The Rise and Fall of Foxfire
Lowertown Hammond looked to be collapsing, you could see signs of its decline on all sides. The rattletrap city buses belching exhaust as they didn't seem to do, at least so bad, Uptown; the diesel trucks thundering along cobblestone streets breaking the streets to hell; cracked pavement where weeds and sapling trees were pushing up.
The differences between the classes are palpable in Maddy's descriptions of the various neighborhoods of Hammond. The disparity is particularly apparent during Legs' visits to the Kellogg mansion, when she notices even the elegant detail carved into the bottom of chair legs (263). This inequitable class system and the capitalist businesses that run it become some of Foxfire's greatest enemies.
So you could be kept in Red Bank for years charged with some negligible "crime" no adult could be charged with, like being a runaway, or a truant, or incorrigible--"What's 'incorrigible,'" Legs said, "except some adult objects to your attitude?''--or promiscuous. (Only girls could be promiscuous: never guys.) (131)
Legs, once she becomes aware of this, says to the judge, "I bet it's unconstitutional--treating kids like that. Like, 'cause we're 'minors,' we aren't human!" (132) The girls quickly learn that adults aren't to be trusted to have their best interests in mind.
by moonwatcher
This paper was written for a lit class I took in the Spring of 2002. Even though I had read Foxfire many times before, studying it in this class gave me a whole new understanding of the book and helped me to notice some themes that I probably would never have seen otherwise.
In the 1950's, in a town in Upstate New York, five lower-class teenage girls form a gang called Foxfire. Joyce Carol Oates' novel Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang is the story of Legs Sadovsky and Maddy Wirtz, and the other girls that come together to stand up against the male adult-dominated world that oppresses them. They unite to get revenge against those that have hurt them and to become independent, but ultimately, even their fierce determination to survive cannot hold them together.
The setting is essential to the story. Hammond, New York is a thriving city, but it is in shabby Lowertown Hammond that Foxfire emerges, amid crumbling warehouses, polluting factories, and the constant gang violence of neighborhood boys. Maddy says on page 213,
While all the girls of Foxfire are aware of their poverty and its control over their lives, it is Legs whose diatribes against the bourgeoisie creates anger towards the capitalist system, and it is her mentor of sorts, the ex-priest Father Theriault, who tells Legs of the coming proletariat Revolution and generates her communist philosophy. These ideas, in combination with the Foxfire girls' experiences growing up on Fairfax Avenue, are at the root of many of their acts of vengeance, particularly Legs' Final Solution.
Another element of the setting that leads to the gang forming is the dysfunctionality of their families. In Lowertown it seems that there is not a single girl with a normal home life: there's Maddy and Lana, who both lost their fathers in the war (35), and Rita whose father is a drunk and a wife-beater, and whose older brothers are abusive (25), and Legs, whose mother is dead and her father a heavy drinker. Without caring families, the girls need a substitute for family to give them the support and love they need, and Foxfire becomes their salvation.
Because they are young, the girls of Foxfire do not have the same rights granted to their elders. They are subject to the whims of school administrators, their parents, and juvenile authorities. When Foxfire is detained for stealing Acey Holman's car, the girls learn that their rights have been suspended due to their age:
Foxfire is unique among the gangs of Lowertown as the only female gang. Maddy says, "...each of these all-male gangs has its 'female auxiliary,' an ever-shifting pool of steady girl friends and available, or promiscuous, girls, but FOXFIRE's no 'auxiliary,' FOXFIRE can't be appropriated. FOXFIRE can't even be approached" (110). Foxfire's central reason for existence is the treatment of girls and women. Many of the girls experience abuse by men first-hand, particularly Rita, who endures abuse by neighborhood boys, her own brothers, and her teacher Mr. Buttinger, and Maddy is almost raped by her great uncle. Witnessing these acts against not only their own members, but also against other girls and women, Foxfire is enraged and vows revenge against men. By the end of the book they see it as a state of war, and proclaim "MEN ARE THE ENEMY!" (246) Their hatred of men is understandable, considering their experiences with them, but it also ignores that not all men are abusive. While Maddy recognizes this, telling Legs that these are special cases, Legs insists, "No it's all of them: men. It's a state of undeclared war, them hating us, men hating us no matter our age or who the hell we are but nobody wants to admit it, not even us" (101). Eventually all the Foxfire girls come to believe this almost unquestioningly.
Foxfire is also rejecting the gender roles set out by 1950's America. They refuse to act meek and "feminine" and are forbidden from dating. They imitate the behavior of gang boys by driving around a car, and Legs dresses as a man to gain access to jobs and other benefits not available to her as a woman.
Foxfire is determined to survive and create an alternative to that which has been set out for them as teenage girls, but their success in building a life for themselves cannot last. The difficulties of supporting the group prove too treacherous, and in seeking out a solution to pull themselves out of their financial hole, they forge a path leading the gang to catastrophe.
Even so, their monetary problems are merely incidental; the gang is visibly headed for disaster as Legs returns from Red Bank. Their behavior following her return becomes ever more reckless as they become more zealous in their hatred of and need for revenge against men.
One of the greatest problems of Foxfire in its closing days is that Legs becomes too dictatorial in her approach to leading the gang. While girls join the gang to escape the oppression of the rest of society, they meet a new form of oppression, in which Legs is imposing her own strict rules. It is impossible for all the girls to comply with these, and Rita in particular violates the rule against dating and is "X-iled" from the gang for simply following her heart. Ironically, in trying to escape the authoritarianism of the larger society, Foxfire itself becomes an autocracy, with Legs determining its every move. This becomes dangerous as the gang seeks a "Final Solution," because in controlling every decision, Legs risks making fatal choices. If Legs would listen to Maddy, and open the plans to discussion, perhaps they would be more careful and find a safer way to solve their problems.
Despite its eventual demise, Foxfire is successful in its goal to provide an alternative for teenage girls. Foxfire gives its members a family, a sense of belonging, and the knowledge that they are loved. It grants the confidence that some, such as Rita, were lacking before, and gives them a sense of pride in themselves, and in Foxfire. The acts of revenge Foxfire commits over the years do bring change to the town of Hammond, however insignificantly. They rid Perry High of an abusive teacher, prevent a rape, and free animals from an inhumane pet shop. Even more, they show others that girls can and will stand up for themselves to end their oppression, and that girls need not act submissive and can even defeat boys when they want to.
Foxfire changes each member's life, driving them towards new possibilities they couldn't otherwise consider, and it gives them a determination to survive. The gang cannot last; it is too unwavering in its ideals to adapt to its maturing members, and eventually it reaches its destined end. However, while the heat of its anger consumes the gang, the Foxfire girls each rise from the ashes to begin a new life on their own.
Work Cited
Oates, Joyce Carol. Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1993.
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