"Mastiff" by Joyce Carol Oates [Short story discussion]

Chris P

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I just read the story "Mastiff" by Joyce Carol Oates in the July 1, 2013 New Yorker.

Feel free to discuss whatever you want about the story, this is the AW Bookclub after all. But if you don't want to be prejudiced by my questions below or encounter spoilers, go read the story and come back. Don't worry. I'll wait :)


My question is about how the story was written: head hopping versus omni. The first 25% of the story alternates between the thoughts of the unnamed female main character and those of the male main character, as if it were 3rd omni. The final 75% is concerned completely with the thoughts of the woman, as if it were 3rd limited.

What do you think? Is this true omni that spends more time with her thoughts than his? Or head hopping that worked? Or head hopping or omni that didn't work?

Putting concrete examples to the writing "rules" helps me to know when and in which ways breaking the rules works (if it worked in this case--nothing says you have to think it does)
 

Chris P

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I'll start off by saying I don't think the shifting worked. I got a tick-tock sensation that distracted me. Further, the narrator didn't seem omniscient enough throughout the story or about other things.

Would you all agree with this? Or do you have other thoughts?
 

Kylabelle

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The head-hopping didn't bother me. What bothered me was that I didn't like either the man or the woman. I was entirely unable to relate to the woman's motivations and expressed feelings, and I felt a kind of disgust with their pretended intimacy.

[spoiler in this sentence.] The dog was a good character but the whole "hearing the dog breathe" thing at the end rang quite false. As well, I didn't believe the owner of such a dog would be that unable to control it.

So that's my take. I would not have liked the story any better, I don't think, if it had stayed in one pov.
 

Chris P

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I don't know if we're supposed to not like the man and the woman, but I thought this story did a great job of showing a total lack of chemistry between the two. This relationship has the stench of doomed to it. She mentions the occasional periods of fun and sparky conversation (which sadly for us happens off camera), but I don't think they exchange a single line of dialog in the story. Anything either of them wants seems to be at odds with what the other wants--be it greeting strangers or how quickly she walks.

I agree the final line was a non-starter (pun on my part?). It was sort of a "Hey reader, let me put it in your face in case you haven't picked it up from the three or four other references . . ." It explains why she might have had the woman say of the dog's pulling, straining and panting: "That isn’t a dog. It’s a human being on its hands and knees!" Wouldn't people be more likely to describe it as a bear, a dragon, or something else even more powerful than us? Add to this Simon's breathing while sleeping, and then at the end; it seems to me the mastiff is Simon, and will at some point later maul the woman like the dog did him.

At least that's the tense foreboding I got from it.
 
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