I'll Take You There Book

Oates tackles some philosophy in this one. She references ontology, existentialism (she explicitly names a philosophy grad student "Matheius" which is similar to the protagonist "Mathieu" of Sartre's "The Age of Reason"), Spinoza, Nietzche, Plato, idealism, Wittgenstein's language theory etc. and that is just what I remember - I'm sure I'm missing some of them.

But what is the point of this and does it make an interesting novel? I think it does. Who else but Oates would foist all this philosophical baggage on a college-age heroine (or really, anti-heroine)? Oates has always been concerned with the place of young women in America and how they are identified and self-identified in our culture. This is where the philosophy comes in - she uses philosophy as a way to understand the coming of age and reason of a woman through her struggles in her roles as sorority sister (!), "Negro-lover" (Oates' term), and daughter. In fact her identity crisis is so severe we never know her real name - other characters don't bother to learn her name correctly or intentionally use "Anellia" which the narrator says is close but not her name.

Much is made of Plato's Cave - in the book you can read it as a metaphor for the narrator's blindness in knowing who she is - and for the strictures that society puts on women. There is an "ideal woman" so to speak, but it is hard to get there.

Which is where the title of the book comes in. The narrator finally finds her freedom to find out who she is through writing - and through these writings at the end of the book she says "I'll Take You There".