Golden Glove By Joyce Carol Oates Summary

“Golden Gloves” Joyce Carol Oates’ story “Golden Gloves”, is about a premature seven month old baby who born with deformed feet, the tiny arches twisted, and his toe turned inward like fleshy claws. When he was three years old he learned to walk because he could not work. His face is misshape and look like an adult. His parents feel embarrass because he was handicapped. Height years later after he was born he had a surgery on his feet. When his father took him to a boxing match he felt in love with boxing and say that one day he will be a boxer and he will play boxing at the Golden Gloves, and he will be standing not sitting on his wheelchair or in the audience. His father was there in the ring with him and his cousins, and brothers came and hugging one another.
He had to learn how to walk again after they removed the cast.
They had stand against a wall and having him taking steps little by little until he reaches them. After reaching his mother’s arm his father ask him to try again that way he can get better and better. The he began to learn in the house by himself. A year has pass and he is able to run in the yard. Seeing how progressive he is, his father bought him a pair of child’s dark brown leather boxing gloves. When he first saw them he had tears all over his face. His father then taught him some basics rules, like “how to hold his guard, how to stand at an angle with his chin tucked against his shoulder (Joe Louis style), how to jab, how to keep moving”
(Oates775). His father signs up for him to take boxing lessons at the YMCA. When his father was a boy he wanted to be a boxer himself. He did fight in a few matches at a local club and won only the first match. After he began his training, he started to work out every day after school and on Saturday morning. He was 130 pounds and five foot six when he was only sixteen years old. He could run as many miles nonstop without being tired. He was a good boxer and he was also fast. People has interest in watching him. Whenever he is not at the gym, if he’s in school, church, or wherever he is he always thinks about the gym, the ring and imaging himself being in his boxing trunks and leathers gloves. It is understandable that he really have a passion for boxing. The only way you can tell if you really love or have a passion for something is when cannot stop thinking about it, does not matter what you are doing or where you are it is always in your mind. “He was ready! He couldn’t be taken unawares! He couldn’t be stopped! He became obsessed with some of the boys and young men he knew at the gym, their weights, their heights, and the reach of their arms…” (Oates 776).