Of the widow's countless death-duties there is really just one that matters: on the first anniversary of her husband's death the widow should think I kept myself alive.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
Her visits to her former hometown were infrequent and often painful. Pilgrimages fueled by the tepid oxygen of family duty, unease, guilt. The more Esther loved her parents, the more helpless she felt, as they aged, to protect them from harm. A moral coward, she kept her distance.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the complexities of familial relationships and the emotional struggles that can accompany love and duty.
In this quote, Joyce Carol Oates explores the tension between love and the sense of helplessness that can arise when caring for aging parents. The protagonist feels a moral obligation to visit her family, yet these visits are fraught with emotional pain, revealing the difficulties in balancing duty with the pain of witnessing loved ones' decline. It highlights the intricacies of love, guilt, and the challenges of accepting one's limitations in protecting those we care about.
Themes
FamilyLoveGuiltDutyHelplessness
In practice
Example use cases
In a family gathering, one might quote this to express the difficulty of visiting elderly relatives.
More from Joyce Carol Oates
All quotes →I never really knew I wanted to 'be' a writer, but I was always writing from a very young age. It became more conscious as an ideal when I was in my twenties.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
I'm drawn to write about upstate New York in the way in which a dreamer might have recurring dreams. My childhood and girlhood were spent in upstate New York, in the country north of Buffalo and West of Rochester. So this part of New York state is very familiar to me and, with its economic difficulties, has become emblematic of much of American life.
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My writing is often a way of 'bearing witness' for others who lack the education and the opportunity to tell their own stories, so I hope that my writing won't be affected too much by my personal life.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
. . . there is a wish in the heart of mankind to be distracted and confused. Truth is but one attraction, and not always the most powerful.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
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