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Dragana Custic
Dr. Verrone
EN 413
7 October 2014
Sadness and Perception: The Core of their World
In Bad Girls, Joyce Carol Oates brilliantly portrays the loneliness and violence that
exists in contemporary American life through Mariettas crumbling love life and the girls
alienation and perception based on their past experiences. Marietta is a single mother of three
girls named Orchid, Isabella and Crystal. She works hard to support herself and her children due
to her tragic luck with relationships. Since her relationships have been very catastrophic, the girls
have developed a hatred for men; they are certain that any future relationships will only bring
more suffering to their family. Isaak Drum falls in love with Marietta and the girls set out to
make his life a living hell. Bad Girls allows the reader to walk in the shoes of three lonely girls
and visualize that their horrid past dealing with their mothers failed relationships is what shapes
their current perceptions on contemporary life.
Marietta Murchisons love life wasnt successful; as an outcome, she became desperate to
find love. She moved from place to place, in hopes of her luck changing. Her constant falling in
and out of love drastically affected the lives of the girls. Every time our mother fell in love it
was like whichever apartment or house we lived in, the actual floors and walls would begin to
lurch. Like the four of us were in a boat we werent aware of in calm waters and then a storm

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comes up pitching and tossing uscausing sea-sickness, or worse. Youre desperate clutching
for something to keep from being thrown overboard. To keep from being drowned (Oates 413).
The girls automatically became a part of her romantic struggles. They were forced to deal with
everything she dealt with when she engaged in certain relationships. The calmness they once
experienced turned into a rollercoaster of up and down emotions. They were dragged into the
constant grief which consumed their lives. As much as they tried to get rid of the sadness that
was the core of their world, it proceeded to cause more distress in their lives. There was no way
of escaping the reality they had become a part of. Men kept coming in and out of their house,
everyday of their lives. Marietta couldnt stop, her desperation had taken its toll. Although her
lack of love consumed her mind, she kept hope alive by continuously dating.
The Bad Girls were known for their bad reputation as a result of their past experiences;
their loneliness never gave them the ability to find themselves. These girls spent their lives
trying to make sure their mother doesnt make another big mistake. All they focused on was their
mother and her relationships, nothing else. They adapted to new men and moving around, that
was all they got to know. Their experiences shaped the people they turned into. They never really
had the chance to experience anything outside of that environment. Icy with her gold nose ring
and a half-dozen studs in each ear, and Orchid with her heavy-brood eyebrows and sassy mouth,
and baby-girl Crystal in skin-tight jeans looking from the rear like a juicy honeydew melon
sliced in halfpeople cut their eyes at us like we were threats to public safety (Oates 412).
These girls have absolutely no idea who they are; they are stuck searching for their identities.
They stand out in a crowd because of the things theyve had to put up with. Their perceptions of

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themselves are very different from the perceptions of outsiders. They judge others based on their
appearance, but fail to look into a mirror and see the irony of their actions.
The girls twisted perceptions caused Isaak Drumms one real chance at love to end faster
than he ever expected. Isaak Drumm was Mariettas current love interest. She would get nervous
whenever his name would come up, which was a sign that she had actually developed serious
feelings for this man. She would talk about him to the girls all the time; she would mention how
kind he was, how she admired his sense of humor. When the girls first saw him, all they focused
on was his appearance; their judgment of this innocent man was harsh and spiteful. His eyes
were shiny-black like beetles shells, staring at us so hard we all felt queasy. His skin was coarse
and his cheeks pitted from old acne scars and a queer radish color like its been stewed. His head
looked like a concrete block, so square, the jaw especially, and he had a bushy-droopy mustache
that looked like itd been soaked in peanut oil, and his thick black hair was oily too, a little
pompadour up front then matted down with a full tube of Brylcreme to make him look like a
Middle Eastern terrorist. Like his sharp eyes were talking in the fact that the three of us were
surprised by him, we were judging him and not too positively (Oates 414). This wasnt the first
time the girls had judged someone so cruelly. This was a daily part of their lifestyle, something
they got used to, something they improved and built on during and after each failed relationship.
Isaak Drumm wasnt going to have the easy way out, he was going to suffer what they suffered
during each failed attempt.
The miserable and unpromising experiences of these girls intensified their obscene and
relentless perceptions of each individual who entered their lives, even if that individual was
sincere like Isaak Drumm. Icy, the oldest and most rebellious daughter, devised a plan with the

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girls to sneak into Isaak Drumms apartment to find evidence they could use against him so they
can make their deluded mother realize what a slimy bastard shes gotten involved with again
(Oates 418). They searched and searched and found mostly their mothers belongings, which to
them was like evidence that her body was being hidden there. It wasnt until Icy found his gun
that everything took a turn down the wrong path. As soon as she found it, they heard Isaak
jingling his keys, about to come into the apartment. The other girls managed to escape out the
window, but he wounded up grabbing Icy. A gunshot was heard and Icy ended the relationship
between her mother and Isaak with this statement: You know what he did, Momma?he
assaulted me. Sexual assault! Tried to rape me! (Oates 423). All of their sadness and loneliness
resulted in lying, to make sure their mother never goes through what she went through ever
again. They tore her heart into pieces; Icy cleverly convinced her that she was telling the truth,
when in reality, she was far from it. This incident forever changed the lives of the Murchison
women. Their mother simply lost all the hope she used to carry inside of her. A move occurred
once again, the same old pattern kept rearing its ugly head.
At the end of the novel, Isaak Drumm opened up a pathway to Orchids emotions; his
words, actions and affection left a hopeful reassurance in Orchids heart. Years went by and
Orchid unexpectedly ran into Isaak. His appearance was nothing like what they made him out to
be. His eyes exhibited affliction and sorrow that never seemed to pass. He couldnt deal with the
fact that he lost all of them in his life because of Icy. He loved them and their mother equally, but
everyone seemed to look past that. He poured his emotions to her and its almost as if his pain
was transferred into her. Orchid was able to look beyond the perceptions her and her sisters once
had and develop a whole new perspective; one that would involve hope, instead of despair.