They All Just Went Away

Joyce Carol Oates' essay titled They All Just Went Away, is very thought provoking. It was written in 1995 and is a first hand account of a family that lived in a broken home where,” the roof of the house was made of sheets of tin, scarred and scanned like skin, and the front was covered in simulated-brick asphalt siding pieced together from lumberyard scraps" (Oates 558). The father was a drunk who beat his family. His wife never reported him, but instead lied and said he never laid a hand on anyone. One day he lit the house on fire and although it didn't burn the whole thing down, it still tore apart the family. Her use of rhetoric devices such as the imagery of the houses and, "the lyric smell of honeysuckle"(Oates 555)", make the narrative feel more real, as if the reader is there looking at the ashes of what used to be. She is also able to use metaphors to explain what a home is by saying," [...] the house is the mother's body, you have been expelled and are forbidden to now reenter"(Oates 554). This makes the reader understand that a house is meant to feel safe and familiar but at the same time so unreachable. She is able to speak to her audience of anyone who has ever felt like they might be alone, and make them see how her life changed as well as the life of one of the girls from the old broken house. In the end she befriended one of the girls who lived there but she would never admit her father broke her home. Instead she blamed it on lightning. She protects her father as her mother always had because that is what was done in her family. Joyce Carol Oates proved her point that a home is the people living inside a building and not the building itself, very well. Her ability to make readers feel apart of her story makes it more of an impact and heartfelt. Anyone interested in reading a well-written, short essay may want to consider reading They All Just Went Away. 


Lighting Strike
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjKo-Cf9eTOAhWE7SYKHWwFAjUQjRwIBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DBkGE-CB7Qok&psig=AFQjCNGCgMIHxgg1xFsADMckYXnCT0GC2A&ust=1472500911545604