English Language and Literature Commons^™

"I Know You!": The Implications Of Knowing In Joyce Carol Oates's Marya: A Life, Josephene T.M. Kealey

Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies

Joyce Carol Oates’s Preface to the Franklin Library 1^st Edition of her 1986 novel Marya: A Life is a theoretical reading guide. In her explanations for the possible autobiographical components discernible in her book, Oates challenges readers to question their ability to know a character, to know an author’s intentions, even to know the self. Oates’s ideas about the fluidity of identity and the dangers of claiming “to know” an other or the self are explored in this story.