When I finished reading the story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? I couldn't believe the ending. The main character Connie is your average teenage girl, however, she is a little more conceited than others. In the story, the author describes that the setting is in the summer and that's why she is going out with her friends almost every other day. The author also gives a hint by foreshadowing the line "Gonna get you, baby," which shows what's going to happen in the near future. I think the theme of this story is that when Connie goes out with her friends, she is going through adulthood. For example, at the end of the story when she opens the door to go outside with Arnold, she is leaving her childhood and making a jump straight into…
Joyce Carol Oates uses powerful imagery in the short story, such as the idea of love, dishonest smile, and Connie’s dissociative state. In the idea of love, she uses vivid language to explain Connie’s daydream. The actual desires where not yet tied to concrete the acts or a specific man. Connie’s is being attracted to the idea of love and sex confusing fantasy and reality. The author helps the reader to visualize on how girl’s discrete experiences fading into a deeper impulse. Connie being in the puberty is being pulled by natural forces by the desired that she is not conscious about it and doesn’t have an explanation for it. Another language that Oates uses is she focus on Arnold Friend physical. Connie got to recognized most of the things about him since the moment she met him. Words like thighs and buttocks were mention to show his sexual nature. Arnold friend smile was emphasized as a slippery friendly smile in other words as a dreamy smile. Oates used this term to communicate with Connie to entangle her and easily get her. Finally, she also describes Connie beating heart, this help Connie express her dissociative state. She felt isolated with her physical body, which it perceived it wasn’t really her either. The state of separation she was feeling demonstrate how she was slipping out of control over her own actions and decisions she was making. At…
It all happened on a warm sunny saturday morning in “Where are you going. Where have you been’’ by Joyce Carry Oates. It started with an unfamiliar car bouncing along Connie's long drive way. When she first heard the car she rushed to the window excitedly, frantically fixing her hair. Making sure she looked good, seemed to be an insecure habit for Connie. She saw an uninvited boyish looking man who was situated in the car parked now in her driveway. There was a tension of unease about the boyish man, he acted if he was supposed to be at Connie's house, as if she has told him to come. She should have taken him being there uninvited more seriously, by locking the door or even calling the police. Connie was too caught up with herself to realize…
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” shows Connie’s double lifestyle brings her to a load of trouble. If only she would have let her family know where she was going, and where she had been, she would not be overpowered by Arnold Friend. Joyce Carol Oates writes her story as if it were a movie. The figurative language, setting, and plot assist the readers while reading this story.…
The short story by Joyce Oates, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” leaves many readers uncomfortable with the actions of “Connie” the main character who is in the midst of adolescent rebellion. Connie is a character who argues with her mother and sister, neglects family life in favor of scoping out boys at the local restaurant, does everything she can to appear older and wiser than she is, and has a mind filled with daydreams and popular music that feed her unrealistic ideas of love and romance. When the stranger, Arnold Friend, arrives at Connie’s house, she must confront the harsh realities of adulthood, which bear little resemblance to her fantasies.…
Joyce Carol Oates creates an inquisitive plot that causes the reader to question events in the story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” She develops this story featuring a girl named Connie, who has an encounter with a boy at a restaurant that she doesn’t know. “He wagged a finger and laughed and said, “Gonna get you, baby,” and Connie turned away…” (Oates 210). Startled Connie only saw this boy once that night, but the story goes on, and a few days later he comes to her house where she learns that the boy’s name is “Arnold Friend.” She is unaware how the boy knows anything about her, where she lives, and the fact that he knows all about her family and friends. In the short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Joyce Carol Oates creates significant details that some readers might miss, revealing that Connie is actually having a nightmare where Arnold Friend is an imaginary character.…
A close reading of Joyce Carol Oates's "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" reveals many layers of possible meaning, which makes it a fine example of literary merit.…
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates is a short story that brings many girl’s nightmares to life. The story is one about a young, naïve girl named Connie, and her deranged abductor, Arnold Friend. Oates uses the setting in Connie’s life to create a very realistic situation. Oates also uses descriptive language to create vivid images of the setting, charters, and the emotions Connie feels. By analyzing Connie’s home setting and the descriptive language Oates uses, we will be able to further understand how Connie’s thoughts and actions were effected by her setting.…
Joyce Carol Oates, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been is about a fifteen year old girl named Connie who is searching for her independence from her mother. The exposition is in the month of July at their home, where Connie is being scolded by her mother about her being obsessed with her looks. Her mother says, “Stop gawking at yourself. Who are you? You think you’re so pretty? (171) Her mother wants her to be more like her sister June who is twenty-four years old and helps around the house instead of daydreaming like Connie does. Their father is always at work and does not have much interaction with the family. Connie sometimes “wished her mother was dead” (171). Since June always went out with her friends, their mother let Connie go out too. Connie’s friend’s dad would drop them off at the plaza and pick them up at eleven. Connie had “two sides, one for home and one for anywhere that was not her home: her walk… her mouth… and her laugh” (172). But instead of going to the plaza, they liked to go across the road to a drive-in restaurant for older kids. The rising action occurs when Connie is asked to eat by a boy named Eddie, but as they walk through the parking lot there is a man in a gold convertible that says “Gonna get you,…
Everyone experiences transitions in their lives. Sometimes these changes are insignificant, like a change in schools. Sometimes these can be major life changing events, like the passage from childhood to adulthood. In Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, the author uses a borderline crime story to investigate a loss of innocence and the unknown future.…
In the short story Where Are you Going Where Have You been,the main character Connie is very promiscuous and struggles with finding herself. Joyce Carol Oates takes the reader on a journey of teen rebellion turned tragic and uses Connie to show that becoming independent is not easy.…
Joyce Carol Oates is an American writer who has published over forty novels. Most of her novels are graphic and many of them depict death. In her short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Oates tells the story of Connie, a fifteen year old girl. Like in many of her previous novels Connie dies, or the reader is led to believe she does. Oates was inspired by Bob Dylan’s song “ It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”, Charles Schmid, and from the book of Judges chapter 19 verse 17 in the Bible.…
Urbanski, Marie. "Existential Allegory: Joyce Carol Oates 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" Studies in Short Fiction 11 (1978): 200-03. Print.…
As we all go, through certain situations, such as change, we learn that change is not meant for everyone. Everyone should have a lot of confidence in their self and no one should ever tell them otherwise. Many young girls are growing up faster than they should. But it all starts with the parents for teaching children from youth to adulthood. In the story by Joyce Oates’s, “Where are you going, where have you been”, illustrates a traumatic experience for a very young girl.…
“[Connie] had a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people's faces to make sure her own was all right.” (1) In the story “Where are you going, where have you been?” the author Joyce Carol Oates, deliberately shows us the level of innocence of the protagonist Connie, as well as the similar features an inexperienced young girl who lived in 1966 compares to those of a young girl who is raised in our era. Young teenage girls in 1966 are no different than those now in 2018, as one day I too was a teenage girl myself, who cared a lot about how would see me.…