Joyce Carol Oates, A Garden of Earthly Delights

Martin Kich (Wright State University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Nicole Kennedy (University of Newcastle), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Sean Seeger (University of Essex), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1967

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

This novel is the first in Oates’s self-described trilogy on contemporary American life. Focusing on the rural environment, it traces the ill-fated life of its central character, Clara Walpole, from her traumatic birth to her institutionalization following a psychological breakdown in middle age. (The second and third volumes of the trilogy are Expensive People, which treats suburbia, and them, which concerns the inner city.) For a recent Modern Library edition of the novel, Oates has made substantial revisions to the originally published version of the novel. What follows is a summary of that original version.

Clara’s parents are riding in the back of a truck when a traffic accident causes her mother to go into labor prematurely. So Clara is born literally and inauspiciously into carnage. Having lost the family farm, her father, Carleton, has...

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1193 words

Citation: Kich, Martin. "A Garden of Earthly Delights". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 18 November 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7130, accessed 10 December 2025.]

Joyce Carol Oates, A Garden of Earthly Delights

Dates

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