The Role of New Orleans Parish Prison in Joyce Carol Oates’s “Aiding and Abetting” by Tanya TROMBLE

“…In this context, the mention of “deplorable conditions in the New Orleans Parish Prison,” which Steven hears in an NBC news report while he is on the phone with Owen, serves as a metaphor for feelings of victimization and imprisonment on the part of each of the characters, as well as a metaphor for Steven’s own mistreatment of his mentally scarred brother-in-law whose fragility he takes advantage of by suggesting he commit suicide. …”
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