Do with Me What You Will

Joseph Petite (Essay Date August 1986)

SOURCE: Petite, Joseph. "A Predator in Liberationist Clothing." Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 7, nos. 3-4 (August 1986): 245-48.

In the following essay, Petite investigates the repressed nature of the female characters in Do with Me What You Will.

In Do With Me What You Will Joyce Carol Oates, it has been argued, creates the truly independent woman. Noting that the novel is dedicated to a member of the national board of the National Organization of Women, Patricia Hill Burnett, Constance Denne says of the book: "Its subject is the raising of a young woman's consciousness and her liberation. Elena … breaks through to a higher level of awareness, and, integrated, affirms not only what she wants but also how she will get it."¹ Christopher Lehmann-Haupt also...