This essay investigates the gender roles in Joyce Carol Oates' The Falls. The novel concentrates ona family who live by Niagara Falls in the US, but the novel's main focus is on a woman namedAriah. Ariah is considered as an outcast and different from her surrounding socialites and thereforeit is interesting to investigate how society and its norms affects her. This essay concentrates on themain character Ariah and how the society's norms affect her and contribute to her alienation. Theessay focus on the key norms in the novel and analyzes them with the help of Betty Friedan'stheories in The Feminine Mystique to investigate if there is any correlation between society's normsand the main character's alienation. The aim of this essay is to investigate the connections betweenthe main character's alienation and her refusal to succumb to society's expectations of her as awoman.