Key Takeaways
1. Boxing Reveals the Essence of Human Struggle
It’s a terrible sport, but it’s a sport…the fight for survival is the fight.
Condensed Drama. Each boxing match is a unique, highly condensed drama without words, showcasing the outermost limits of human physical and psychic power. Even when nothing sensational happens, the drama is psychological, revealing the boxer's capacity for courage, intelligence, and hope. The ring becomes a stage for an absolute experience, a public accounting of one's being.
Beyond Metaphor. Boxing is not merely a metaphor for life's struggles, but a unique, closed world, obliquely akin to severe religions where the individual is both "free" and "determined." Life may be like boxing in many unsettling respects, but boxing is only like boxing. The common denominator of five hundred boxing matches is not of primary interest; each fight stands alone in its drama.
Voyeuristic Intimacy. To enter the ring near-naked and risk one’s life is to make of one’s audience voyeurs of a kind; boxing is so intimate. It is to ease out of sanity’s consciousness and into another, difficult to name. It is to risk, and sometimes to realize, the agony of which agon (Greek, “contest”) is the root. The ceremonial ringing of the bell is a summoning to full wakefulness for both boxers and spectators. It sets into motion, too, the authority of Time.
2. The Boxer's Body is His Identity
Like a dancer, a boxer “is” his body, and is totally identified with it.
Weight Divisions. A boxer's identity is intrinsically linked to their body and, more specifically, their weight. The various weight divisions, from heavyweight to flyweight, define the physical parameters within which a boxer competes. Fighting outside one's weight division invites disaster, as a boxer may not be able to "bring his punch with him."
Physical Transformation. The dedication to making weight can lead to extreme measures, such as fasting or vigorous exercise close to fight time, risking serious injury. Michael Spinks's accomplishment of becoming the first light-heavyweight to win the heavyweight title exemplifies the fanaticism of boxing, as he created a true heavyweight's body through rigorous training and nutrition.
Beyond Words. The body becomes the primary means of expression. Why are you a boxer, Irish featherweight champion Barry McGuigan was asked. He said: “I can’t be a poet. I can’t tell stories…” Each boxing match is a story—a unique and highly condensed drama without words. Even when nothing sensational happens: then the drama is “merely” psychological.
3. Time and Mortality are Ever-Present Adversaries
In the boxing ring, even in our greatly humanized times, death is always a possibility—which is why some of us prefer to watch films or tapes of fights already past, already defined as history.
Time-Bound Existence. Boxers inhabit a curious sort of "slow" time in the ring, where three-minute rounds can feel excruciatingly long. Outside the ring, they inhabit an alarmingly accelerated time, with a twenty-three-year-old boxer no longer considered young and a thirty-five-year-old considered old. This rapid aging makes the experience of watching great fighters of the past radically different from seeing them perform in their prime.
Knocked Out of Time. Time, like the possibility of death, is the invisible adversary of which the boxers—and the referee, the seconds, the spectators—are keenly aware. When a boxer is “knocked out” it does not mean, as it’s commonly thought, that he has been knocked unconscious, or even incapacitated; it means rather more poetically that he has been knocked out of Time.
Consuming Excellence. Boxing is the most tragic of all sports because more than any human activity it consumes the very excellence it displays—its drama is this very consumption. To expend oneself in fighting the greatest fight of one’s life is to begin by necessity the downward turn that next time may be a plunge, an abrupt fall into the abyss.
4. Pain Transcends its Physicality in the Ring
Pain, in the proper context, is something other than pain.
Redefining Pain. Boxers don't feel pain quite the way we do, as pain, in the proper context, is something other than pain. Gene Tunney's career was built upon pain, as his defeat to Harry Greb taught him how to beat him eventually. Without it, he would never have moved up into Dempsey’s class.
Inviting Injury. Some boxers invite injury as a means of assuaging guilt, in a Dostoyevskian exchange of physical well-being for peace of mind. Boxing is about being hit rather more than it is about hitting, just as it is about feeling pain, if not devastating psychological paralysis, more than it is about winning.
Context is All. The artist senses some kinship, however oblique and one-sided, with the professional boxer in this matter of training. This fanatic subordination of the self in terms of a wished-for destiny. Indeed, it might be said that “context” is all.
5. Boxing is a Homoerotic Dance of Domination
No sport appears more powerfully homoerotic: the confrontation in the ring—the disrobing—the sweaty heated combat that is part dance, courtship, coupling—the frequent urgent pursuit by one boxer of the other in the fight’s natural and violent movement toward the “knockout”.
Erotic Mimicry. Boxing derives much of its appeal from the mimicry of a species of erotic love in which one man overcomes the other in an exhibition of superior strength and will. The heralded celibacy of the fighter-in-training is very much a part of boxing lore: instead of focusing his energies and fantasies upon a woman the boxer focuses them upon an opponent.
Post-Fight Embrace. Most fights, however fought, end with an embrace between the boxers after the final bell—a gesture of mutual respect and apparent affection that appears to the onlooker to be more than perfunctory. Rocky Graziano sometimes kissed his opponents out of gratitude for the fight.
Admiration for Courage. Though many men are loudly contemptuous of weakness a woman is struck by the admiration, amounting at times to awe, they will express for a man who has exhibited superior courage while losing his fight. These are powerful, haunting, unsettling images, cruelly beautiful, inextricably bound up with boxing’s primordial appeal.
6. The Opponent is a Mirror, Reflecting Self-Destruction
Boxing’s claim is that it is superior to life in that it is, ideally, superior to all accident. It contains nothing that is not fully willed.
Dream Distortion. The boxer meets an opponent who is a dream-distortion of himself in the sense that his weaknesses, his capacity to fail and to be seriously hurt, his intellectual miscalculations—all can be interpreted as strengths belonging to the Other. This is dream, or nightmare: my strengths are not fully my own, but my opponent’s weaknesses; my failure is not fully my own, but my opponent’s triumph.
World Model. The old boxing adage—a truism surely untrue—that you cannot be knocked out if you see the blow coming, and if you will yourself not to be knocked out, has its subtler, more daunting significance: nothing that happens to the boxer in the ring, including death—“his” death—is not of his own will or failure of will. The suggestion is of a world-model in which we are humanly responsible not only for our own acts but for those performed against us.
Unique World. Which is why, though springing from life, boxing is not a metaphor for life but a unique, closed, self-referential world, obliquely akin to those severe religions in which the individual is both “free” and “determined”—in one sense possessed of a will tantamount to God’s, in another totally helpless.
7. Anger Fuels the Boxer's Fire
Yet in a deeper sense boxers are angry, as even a superficial knowledge of their lives indicates.
Ennobled Rage. Boxing is fundamentally about anger. It is in fact the only sport in which anger is accommodated, ennobled. It is the only human activity in which rage can be transposed without equivocation into art.
Political Impotence. Yet it is reasonable to assume that boxers fight one another because the legitimate objects of their anger are not accessible to them. There is no political system in which the spectacle of two men fighting each other is not a striking, if unintended, image of the political impotence of most men (and women): You fight what’s nearest, what’s available, what’s ready to fight you.
Transcending Fate. For the most part they constitute the disenfranchised of our affluent society, they are the sons of impoverished ghetto neighborhoods in which anger, if not fury, is appropriate. Boxing may be a way of cruelly assaulting one’s self but it is most immediately a way of transcending one’s fate.
8. Machismo is a Distorted Reflection of Masculinity
To enter the claustrophobic world of professional boxing even as a spectator is to enter what appears to be a distillation of the masculine world, empty now of women, its fantasies, hopes, and stratagems magnified as in a distorting mirror, or a dream.
Adolescent Patriarchy. Boxing is a purely masculine activity and it inhabits a purely masculine world. Which is not to suggest that most men are defined by it: clearly, most men are not. At boxing matches women’s role is limited to that of card girl and occasional National Anthem singer: stereotypical functions usually performed in stereotypically zestful feminine ways.
Reversed Values. Here, we find ourselves through the looking-glass. Values are reversed, evaginated: a boxer is valued not for his humanity but for being a “killer,” a “mauler,” a “hit-man,” an “animal,” for being “savage,” “merciless,” “devastating,” “ferocious,” “vicious,” “murderous.” Opponents are not merely defeated as in a game but are “decked,” “stiffed,” “starched,” “iced,” “destroyed,” “annihilated.”
Poverty and the Warrior. It was once said by José Torres that the machismo of boxing is a condition of poverty. But it is not, surely, a condition uniquely of poverty? I think of it as the obverse of the feminine, the denial of the feminine-in-man that has its ambiguous attractions for all men, however “civilized.” It is a remnant of another, earlier era when the physical being was primary and the warrior’s masculinity its highest expression.
9. Lying is a Strategic Art in Boxing
One of the primary things boxing is about is lying.
Double Personality. It’s about systematically cultivating a double personality: the self in society, the self in the ring. As the chess grandmaster channels his powerful aggressive impulses onto the game board, which is the world writ small, so the “born” boxer channels his strength into the ring, against the Opponent.
Chess Game. After his upset victory against WBC junior welterweight Billy Costello in August 1985 the virtually unknown “Lightning” Lonnie Smith told an interviewer for The Ring that his model for boxing was that of a chess game: boxing is a “game of control, and, as in chess, this control can radiate in circles from the center, or in circles toward the center.
Many Selves. The self in society, the self in the ring. But there are many selves and there are of course many boxers—ranging from the shy, introverted, painfully inarticulate Johnny Owen to the frequently manic Muhammad Ali in his prime.
10. The Referee is the Moral Compass in a Brutal World
The referee makes boxing possible.
Moral Conscience. The “third man in the ring,” usually anonymous so far as the crowd is concerned, appears to many observers no more than an observer himself, even an intruder; a ghostly presence as fluid in motion and quick-footed as the boxers themselves. The referee is our intermediary in the fight. He is our moral conscience extracted from us as spectators so that, for the duration of the fight, “conscience” need not be a factor in our experience; nor need it be a factor in the boxers’ behavior.
Power of Life and Death. The referee holds the power of life and death at certain times since his decision to terminate a fight, or to allow it to continue, can determine a boxer’s fate. In the infamous Benny Paret-Emile Griffith fight of March 1962 the referee Ruby Goldstein was said to have stood paralyzed as Griffith trapped Paret in the ropes, striking him as many as eighteen times in the head. (Paret died ten days later.)
Fighting vs. Boxing. If boxing is frequently, in the lighter weights especially, a highly complex and refined skill, belonging solely to civilization, fighting belongs to something predating civilization, the instinct not merely to defend oneself but to attack another and to force him into absolute submission.
11. Boxing's Allure for Writers Lies in its Unspoken Drama
Writers have long been attracted to boxing, from the early days of the English Prize Ring to the present time.
Wordless Spectacle. Its most immediate appeal is that of the spectacle, in itself wordless, lacking a language, that requires others to define it, celebrate it, complete it. Like all extreme but perishable human actions boxing excites not only the writer’s imagination, but also his instinct to bear witness.
Extravagant Fictions. And boxers have frequently displayed themselves, inside the ring and out, as characters in the literary sense of the word. Extravagant fictions without a structure to contain them.
Intimate Connection. That no other sport can elicit such theoretical anxiety lies at the heart of boxing’s fascination for the writer. It is the thing in itself but it is also its meaning to the individual, shifting and problematic as a blurred image in a mirror. In no other sport is the connection between performer and observer so intimate, so frequently painful, so unresolved.
12. Boxing is a Controversial Sport on the Brink of Oblivion
To the untrained eye most boxing matches appear not merely savage but mad.
Moral Objections. No American sport or activity has been so consistently and so passionately under attack as boxing, for “moral” as well as other reasons. And no American sport evokes so ambivalent a response in its defenders: when asked the familiar question “How can you watch…?” the boxing aficionado really has no answer.
Multimillion-Dollar Business. Since boxing has become a multimillion-dollar business under the aegis of a few canny promoters—the most visible being Don King—it is not likely that it will be abolished, in any case. It would simply be driven underground, like abortion; or exiled to Mexico, Cuba, Canada, England, Ireland, Zaire…
Primitive Proposition. In any case, anger is an appropriate response to certain intransigent facts of life, not a motiveless malignancy as in classic tragedy but a fully motivated and socially coherent impulse. Those whose aggression is masked, or oblique, or unsuccessful, will always condemn it in others. They are likely to think of boxing as “primitive”—as if inhabiting the flesh were not a primitive proposition.
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FAQ
1. What is "On Boxing" by Joyce Carol Oates about?
- Exploration of Boxing’s Essence: The book is a collection of essays that delve into the physical, psychological, cultural, and philosophical dimensions of boxing, treating it as more than just a sport.
- Personal and Societal Reflection: Oates uses boxing as a lens to examine issues of identity, masculinity, violence, race, and the human condition, often reflecting on her own fascination with the sport.
- Historical and Literary Context: The book situates boxing within a broader historical, literary, and artistic context, referencing famous boxers, writers, and cultural moments.
- Profiles and Analysis: It includes profiles of legendary boxers like Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, and Jack Johnson, as well as commentary on the spectacle, business, and ethics of boxing.
2. Why should I read "On Boxing" by Joyce Carol Oates?
- Unique Literary Perspective: Oates brings a literary, philosophical, and deeply personal approach to a subject often treated only as sport, making it accessible and thought-provoking for non-fans.
- Insight into Human Nature: The book uses boxing to explore universal themes such as struggle, pain, identity, and mortality, offering insights relevant beyond the ring.
- Cultural and Social Critique: It critically examines issues of race, class, gender, and violence in American society through the microcosm of boxing.
- Rich Storytelling and Analysis: Oates’s evocative prose, historical anecdotes, and analysis of iconic fights and figures make for compelling reading.
3. What are the key takeaways from "On Boxing" by Joyce Carol Oates?
- Boxing as Metaphor and Reality: Boxing is not just a metaphor for life but a unique, self-contained world with its own rituals, dangers, and meanings.
- Masculinity and Self-Destruction: The sport is deeply tied to ideas of masculinity, self-destruction, and the pursuit of transcendence through physical risk.
- Societal Mirror: Boxing reflects societal issues such as poverty, race, and the allure of violence, often serving as a stage for broader cultural anxieties.
- Ambivalence and Paradox: Oates highlights the paradoxical nature of boxing—its beauty and brutality, its artistry and savagery, and the simultaneous attraction and repulsion it evokes.
4. How does Joyce Carol Oates define and interpret boxing in "On Boxing"?
- Not Just a Sport: Oates argues that boxing is not a game or mere sport, but a ritualized form of combat that exposes the limits of the human body and spirit.
- Art and Tragedy: She sees boxing as a tragic art form, where the drama lies in the consumption and destruction of the very excellence it displays.
- Masculine and Self-Destructive: Boxing is described as the most dramatically masculine and self-destructive of sports, embodying both the glory and the peril of physicality.
- Intimate and Public: The ring is an altar where private struggles become public spectacle, and where the boxer’s vulnerabilities and strengths are laid bare.
5. What is Joyce Carol Oates’s personal connection to boxing in "On Boxing"?
- Childhood Fascination: Oates’s interest in boxing began in childhood, influenced by her father’s enthusiasm for the sport.
- Writer’s Compulsion: She describes writing about boxing as an intensely personal and almost compulsive act, revealing as much about herself as about the sport.
- Ambivalence and Attraction: Oates admits to being both repelled and fascinated by boxing, drawn to its beauty, violence, and existential stakes.
- Empathy and Observation: Her perspective is both that of an outsider and a passionate observer, allowing her to explore the sport’s complexities with empathy and critical distance.
6. How does "On Boxing" by Joyce Carol Oates address the themes of violence and pain?
- Violence as Ritual: Oates frames boxing’s violence as ritualized and rule-bound, distinguishing it from random or chaotic aggression.
- Pain as Transformation: She discusses how boxers are trained to endure and even transcend pain, turning it into a tool for self-discovery and achievement.
- Spectator’s Complicity: The book explores the uneasy role of the spectator, who is both witness and accomplice to the violence in the ring.
- Ambivalence Toward Suffering: Oates acknowledges the moral discomfort and fascination that boxing’s violence and pain evoke, both in herself and in society.
7. What role do race and class play in "On Boxing" by Joyce Carol Oates?
- Boxing and the Disenfranchised: Oates highlights how boxing has historically been a path for the poor, marginalized, and especially black and ethnic minority men to achieve fame and fortune.
- Racial Tensions and History: The book examines the racial dynamics of boxing, from the era of Jack Johnson to Muhammad Ali and beyond, including the anxieties and prejudices surrounding black champions.
- Class Mobility and Exploitation: Boxing is depicted as both an opportunity for social mobility and a system that exploits the desperation of the underclass.
- Cultural Symbolism: Fights often become symbolic battlegrounds for larger societal conflicts over race, identity, and power.
8. How does "On Boxing" by Joyce Carol Oates explore masculinity and gender?
- Masculinity as Performance: Oates describes boxing as a celebration of masculinity, where strength, aggression, and endurance are valorized.
- Exclusion of Women: The sport is portrayed as a male-dominated world, with women relegated to marginal or decorative roles, and female boxers seen as anomalies or parodies.
- Machismo and Vulnerability: The book interrogates the culture of machismo in boxing, while also acknowledging the vulnerability and emotional complexity of fighters.
- Gendered Spectatorship: Oates notes differences in how men and women experience and interpret boxing, with men often identifying with the victor and women with the vanquished.
9. What does "On Boxing" by Joyce Carol Oates say about the business and ethics of boxing?
- Corruption and Exploitation: Oates discusses the pervasive influence of money, organized crime, and exploitation in the boxing world, from fixed fights to manipulative promoters.
- Danger and Regulation: The book addresses the ethical debates over boxing’s dangers, including brain injuries and deaths, and the calls for its abolition or reform.
- Economic Realities: While a few boxers become wealthy, most remain underpaid and vulnerable, highlighting the sport’s harsh economic realities.
- Ambiguous Morality: Oates presents boxing as a morally ambiguous enterprise, where the pursuit of glory and money often comes at great personal and ethical cost.
10. How does "On Boxing" by Joyce Carol Oates analyze the careers and significance of major boxers like Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, and Jack Johnson?
- Muhammad Ali: Oates portrays Ali as a transformative figure who transcended sport to become a cultural and political icon, embodying both athletic brilliance and social defiance.
- Mike Tyson: Tyson is depicted as a prodigy shaped by trauma, discipline, and the mentorship of Cus D’Amato, representing both the promise and peril of boxing’s allure.
- Jack Johnson: Johnson’s career is examined as a case study in race, celebrity, and rebellion, with his unapologetic blackness and personal life provoking both admiration and backlash.
- Boxers as Symbols: Each boxer is analyzed not just for their skills, but for what they represent in terms of race, class, masculinity, and the American dream.
11. What literary and artistic influences does Joyce Carol Oates draw upon in "On Boxing"?
- Writers and Poets: Oates references writers like Norman Mailer, Ernest Hemingway, Flannery O’Connor, and William Faulkner, as well as poets like W.B. Yeats, to frame boxing in literary terms.
- Historical Accounts: She draws on historical sources, including Pierce Egan’s "Boxiana" and A.J. Liebling’s "The Sweet Science," to situate boxing within a tradition of sportswriting.
- Art and Metaphor: The book frequently compares boxing to dance, theater, and tragedy, emphasizing its performative and aesthetic dimensions.
- Philosophical Reflection: Oates invokes philosophical ideas from Nietzsche, Aristotle, and Spinoza to deepen her analysis of competition, will, and the human condition.
12. What are the best quotes from "On Boxing" by Joyce Carol Oates and what do they mean?
- "To write about boxing is to write about oneself—however elliptically, and unintentionally."
Oates suggests that any exploration of boxing inevitably becomes a personal reflection, revealing the writer’s own values and obsessions. - "Boxing is only like boxing."
She resists the temptation to reduce boxing to a mere metaphor, insisting on its unique, irreducible reality. - "It is the most tragic of all sports because more than any human activity it consumes the very excellence it displays—its drama is this very consumption."
This quote encapsulates Oates’s view of boxing as a self-consuming art, where greatness is achieved at the cost of self-destruction. - "You always think you’re going to win, otherwise you couldn’t fight at all."
Quoting Jack Dempsey, Oates highlights the psychological necessity of belief and hope in the face of overwhelming risk. - "Boxing has become America’s tragic theater."
Oates frames boxing as a modern stage for enacting the deepest dramas of American life—str
Review Summary
On Boxing is a collection of essays by Joyce Carol Oates exploring the art and psychology of boxing. Reviewers praised Oates' eloquent prose and insightful analysis of the sport's cultural significance, particularly regarding race and masculinity. Many found the book engaging even for non-boxing fans, appreciating Oates' philosophical approach. Some criticized repetition across essays and dated content. Overall, readers valued Oates' unique perspective as a female writer passionately dissecting a traditionally male domain, though opinions varied on the book's comprehensiveness and relevance to modern boxing.
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