We love relating to others—finding common ground is the basis of any friendship, allowing us to have something to talk about. Joyce Carol Oates’s short story, Three Girls is a romantic read, starting with two young girls enchanted by their local book store, “Overseen by surly young clerks who were poets like us, or playwrights/actors/artists. In an agony of unspoken young love I watched you. As always on these romantic evenings at the Strand, prowling the aisles sneering at those luckless books, so many of them…” This almost magical connection that words provide for these nameless characters draw their relationship to a seemingly romantic level. This story is evidence of the beauty that is swirled around connections. Yes, books and pages and words are a lot of what this story is about, but the beauty is how all of these intertwine to tell the story that we all share something.
Beauty and womanhood are known to go hand in hand. A woman should be graceful, kind, compassionate and of course, beautiful. Marilyn Monroe was a staple of all of this; she was the icon of womanhood. When comparing these two young girls, in love with their books, not their looks, with Marilyn Monroe herself, the differences are striking. Oates’s choice of Marylin Monroe walking into the bookshop was, for me, almost as breathtaking as the poetic language of this piece. Oates breaks this idea of “womanhood”. She acknowledges the stigma of Monroe having a man by her side. But a woman doesn’t need a man. She empowers female readers by the lack of one. Not only does she exclude a man from Monroe’s perspective, but from the entire story. In fact, these two girls feel like they have to almost protect Monroe, “We dreaded her being recognized by a (male) customer or (male) clerk. A girl or woman would have kept her secret (so we thought) but no man could 25 resist staring openly at her, following her, and at last speaking to her.” Women are often sexualized by the media and when someone such as Marilyn Monroe is concerned it is sometimes all women are known for. The idea that a woman is a sexual object is often played down to the extent at which it occurs. Girls can’t wear shirts that go too low or they are a slut. They can’t wear a too conservative outfit or they are a prude. Now, this may not be true to all cases but the double edge sword is present both today and the 1950s. Oates makes it clear that there is more behind the surface to Monroe by choosing to acknowledge her past of being sexualized and proving that she herself did not necessarily choose this lifestyle but that there was a reserved poet inside as well when she is looking through the bookstore.
Oates’ choice to keep this story as three girls makes the interaction these normal girls have with a celebrity surprisingly intimate. Oates centralizes her focus once again on a raw connection, she reinstates the initial excitement over a shared interest as Moroe enters the store, “Marilyn Monroe. In the Strand. Just like us. And she seemed to be alone. Marilyn Monroe, alone! Wholly absorbed in browsing amid books, oblivious of her surroundings and of us. No one seemed to have recognized her (yet) except you.”
As if this piece didn’t already feel like it was real life, Oates emerges her reader even further into the story with her use of the second person. As Reneé Bibby, Director of the Writers Studio Tucson says, “With beautiful language and wonderfully detailed descriptions, this narrator deftly captures all the excitement, fear, anxiety, potential loss (“…knowing you’d break my heart…”) and “enchantment” (she uses that word many times) of being that age,” It makes the reader’s imagination spin to make a beautifully played out scene to occur, just like a black and white movie.
You walk along the aisles, hand brushing among the old rough spine of the books you so love. The smell of the pages lingers in the air and when you pick up that novel that you’ve read a million times. You flip through it as the words seem to fly up around you with a sense of familiarity.
How did reading that make you feel? Think about it. Did it feel like you were there? Did the world develop around you? This is exactly what Oates is capable of with this stylistic choice. Transporting her readers to an exact experience of a connection. Throughout this story, the use of feminism builds a connection with the character themselves. The beautiful language makes it evident that everyone has this inner poet. Oates finds that in all of her readers by transporting them with the second person as well. All of these components allowed her to break down the walls of fame and sexualization to force a new light onto those we had a seemingly set judgment on.
Oates choice of portraying Marilyn Monroe in the bookshop really is quite empowering. I agree that there is a tendency to objectify women and because of that, people tend to fixate more on a woman’s appearance opposed to who they are inside. Monroe’s portrayal in the bookshop does contradict the stereotype in which women should be surrounded by men and concerned about their looks all the time. Revealing Monroe’s passion for poetry and literature expresses that women don’t have to be dictated by society’s pressure to be weak and gorgeous. It illustrates that women are capable of going out into the world on their own and pursuing their own interests. I agree that Monroe’s appearance in the bookshop is a beautiful moment since it breaks the deprecating idea of “womanhood”.
Furthermore, I agree that the author’s choice to tell the story through a second person perspective is quite effective in bringing the story to life. I read the following quote you posted and it felt very powerful because I could really imagine myself walking through the bookshop, as if I was part of the story. Overall, Oate’s story is amazing in the way it breaks stereotypes and connects the reader to the story.
I think your take on this short story is spot on. Even in this day and age, it’s appalling to see the degree to which women are objectified in our society. The #MeToo movement this year is something that should have occurred many years earlier. A century after women were granted the right to vote, we are still dealing with the huge problem of sexual harassment and objectification. It’s a problem I’ve bore witness to. In a recent conversation with two other “men”, who can only be described as “prominent figures in our grade” and “have or had affiliations with student government”, the topic of “hottest girls at school” was brought up. It was quite revolting having to listen to two guys who already had girlfriends go down the list of females they knew, ranking them based purely on outward physical appearance.
Despite this, I’m glad you had some positive takeaways from this book. It’s important to know that there’s not one definition of what it means to be a woman. It was interesting to understand this issue from the female standpoint and to see how you interpreted the short story. Nice work!
Hi Elly, I think this is a very interesting story line and an important topic that we should discuss more. People don’t typically like to discuss topics like the sexualization of women and sexual harassment because it seems too taboo. Even though our society has made big changes and opened up a little bit more since the days of Marilyn Monroe, we still have a lot farther to go. I have had personal experiences with being cat called on the streets and it is far from an enjoyable experience. It makes me and other women feel uncomfortable in our own skin and sometimes makes us feel unsafe. I also think it’s very interesting how although she was oversexualized, she changed the beauty standards as they were before. Before Monroe, women were expected to be very skinny and fit, but Monroe allowed others to realize that not just one specific body type is beautiful. She owned her body and gave more women the confidence to love their bodies as they were, just as the girls in the story are empowered by her presence in the book store. Overall, it was interesting to read your perception of the story, and I would be interested to see how other women or even men perceive this story.