focused on the “Racial Profiling” on the highway to expose the racial problems in the United States.The second chapter mainly focuses on the reasons why Oates is fond of automobile writing.Firstly,the historical tradition of American migration and the tradition of automobile writing deeply influenced Oates’ s literary creation.Secondly,Oates’ s father’s automobile buying experience,Oates’ s childhood weekend automobile tours,her youth life in Detroit,and her interactions with feminists provide raw materials and new perspectives for automobile writing.Thirdly,Oates’ s creative perspective is also a major reason why she chose automobiles as her writing object.Oates is adept at reflecting on reality and exposing contemporary issues by adapting real-life events related to automobiles;At the same time,Oates participated in literary writing as a “whole person”,breaking through the limitations of a single gender perspective and using automobiles as a medium to expose prominent social issues in American history,making her automobile writing present a historical thickness.The third chapter focuses on the function and meaning of Oates automobile writing.First of all,the moving automobile realizes the transformation of space and expands the range of action of characters.The characters in the novel drive automobiles between various places and follow their footsteps.Oates describes people and things in a specific space,thus achieving the purpose of criticizing society.Secondly,automobiles have the closest relationship with people,and automobiles in Oates’ s novels play an important role in reflecting the characters’ fighting spirit and gender orientation.Finally,the automobile writing deepens the theme.Oates shows the success or failure of the family through the symbolic meaning of the automobile,constructs the history of the United States,and expresses her thoughts on how women should get rid of oppression.