Music
Can't Hear Yourself Think
Music is everywhere in this story, blaring out of radios in restaurants, cars, and homes:The music was always in the background like music in a church service, it was som...
The Car
Drive Me CrazyFunny how only men get to drive in the story, right? Fathers, boyfriends, and creepy Lucifer stand-ins (we're talking to you, Arnold Friend) all get the wheel, but never a woman. The...
The Look
Powers of ObservationThe first thing we learn about Connie (besides her name and her age) is that she has a: [...] habit of craning her neck to look into mirrors or checking other people's faces t...
Death and the Maiden
Working TitleOates has stated that she had the "Death and the Maiden" folktales in the back of her mind as she wrote this story—in fact, she even considered "Death and the Maiden" as a title. A...
The Home
Home Is Where The Heart IsThe literary critic Christina Marsden Gillis has argued that the home in the story is a metaphor for the vulnerability of a woman's body in a male-dominated society. (Sou...