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02.09.2012
Ambivalent Discourses - A Gender-Oriented Close Reading of Joyce Carol Oates'
“The Premonition”
1. Introduction
Writing in a post-modern, post-colonial world is oftentimes connected with hybridity: Toni Morrison and Salman Rushdie, for example, are crossing frontiers of genres in their works; a similar statement can be made about reading. Theories and ideologies overlap, allowing for new perspectives on literature. In the case of the following paper, it is Joyce Carol Oates' short story “The Premonition” which is put under the microscope of the theoretical framework of post-colonial and gender studies – an approach that is particularly fruitful for readings of Western literature by female writers. Before undertaking an in-depth analysis of Oates' short story, I am going to outline the theoretical framework in question in detail. I shall argue that the conflicting and even contradictory readings of the text are strongly connected to gender and especially the way it is codified in Oates' culture; the uncertainty of Ellen's husband's death and the condition of silence that surrounds the events preceding Whitney's arrival at his brother's house deliver insight into the correlation between gender, language and power.
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