I'll Take You There (novel)
Encyclopedia
I'll Take You There is a 2002 novel by Joyce Carol Oates
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. Soon enough, she crumbles under the exorbitant debt she runs up. Finally, she pretends she indulges in irrational behavior to get out of the sorority and move into affordable accommodation elsewhere on campus.
She falls for a black student who audits her philosophy lectures. After she stalks him for a while, they sleep together. Eventually, she learns that he is married and has left his wife and children.
She drives to Crescent, Utah to meet her dying father. After his death, he bequeaths his money to her, but she decides to give it to his mistress. She buries him to Strykersville, New York
, as he requested.
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction...
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Plot summary
A smart student, Anellia, joins a sorority in Syracuse, New YorkSyracuse, New York
Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...
. Soon enough, she crumbles under the exorbitant debt she runs up. Finally, she pretends she indulges in irrational behavior to get out of the sorority and move into affordable accommodation elsewhere on campus.
She falls for a black student who audits her philosophy lectures. After she stalks him for a while, they sleep together. Eventually, she learns that he is married and has left his wife and children.
She drives to Crescent, Utah to meet her dying father. After his death, he bequeaths his money to her, but she decides to give it to his mistress. She buries him to Strykersville, New York
Strykersville, New York
Strykersville is a hamlet located within the town of Sheldon in the western part of Wyoming County, New York, United States. It is located on New York State Route 78.-Cultural references:...
, as he requested.
Characters
- Anellia, a fake name the protagonist takes; an undergraduate student.
- Dietrich, Fritz, Hendrick, her brothers.
- Ida, her dead mother.
- Erich, the father. He works in the West of the United States.
- Mrs Agnes Thayer, the housemother at the sorority who at first seems to run the house with an iron fist and then loses control over it. She is British; her sister is from LeedsLeedsLeeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
. - Vernor Matheius, her black lover.
- Hildie Pomeroy, her father's mistress.
Allusions to other works
- The novel starts with an epitaph from Ludwig WittgensteinLudwig WittgensteinLudwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...
's Philosophical Investigations. - Philosophy is mentioned with Spinoza, Nietzsche, Hegel, Descartes, David HumeDavid HumeDavid Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
, PlatoPlatoPlato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
, AristotleAristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, Saint Augustine, Francis BaconFrancis BaconFrancis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
, VoltaireVoltaireFrançois-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
, Immanuel KantImmanuel KantImmanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
, Wittgenstein, CassirerCassirerNotable people whose surname is or was Cassirer include:* Richard Cassirer , German neurologist* Paul Cassirer , German art dealer and editor* Bruno Cassirer , German publisher and gallery owner in Berlin...
, Thomas AquinasThomas AquinasThomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...
, Leibniz, LockeJohn LockeJohn Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
, DemocritusDemocritusDemocritus was an Ancient Greek philosopher born in Abdera, Thrace, Greece. He was an influential pre-Socratic philosopher and pupil of Leucippus, who formulated an atomic theory for the cosmos....
, Bertrand RussellBertrand RussellBertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
, and PascalBlaise PascalBlaise Pascal , was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen...
. - Literature is mentioned with James JoyceJames JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
, Franz KafkaFranz KafkaFranz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
, Walter ScottWalter ScottSir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
, Edward GibbonEdward GibbonEdward Gibbon was an English historian and Member of Parliament...
, William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, and MiltonJohn MiltonJohn Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
's Paradise LostParadise LostParadise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
. - Music is mentioned with LisztLisztLiszt is a Hungarian surname. Notable persons with that surname include:* Franz Liszt , Hungarian composer and pianist* Adam Liszt , father of Franz Liszt* Anna Liszt , mother of Franz Liszt...
and Schopenhauer. - Painting is mentioned with Edward HopperEdward HopperEdward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...
and Salvador DalíSalvador DalíSalvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
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Allusions to actual history
- The Civil Rights MovementCivil rights movementThe civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
is mentioned through the character of Vernor Matheius.