Ragged Rotted Net Analysis

In order to cope with violence and their own alienation, women turn to religion as a source of finding comfort and proper justice, often to no avail. In the days following her rape, Marianne Mulvaney becomes extremely religious. To remind herself of her religion and her own guilt for being raped, her brother Judd speaks of what repeats to herself saying, “As if this litany were the most basic, the most irreducible of knowable fact. As if it were all that might be granted her by way of understanding...her sole solace, her sole hope, was to cast this rotted net out again...to discover what truths it might contain. But they were always the same truths. I was drinking. I was to blame” (We Were the Mulvaneys 143). Overwhelmed with her perceived
In order to catch those truths, Oates employs the symbolism of a ragged rotted net showing how broken and imperfect Marianne has become because of the trauma she experienced. This net is a reflection of Marianne herself and affects her search to find justice. The truths she catches in her net bring her no real solace because her litany does not bring her certainty of her not being at fault. The idea of rape culture traps her because the same truths she draws in all blame her as the victim. Her net is unable to catch different truths because it is as broken as her life has become. Her entire town alienates her and because she has no one to help her find true justice for what has been done to her, religion is the only thing that can comfort her. However, her religion keeps her from finding this justice because it makes her believe that she is at fault even though she was the girl who was
As he considers his feelings toward his mother and her behavior towards him he becomes irrationally angry. He expresses his feelings, stating, “It was a heart-throbbing, pulse-quivering quiet, more terrible than screams and crashes...I was Nada’s son, I couldn’t let her leave me. I would rather see her die than lose her. I would rather see her dead, wax-white, her smiles and sneers vanished, drained of blood and energy and appetite” (Expensive People 70-71). The night after Richard’s parents fight, he claims to be too sick to go to school in order to spend time with his mother. However, the quiet that he experiences around her is worse than the screams and crashes of the night before. He wants to feel doted upon and wants to feel loved, but when his parents are fighting, his mother is focusing more on her husband and Richard’s father than she is on Richard himself. It makes him want her attention even more than he wanted to stop his father and mother from arguing. In response to his father’s anger, he wants to love his mother even more, thus exemplifying his Oedipus complex. He is extremely possessive of her and aches to touch her and love her beyond the natural love a son has for his mother. His feelings take a darker turn when his love for her turns into a lust for her body. This in turn gets revenge on both his mother and his father