On the one hand, Oates writes We Were the Mulvaneys as a conventional, linearly plotted novel carried forward by the force of the events that shape the lives of the Mulvaneys. She also makes Judd a first-person narrator, but because he is a journalist he serves as a public rather than a private voice. She allows him to slip into the role of an omniscient narrator who creates the interior voices of various members of his family. We move, for example, in and out of the minds of each member of the Mulvaney family: Marianne "[k]nowing she'd hurt her mother's feelings earlier . . . [t]hough she couldn't remember any longer what either of them had said"; Mike, Jr. deciding to do nothing about his suspicions that his classmates are raping someone; Patrick attacking Marianne's rapist.....
This is a free excerpt of 135 words. This section contains 278 words. This
study guide contains 25,737 words (approx. 86 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Literature Guide with our We Were the Mulvaneys Access Pass.
