Life After High School

by Joyce Carol Oates

The short story, "Life After High School" by Joyce Carol Oates, is set in the small town of South Lebanon, New York in 1959. The story is the tragic tale of one-sided love where Zachary Graff, the intelligent but socially awkward teenager falls in love with Barbara "Sunny" Burhman, the attractive and popular girl that everyone adores, and the consequences afterwards.

Genres: Short Stories, School

Unknown Binding

About the author

Joyce Carol Oates is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000), and her short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel Them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize (2019).
Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014, and is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing. From 2016 to 2020, she was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught short fiction in the spring semesters. She now teaches at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Oates was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2016.
Pseudonyms: Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly.

Reviews

[˗ˏˋ n a j v a ˊˎ˗]

"I couldn't have loved Zachary Graff as he claimed he loved me, because—I couldn't. But I could have allowed him to know that he wasn't sick, crazy, 'perverted' as he called himself in that letter."

Throughout the story, we can see our two main characters dealing with “guilt” after the incident, which is, in fact, striking how this sensation has the ability to linger for the longest times of all others —even for almost thirty years.
However, by sharing it, most of the times the burden can get lighter, weaker even one might say, and even the subject be talked about free of any affliction.
Oates, needless to say, is one of the greatest 20th century American writers and she has proven herself many times with her amazing stories. “Life After High School” will stay one of my favorites due to personal reasons.

[David]

4.4/10

Read for pre college literature class. At first I just wasn't that fond of it because nothing enticed me, but inevitably this slightly grew on me because we spend like a week per short-story and we analyze poems which relate and everything (analyzing the poems and literature is my favourite part of the class because it's become a hobby to evolve from simply enjoying or not enjoying fiction for what it is, and I enjoy having a basis of what I think is good and bad because I like having opinions and being passionate about them (I wrote some insanely complex stuff in my analysis and the teacher gave me a 3/5 saying "on the right track" ☠️)).

I think the author tried to be the next revolutionary figure who brought attention to societal struggles through these short books, and based on the popularity, that isn't exactly what happened. I'm not gonna do extra work and analyze this further but it's just alright imo. It felt pretty gimmicky with its twist, because the exact same message can be told with more efficiency if it wasn't completely based on a plot twist. It's just a pet peeve of mine when something is genuinely interesting, even in its simplicity, but it has to be tainted by these gimmicks that are inherently supposed to make it "better" because of audience engagement, but it didn't work at all for me and I can't ever say that something is good without looking further into it and just because I didn't expect it. The completely unrelated poems that we had to somehow relate to this story had better writing than this like idk how my teacher is choosing these books that nobody has heard of except for the author and her family

[Narges Shegeft]

It’s sad that some people have to hide themselves and their true demands under the veil of what’s called the orthodox view of society, especially in adolescence which everything’s hard enough to handle.



*******SPOILER alert*******


1- In a sense, Sunny’s way of behaving to Zachary was likable “Of all sins, she thought, betrayal is surely the worst.” And her reaction during their last brief encounter was totally normal (You cannot accept whoever’s proposal lest they do harm themselves) and even Zach’s telling Sunny that he loves her while he was not straight and just wanted her as a shelter to hide out and provided she’d have accepted his proposal and learned he’s a gay thereafter, was some kind of betrayal to her,

2- What Tobias did afterward, well, was not a big deal to cause someone kill themself,

3- Considering his peers who might ridicule him, and maybe parents not accepting his true nature,
it was the whole picture of events that lead Zach to commit suicide, something that’s popular among adolescents!!

So maybe it’s for the best if society and the most important of all, parents tell their children that whatsoever their sexual orientations be, they understand and are supportive of them so that someone like Zach would open up about such a thing in his life without following his tragic death.

And I was wondering what the last line meant “What do you think Zachary planned to do with the clothesline?” and thought maybe due to her getting rid of the burden of Zach’s death being her fault after learning the truth, she could finally talk about him guiltlessly.

[Ashkan]

Life After High School (1995)
by Joyce Carol Oats

It might come off as daunting in itself; the mere idea of loss and grief. It only gets more jarring when you find out it was all to a fault which was not ever yours to begin with, in counter to your former understanding and belief. In this story, it happens thirty years after one taking of a life.

My second read of Oats, I like how she interprets invasion in her storytelling within different settings.

Zachary, a high school teenager who esteems himself and is firm, but not so confident in his own skin, is in love with her classmate; Sunny. When Zachary expresses his admiration to Sunny and surprises her with a diamond ring to marry her, Sunny rejcts him. In return, Zachary goes on to commit suicide.

In my eyes, this is a pitified version of rape.
Zachary's action is a mirror of his insecurity and his not enough thinking. He now has put this loft of a burden on Sunny's shoulder who, in contrast to eveything around her, is a character of merit and goodness, a "Sunny" after all.

Even though she'll move on, just like any of us would, the thoughts will intrude. The person who you always talk to in your head when you're alone, will start talking. The covered scar will need a scratch.
You might sit and wonder about that old crush of yours who just cuaght you now and years later, wouldn't it be better if they had been more careful? If you were more careful?
But unfortunately, this is a life after high school.

[Kalyn]

*for class