Pumpkin Head Hadley Analysis

In the spooky story titled: Pumpkin head Hadley is a young widow (just as Oates recently lost her husband), and she’s attracted—for mysterious reasons that relate to her childhood—to Anton, a young post-doc who works at the local Co-op. He has “dropped by”, and she’s not too upset to see him—it seems she might be ready to finally emerge after a long period of mourning—but she is slightly repulsed by Anton. The man is forceful, though, and she doesn’t have the strength to ask him to leave, although she does lie to him feebly. It turns out that he’s had a bad time of it and he’s a bit cracked, like the pumpkin head he’s wearing when she first sees him (it’s a bizarre effort at a Halloween gift). When he goes further and tries to force himself