Pathological Narcissism in a (Neo)Gothic Setting: Joyce Carol Oates’s “Evil Eye”
Pathological Narcissism in a (Neo)Gothic Setting: Joyce Carol Oates’s “Evil Eye”

Summary/Abstract: Joyce Carol Oates’s writing has been defined several times as too violent, and her work displays a series of features belonging to the Gothic genre. An example of this style can be found in the 2013 novella “Evil Eye”, published in the namesake collection, which recounts the difficult marriage between Austin and Mariana, and the return from the past of his first wife Ines. In this story, whose male protagonist is both the hero and the villain, she describes the daily domestic horror of a relationship with a pathological narcissist. In this way, Oates gives both a Gothic character to her story and a cautionary one. At the same time, her operation becomes an embodiment of how she sees the“Gothic” label that has been given to her: as “a fairly realistic assessment of modern life”.

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