Joyce Carol Oates’ short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is the haunting saga of a fifteen year old girl’s moral struggles that has resonated with readers since the story’s initial publication. Arnold Friend is a mystery of a character; his origins and nature have been debated time and time again. The real answer is that there is no real answer, and Arnold Friend is a character with a nature entirely up to the individual interpretation of any one reader. It can certainly be agreed that Arnold’s intentions for Connie, his would-be victim, are not good. Arnold promises to show Connie the meaning of love, but he makes little effort to hide his vicious nature.…
Innocent, young, naïve; this is how Connie was at her age of fifteen. She liked the attention boys gave her and how it made her feel. A man named Arnold Friend, whose much older than her, has stalked Connie and wants to convince her to go for a ride in his car. Connie doesn’t notice the man’s older features and this causes her young mind to contemplate going with Arnold in his car. Connie is more conflicted with herself, she battles to make the right choices especially since she is so young and taking advantage of an innocent mind was something she was not prepared for (Oates, Joyce Carol, 2016).…
“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.…
Teenagers have always had it harder than the rest of the age groups. Whether it is the frustration of having old-fashioned parents or the annoyance of being too young to experience nearly everything, the minds of those under eighteen become a never-ending fantasy of being an adult. The seemingly carefree lifestyle of older kids seems to be impossible to wait on. 15-year-old Connie is no exception to this way of thinking. In a hurry to grow up, Connie, in Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”, naively executes the perfect role as an eager, under aged adolescent who lets her insecurities, dissatisfaction, and curiosities land her in irreversible danger.…
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.…
Vijay Dorasami English 1102-002 Professor Bruce 09/30/2014 Joyce Carol Oates wrote a short story called “where are you going, where have you been?” One of the main character in the short story is a fifteen year old girl whose name is Connie. Connie was self-absorbed by her beauty, and would not listen when her mom try to council her. She rejects the role of daughter to develop her sexual persona, which increase when she is away from her family and home.…
Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is about a 15 year old girl named Connie. Connie is the dark blond haired girl who catches all the attention and knows she looks good. The story is somewhat journalistic in the sense that there are few extreme stylistic flourishes or complicated sentence structures. Oates's spare style allows the images in the story to stand out in realistic coherence, in a way that makes one feel they have some unexplainable importance. “There’s your sister in a blue dress, huh?…
In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, by Joyce Carol Oates, the setting creates division between innocence and adulthood. In the story, the protagonist is a complicated and confrontational young woman named Connie. The narrator explains that “Everything about her had to sides to it” (Oates 1). Connie has two personas, the person she is at home and the rebellious and carefree young woman she is away from her home. Throughout the plot, the doorway symbolizes a threshold that Connie has to consider crossing into maturity.…
In Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where are you going, where have you been?”, Oates tells the story of a young girl named Connie, who is vain, self-centered, rude to her parents, and in an incredible hurry to grow up. She has two different personalities, “one for home, and one for anywhere that was not home.” Everything about her including her smile, her laugh, and her walk transforms as soon as she steps out her front door. Connie, the protagonist of the story, wants to be a part of the world of “big kids” until a shiny golden convertible pulls up one day in her driveway and the mysterious Arnold Friend emerges. Oates uses in-depth characterization and symbolism…
“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 a coming-of-age short story that depicts the virtually invisible barrier between adolescence and adulthood. Connie is a feisty fifteen-year-old girl that doesn’t intend to ride in the backseat for the duration of her younger years, unlike her older sister June, who her mother tends to favor throughout most of the story. Her mother causes most of the friction in the house between the two, mainly because “[e]verything about [Connie] had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home” (Oates 552). One critical attribute Oates gives Connie is her undeniable infatuation to sexual curiosity and her willingness to explore. Oates paints Connie identical to average…
In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?,” by Joyce Carol Oates, Connie, like most teens, needs support as she starts on an internal, precarious journey towards maturity. Traditionally, culture plays a major role in offering guidelines for an adolescent’s journey of solitude and personal identity. An example of these guidelines are fairytales and folklores. Fairytales are read or told to children to provide a moral understanding of good and evil by using symbolic images and happy endings. Oates frequently portrays characters and situations that resemble the themes of different fairytales throughout her short story. She merges into her story the themes of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Little Red Riding Hood, and Cinderella. Connie is at the…
At first glance, the story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates seems like a regular story where a girl just has home problems like every other teenager. However, by looking more into the story you can see that the locations of where Connie is at, mean something different. In my opinion, I believe that the setting plays a significant role in the way Connie alternates her personality around her family and friends. When she is out with friends and not at home with family, she seems in a way, happier. I can relate to Connie, because I was always being compared to my sisters as well, and leaving the house meant that I could actually be who I was.…
Teenagers in general are often stereotyped into one general category: unruly, uncaring, and self-absorbed. In the short story “Where are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Joyce Carol Oates plays on this stereotype. She uses imagery and point of view to direct the reader’s attention to the teenage girl psyche, selfish, whimsical, and longing for attention and affection, and how this stereotypical psyche can be distorted and controlled.…
In Joyce Carol Oates’s short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” (1966), Connie is an adolescent that faces literal and psychological challenges. Within the conflicts of the story, there are two compelling questions that allow you to take a special interest of a deeper meaning. Taken from the title, where has Connie been? Where is Connie going?…