We Were the Mulvaneys

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But another thing you need to realize about Judd’s narration is the curious way that he is sometimes “I” in this narration and at other times “Judd”. What, is Judd the narrator, or only a part-time narrator with an author standing behind him? I choose to believe that this is just Judd switching between first and third person for some reason which is not clear to me, other than flow of the story maybe? Perhaps when he is “Judd” he is narrating something he is dredging up from memory, and when he is “I” he is writing his thoughts as they occur to him as he is writing? I don’t know. What I do know is that this is done so seamlessly that for this not-very attentive reader, it was something I never even really noticed until I started re-reading.

Puoi avere un solo figlio miracoloso. Se sei fortunato. Però molta gente non lo è. (Quindi non dovete gongolare, è ovvio)

Implications for Human Nature

Michael Mulvaney, the family patriarch, exemplifies resilience in the face of challenges. His determination to protect and provide for his family drives his actions. Corinne Mulvaney, his wife, copes with guilt and grief in her own way, highlighting the diversity of responses to trauma. Marianne's journey toward healing and self-discovery showcases the human capacity for growth and survival in the aftermath of trauma. As a child, Oates spent a lot of time on her grandmother's farm, which likely inspired the lively, animal-filled farm that the Mulvaneys took care of. We Were the Mulvaneys: Book Summary Por fin lo puedo tener en mis manos y he podido darme el enorme gusto de leerlo, no solo ha cubierto mis expectativas, las ha superado, no me ha defraudado. When Marianne tells her father about the rape, he is deeply disturbed. He demands the daughter press charges, but Marianne feels that she must protect herself from the trauma of such an endeavor. The father loses respect for his own daughter for this and sends her to Salamanca to live with extended family Marianne becomes a wanderer, removed from her home. She lives somewhere for awhile and then moves on, never quite feeling "at home."

Joyce Carol Oates nos ofrece un relato detallado de cómo una familia perfecta se precipita a los infiernos a raíz de un incidente de abusos sexuales. Es un tema frecuente en la literatura, de cómo el sueño americano puede convertirse en pesadilla a raíz de un imprevisto que altera el curso natural de las cosas y desata una serie de reacciones individuales y sociales que hacen que algunas personas – y especialmente las relaciones familiares – entren en una espiral destructiva. Yo diría que los ciervos no llevan abrigo, la traducción de ‘coat’ aquí tendría que ser ‘pelaje’. Y hay unas cuantas más, pero bueno, se deja leer. Not all the prose is so insightful. This passage, for instance, cries out for tightening and clarity: 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. McCauley, C. (2001). Daring to Care: Joyce Carol Oates's We Were the Mulvaneys. Contemporary Literature, 42(2), 337-352.

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When the Mulvaneys’ fall comes, it happens so fast. One day they’re riding high and the next they’re in the gutter —the American gutter of violence, homelessness, paranoia, law suits. Was there any way they could have averted their family tragedy? The Mulvaney family's idyllic life on their farm is characterized by innocence and unity. However, a tragic event disrupts this innocence, sending ripples through the family's dynamics. The theme of innocence is central as the characters grapple with the loss of their innocence and the unraveling of their tightly-knit relationships. An amazingly intricate and ambitious first novel - ten years in the making - that puts an engrossing new spin on the traditional haunted-house tale. 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.” The next section is REALLY a spoiler, since it tells how everything eventually turns out. Please be fore-warned.

I wish I could claim to be as naturally "good" as Marianne. I know that there are girls and women like Marianne. (Her character is based partly on one of my high school friends.) I would like to hope that I could be magnanimous like Marianne, and forgive those who have wounded me, but I'm not sure that this is so. It's enough for me as the novelist to know and take solace in the fact that such individuals as Marianne do exist. I celebrate their generosity and goodness. I reach out to them: Thank you! Your being is an example to us all. We Were the Mulvaneys is a novel written by Joyce Carol Oates, and was published in 1996. We Were the Mulvaneys was featured in Oprah's Book Club in January 2001. Nadie podía mencionar lo que había ocurrido, ni deseaba mencionarlo: violación era una palabra que no se mencionaba en High Point Farm. ¿Cuáles eran las palabras que se pronunciaban? Recuerdo abusos, agresión, aprovecharse de..., daño. Esas eran las palabras que yo oía, por casualidad o no, aunque no se expresaban abiertamente". On St. Valentine's night 1976, after prom, Marianne Mulvaney goes to a party where she becomes intoxicated and is raped by an upperclassman, whose father is a well-respected businessman and friend of Mr. Mulvaney. After many years, the Mulvaneys meet once again at a family reunion in Corinne's new home, which she shares with a friend. The family has extended to include spouses and children. Finally, the Mulvaneys come full circle and receive closure.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. Es una experiencia muy inmersiva leer esta novela, por lo menos en mi caso lo ha sido, porque a raíz de la tragedia que se desencadena esa noche del 14 de febrero, Joyce Carol Oates consigue que reacciones como lector y que te preocupen esos personajes, sobre todo los hijos Mulvaney, que casi sin darse cuenta, empiezan a conocer de verdad a sus padres y ese entorno que hasta entonces les había parecido tan idílico. De la noche a la mañana el sueño americano es destrozado y tienen que empezar a gestionar el Porqué de este cambio en su vida familiar, un cambio que les viene dado tanto desde dentro de la familia (esas decisiones injustas tomadas por sus padres) como desde el entorno y la ciudad donde viven, donde las miradas y los comportamientos hacia ellos cambian también de la noche a la mañana. Lo que es tan difícil que un autor pueda conseguir y es el hecho de que el lector se preocupe por sus personajes, aquí esta autora lo consigue sin ninguna duda. Momentos de crueldad emocional, momentos en los que los hijos se encuentran indefensos y momentos en que la vulnerabilidad tanto de los padres como de los hijos frente a una sociedad interesada y partidista, convierten esta novela también en un discurso muy crítico con respecto a la sociedad en la que vivimos porque aqui la autora aborda temas universales como es el elitismo de ciertas clases sociales, la libertad del individuo y la búsqueda de su propia identidad, y sobre todo la naturaleza. Pocas veces he leido a la Oates explayarse tanto y tan largamente con pasajes que exaltan su amor por la naturaleza y sobre todo por los animales: hay muchas páginas dedicadas a ellos, a los animales de la familia, a los gatos, quizás en un intento por compararlos a las personas. Hay un momento en que algún personaje revela que ver envejecer a nuestros animales es casi una visión acelerada de nuestro propio envejecimiento futuro. Gloriosa, Joyce Carol Oates. Una de las virtudes del estilo de Joyce Carol Oates en mi opinión es que deja muchos detalles del argumento, y de algunas situaciones a la imaginación del lector. Te presenta los hechos, te da los datos, pero se vuelve ambigua a la hora de explicarlo todo taxativamente, de esta manera, consigue que el lector se comprometa con los personajes y que desarrolle en su imaginación lo que ella te ha dejado intuir. Puedes adorar u odiar a ciertos personajes, sus decisiones, pero realmente consigue que lector participe activa y emocionalmente en el desarrollo de la historia. Al final esta novela no es más que la narración por parte de Joyce Carol de la historia de una familia, la construye y la desconstruye paso a paso para que la conozcamos, sin juzgarlos, pero a través de su infelicidad y de muchos de sus momentos emocionalmente muy fuertes, consigue transmitirnos lo dificil que es sobrevivir a los palos de la vida. The novel is so psychologically intricate – Oates documents all the little things, the minute failures in communication that build up until everything reaches the point of no return. I particularly enjoyed the description of how the family communicates through their pets in a way of avoiding having difficult conversations. The daughter’s only act of rebellion noted was this one time when she broke from this established form of communication and snapped at her mother. It was such a small thing, but it left ripples. As a person with an easy access to her store of anger and rage, I found the mother’s and daughter’s inability to get angry perplexing and frustrating, but possibly, understandable in its context.

The past tense in the title hints at the book’s outcome. In some ways it’s about the decline and fall of a once prosperous, well-loved upstate New York family. One event that happens on Valentine’s Day in 1976 affects each of the six Mulvaneys differently, and this book, narrated mostly by the youngest child, Judd, tells the sad, sad story. Readers have reacted in sharply contrasting ways to the dilemma of the heart of the novel: If a loving, family-oriented woman must choose between her husband and one of her children, whom does she choose? Corinne Mulvaney is a deeply, unself-consciously religious woman who acts out of love and duty, but also with an unquestioned sense of God's intentions. She doesn't think of herself her own wishes but those of others; until the end of the novel, when she befriends an energetic, irrepressible woman named Sable, Corinne doesn't think of herself as an individual at all. She's Corinne Mulvaney, known to everyone as Michael Mulvaney's wife. Her behavior will seem baffling, even unconscionable, to those who don't share her faith. I don't believe that, in her place, I would have acted as she did, but I don't judge her harshly. Perhaps I even envy her faith. Marianne, who at this reunion (now in her early thirties, Michael her father dead) appears with two children and her husband Will, having finally found herself in a life that seemed to be taken away from her by the years of separation, infrequent communication with her mother and siblings, and total rejection by her father who in his own mind still loved her but couldn’t bear the thinking of her or of what had happened or of what she had done or of what he had done. And as Judd writes of this reunion, “I saw that Marianne was in the prime of her young womanhood … color restored … a fullness to her face … the liquidy yearning in the eyes eased … and her life independent of all Mulvaneys if she should wish it.” Extraño: que cuando una luz se apaga, inmediatamente después es como si nunca hubiera existido. La oscuridad lo llena todo de nuevo, por completo. It was also interesting how the whole family, the parents especially, believed their own hype of being this picture perfect unit, the embodiment of the American dream, whereas to this reader they didn’t seem that special to begin with, therefore their downfall wasn’t as surprising as it was to them. When the reality started contradicting their own image they built in their heads, well, that’s too bad for reality. We never actually see the family through any outsider’s eyes, so we have no idea if their opinion of themselves is shared by their neighbours or if it’s just some group delusion.By the end of this book I was crying. I just want to start with that and get it cleared out of the way. It wasn't just a sniff and the threat of tears, I had actual tears running down my face and snot streaming out of my nose. I was leaking enough that I actually had to put the book down and go grab some tissues.