Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Joyce Carol Oates
- First Published: 1990
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: the 1950’s and early 1960’s
- Setting: A small town in western New York State
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: 1950’s, Civil rights, 1960’s, United States or Americans, Racism, Crime or criminals, Murder or homicide, Gender roles, Violence, War, Photography or photographers, Blood, Sports
- Locales: New York
Characters Discussed
Iris Courtney, the daughter of troubled parents. She is a striving young teenager determined to move up in the world. On the surface, she is a good student and a happy, normal teenager; underneath is a roiling, overheated inner world of desires and compulsions. She papers over this side of herself with an agreeable persona, but as a result she becomes increasingly false and duplicitous; her outer being does not bear any resemblance to the churning libidinous, even suicidal, secret self. After the murder of Little Red Garlock by Jinx Fairchild, who has been...
[The entire page is 1304 words long]
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