Where Are You Going Where Have You Been Literary Analysis

A Normal Theft of Innocence Growing up every person in the world loses the purity they were once born with and the moment when one realizes that not everything in the world is the way it was thought to be, the world crumbles into pieces, but how does it happen? Joyce Carol Oates portrays an amazing detailed moment of theft of chastity, or at least what is left of it, in "Where Are You Going, Where have You Been?" With symbolic imagery, major bibliomancy, and extreme personal conflict Oates easily manages to get her point across of the complete loss of innocence. A constant image that is brought to the reader’s creative thoughts is colors. The “convertible jalopy painted gold” (Lit 326) when Connie was with Eddie, the “open jalopy, painted a bright gold that caught the sunlight opaquely” (Lit 327) when Arnold Friend was barely arriving, and “the bright green blouse” (Lit 331) that Connie was wearing on that Sunday morning are meaningful details that Oates meant to emphasize. Gold generally means success, triumph,
abundance, and achievement that which Arnold Friend’s car symbolizes. The car “was painted so bright it almost hurt [Connie’s] eyes to look at it” (Lit 328), later on at the end of the story the audience finds out that Friend was successful in stealing what was left of innocence in Connie. Friend triumphed over everything, every objection, every doubt, and nothing got in the way of him being triumphant over Connie. Oates then mentions the bright green blouse she was wearing in the end, it “was all wet” (Lit 331).
“Green traditionally implies fertility and youthful innocence, but as time progresses during Arnold s visit, Connie s blouse becomes darkened with sweat. Arnold’s influence evokes a change in Connie and she begins to lose her ignorance of the evil that is present in society” (Essay Mania).
The reader can clearly imagine the way Connie looked in her wet green blouse; terrified to death it symbolized that she knew now her fantasies were all in her head and that it was all downhill from there. The evil she pretended was not around her was now visibly and spiritually there.
Quite a few religious references are used in this short story, one of them being the “secret code” 33,19, 17 that Friend pointed out to her. Many theories derived from this code but the most prominent one is Judges is the 33rd book, chapter 19, and verse 17. “Judges 19 concerns a man of the tribe of Levi who searches out and returns home with his concubine. Similarly Connie is the concubine of the devil (Arnold)” (Robson, M). As the story develops in intensity Friend becomes more of a demonic character, as said before, the devil. The apostle Paul warns the people of Corinth that Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light and “Connie liked the way he was dressed” (Lit 327) and at that moment she did not fear him, “she couldn’t decide if she liked him or he was just a jerk” (Lit 327). Here Friend “stuffs his boots in order to appear taller and more attractive or perhaps to hide the cloven feet of his satanic self” (Barstow, J) he makes everything look good in the beginning but then he turns on her. This brings to attention the irony in his name as well, “Friend”, which in reality he is only the opposite of what a friend stands for. Also, just like Satan himself, Arnold brought the battle in the mind where most life changing decisions happen in humanity. Arnold started attacking Connie with everything and everyone he knew was connected to her starting with her friends then family problems.
This battle of the mind brought forth the extreme personal conflict that Connie had with herself at the end of the story.
She realized that the “trashy day dreams” were just what her sister June thought they were, erotic and not filled with love at all. “Oates employs psychological realism within the framework of experimentation” (Miller, P) where Connie realizes that her love and sexual life was not what she thought. She was about to experience what sexuality was in the harsh world and she recognized it when Friend says, “I’m always nice at first, the first time… and I’ll come inside you where it’s all secret and you’ll give in” (Lit 329) “she put her hands against her ears as if she’d heard something terrible, something not meant for her,” if she was really the “experienced woman” she thought she was, why would that have terrified her? She was not ready to be that sexual woman but she was being forced to be it in these terrible
circumstances.
Oates created a masterpiece worthy of a more intricate analysis but the subtle religious context, powerful symbolic imagery, and self-conflict are themes impossible to ignore. Some people have the best stories of loss of innocence but for most it is a painful realization that life is not what it was thought to be. People take a bite of the fruit of knowledge of evil and good and from there on everything else changes just like it did for Connie.

Works Cited

Robson, Mark. Oate 's Where Are You Going, Where Have You been?. 01 June 1982.
03 Nov. 2013

EssayMania.com. Retrieved on 03 Nov, 2013 from http://essaymania.com/111039/where-are-you-going-where-have-you-been Barstow, Jane. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?. Jan. 2004. 03 Nov. 2013 .

Oates, Joyce Carol. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?." LIT. Laurie G. Kirszner, Stephen R. Mandell. 1st ed. Cengage Learning, 2009. 325-331. Print

Miller, Paula. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?. 1993. 04 Nov. 2013