Summary Of A Widow's Story By Joyce Carol Oates

A Widow’s Story is a memoir of Joyce Carol Oates, dedicated to her late husband Raymond Smith. This book was gripping from the very start, I felt like I was getting to know Oates more as a person, instead of just the author to literature read for the class. Oates husband of forty-seven year of marriage passed away from a secondary infection; acquired during his hospital stay for treatment of pneumonia. She takes us on this journey with her from the beginning with the ER visit she took with Ray, when he expressed the strange way he felt. “Unable to get back to sleep, trouble breathing when lying down, warm, sweaty, short of breath” (Oates 13). Every page I read, I felt her emotions, the happiness she had with her husband during their time together. The sadness she felt while visiting him the hospital and the pain from his sudden death.
I felt upset for the unkindness Oates encountered by strangers, during this rough time. Starting with the note she found on her car “learn to park stupid bitch” (Oates 4), to the unsympathetic talkative nursing aid Jasmine. Most disturbing of all, was the lack of empathy shown by the nurse on the very night her husband passed away. “I tell one of the nurses, my husband died…do I call a funeral home, can you recommend one…can you call one for me, “she shakes her head, no”…”she looks up with a frown, your husband body will be taken down to the morgue, you can call a funeral home to pick “it” up”. “In the morning you can call… you have time, you should go home now” (Oates 76). I felt the same as Oates, shocked by the way this nurse can speak to someone whose family has just died. “So stunned, as if the woman has reached over the counter and slapped my face”, “So quickly Raymond has ceased being he, now is “it” (Oates