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Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? By Joyce Carol Oates

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Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? By Joyce Carol Oates
Where are you going, Where have you been? by Joyce Carol Oates is an interesting piece of literature. Due to the intense nature of the story, many criticisms have come up. Many theories have been developed about hidden meanings within the work. One that is very controversial is the allusion to the bible. Many people say that there are clear references to the bible through a hidden code but this is not the case. Oates’s inspiration for the short story came from a magazine article about a series of murders committed by Charles Schmid from Tucson, Arizona.
Professor Robson believes that Joyce Oates makes references to the bible through a series of numbers written on Arnold Friend’s car. Robson states in his literary criticism of Where are you going, where have you been? that the numbers written on the car of Arnold Friend are from the nineteenth chapters of Judges and Genesis. Judges 19:17 states “When he looked and saw the traveler in the city square, the old man asked, "Where are you going? Where did you come from?" Robson believes that this is where the title of the short story came from (Hurley 63). But Tracey M. Caldwell states that the title references the story itself “Connie asks Arnold "Where are we going?" which is a hint to the title of the story. 'Where are you (we) going' refers to where Connie will go with Friend …show more content…
"Joyce Carol Oates' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?." Literary Contexts in Short Stories: Joyce Carol Oates's 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?', Mar. 2006, pp. 1-8. EBSCOhost, proxy.kennesaw.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db= h&AN=18898051&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Hurley, C. Harold. "Cracking the Secret Code in Oates's 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?'." Studies in Short Fiction, vol. 24, no. 1, Winter87, p. 62. EBSCOhost, proxy.kennesaw.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=
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