♥

“the things that link us deepest, we can’t feel.”

Even though the novel is about teenage girls living in New York in the 1950’s, Joyce Carol Oates had written and covered Foxfire with themes of violence/power, pride, sexuality/gender issues, friendship, poverty vs. the richer class, vengeance, and oppression/freedom:

Original team members Legs, Maddy, Lana, Goldie, and Rita all came from a broken family in New York’s Lowertown Hammond (which contributed in their unity.) For example, Leg’s father is a heavy drinker while Maddy’s, or Madeline’s father had passed away during the war. The roles and appearances of adults are faintly prominent and rarely mentioned, except for Leg’s father’s ex-girlfriend Muriel, who believed that the girls were “good solid well-intentioned trustworthy girls”. The abandonement of traditional female roles and their hatred for men (along with other key factors, i.e. family background) and later Leg’s driven and growing desire had drove Foxfire where it was now. The girls were rebellious and passionate and full of teen angst.

Throughout the novel, Joyce Carol Oates had used frequent anaphoras and prominent run-on sentences. Though the history of Foxfire was told through Maddy-Monkey, point of views were switched from time to time, though in small paragraphs, such as Rita’s teacher Mr. Buttinger and the gang’s leader Legs Sadovsky. There were also aphorisms and epiphanies used in the novel, such as “If you don’t respect living life, you don’t deserve to live yourself” or “The things that link us deepest, we can’t feel.”

Foxfire stood out to me the most as an ode to freedom. The novel had taught me tidbits of information about the 1950’s. Somehow, Foxfire had taught me that, in a way, no matter how large a flame grows, it would end no matter what: either by age or by circumstances.

 “Masters of the air. I am one of you.”

Filed by dle12 at February 8th, 2010 under School and tagged diep, eng10jones, ms.jones