Mariella's Fear In 'Mastiff' By Joyce Carol Oates

In the short story “Mastiff,” author Joyce Carol Oates presents a woman who is in search of the love of a companion, but is scared to show her weaknesses. In the beginning of the story, Mariella is with a man named Simon that she had met on a blind date. She likes Simon, but is not sure if she wants to be with him in the earlier stages of the story. Simon and Mariella are going hiking for the day and get to the trail when they see a massive dog, a mastiff, that has Mariella convinced is not a dog. The large dog is said to weigh maybe 200 pounds and looks like a human on his hands and knees. She had not listened to Simon when he told her what to bring for the hike, so she does not bring a water for the trail or a jacket either. Simon has brought

Mariella is scared to show her fear because she thinks that it is a sign of weakness. “Her principle was Never reveal your weakness” (257), this confirms that she does not like to show any kind of weakness, especially fear. Her biggest fear is dogs because she was attacked by a dog at the age of nine or ten. She tries to hide that fear from Simon by talking to all the hikers on the trail about their dogs. She asks them what their dogs name are and then acts like she is not scared of them. Her not revealing this flaw to Simon ultimately led to the attack by the dog. Had she told Simon about her fear of dogs, they would have stayed at a safe distance away from the dog. Mariella reveals her second flaw when she says her and Simon are “fundamentally strangers” (257), even though they had been in bed together and been on many dates. She believes that Simon and her are technically “lovers” but are not yet “intimate” (257). “They’d been together in the woman’s house, upstairs in her bed, but they hadn’t yet spent an entire night together” (257). Though they had been on many dates and even possibly made love, they had not spent the entire night with each other because she could not fall asleep with him there. Mariella could not be close with a man and enjoy it. “In truth, the woman had never been very comfortable with a man at close quarters, unless she’d been drinking”

In the short story “Mastiff,” the woman, Mariella has many flaws. She hides her fear of dogs from Simon causing for a terrible consequence to happen. She thinks fear is a sign of weakness. She is afraid of commitment because of her uneasiness being around a man, especially Simon. Her last flaw is she hates many things about herself and finds it hard to like herself. In the story, author Joyce Carol Oates presents this blind date couple that are going for a hike. The couple go for a trek that ends terribly bad, when a giant 200-pound Mastiff attacks the woman Mariella and Simon the man steps in between and defends her. Simon ends up in the hospital with severe lacerations and is being operated on. The woman follows the ambulance to the hospital and is in a panic, when she finds out the Simon has a heart condition and is having heart problems. She ends up signing the man’s papers as his fiancée. Mariella finds the man’s id and reads his name, and says it sounds like the most beautiful name ever