Black_Water__Voiceless_Victims

Black Water: Voiceless Victims Voiceless Victims: A Woman in a Man's World Carol Oates invites readers to consider an issue many would rather avoid, because Kelly is someone easy to identify with; she could be our daughter, sister, or even ourselves. Kelly, a young, intelligent, woman, in Oates' novella, Black Water, explores the affect a male dominated society has on the upbringing, life, and eventually, the death of the woman. She is not only the physical victim, but also a victim of social attitudes and perpetuated gender scripts. Kelly is the product of a misogynistic world that not only leads to her death, but, also, to her ambiguity as a person. Kelly represents all the women who are overshadowed and led by the men they admire down paths that result to their demise. Based on a true story of Mary Jo Kopechne, Kelly represents a woman of obscurity. By this I mean her name and life are never brought out accurately or long enough for the public to have a collective sense of who she was; her name was never a household word. Her name is eventually forgotten, and her life was never known. Newspapers mentioned her kelly, woman, life, men, man, gender, senator, own, herself, things, media, kelly's, death, been, women, way, social, person, parents, one, never, name, horoscope, young, world, victims, victim, taught, strong, story, society, scripts, rules, roles, represents, reader, point, oates, news, male, lives, just, girl, follow, find, feel, eventually, beliefs, because, afraid