SOURCE: "Art and Myth in Joyce Carol Oates's 'The Sacred Marriage,'" in The Midwest Quarterly, Vol. XXVIII, No. 4, Summer, 1987, pp. 540-52.

Below, Martin analyzes "The Sacred Marriage" as a parable of the transformative power of art, highlighting the influence of ancient myths about art on the narrative's development.

Art is magnificent, divine, because it records the struggles of exceptional men to order their fantasies, their doubts, even their certainties, into an external structure that celebrates the life force itself, the energy of life, as well as the simple fact that someone created it—and especially the fact that you, the audience, are sharing it.

("Transformations")

This affirmation of the nature and power of art, made by Joyce Carol Oates in an interview in 1972, just before the publication of her collection of short stories, Marriages and Infidelities, provides a hint to the meaning of the opening story in...