Where Is Here? By Joyce Carol Oats

In “Where is Here?” by Joyce Carol Oats, she uses a few different methods of indirect characterization to describe the character who is only known as “the visitor”. The five methods are appearance, speech, actions, reactions of others, and private thoughts. To begin, we will analyze the physical appearance of the visitor. In the beginning of the short story, Oats describes the character as a man in his late forties who was wearing a dark, conservatively cut suit. His hair was described as “thin”, “silver tipped” and “neatly combed”. She described his face as “plain, sober and intelligent”, while his eyes were described as “frowning”. “He was in his late forties, the father’s approximate age. He wore a dark suit, conservatively cut;
In the beginning, the visitor take a prolonged look at the basement, as if it had some importance to him. “He spoke strangely, staring at the door. For a moment it appeared he might ask to be shown the basement but the moment passed, fortunately—…”After he noticed plants that were bloomed in the kitchen, the strangers first impulse was to sniff the flowers. “Impulsively, he leaned over to sniff the flowers—‘Lovely!’—though African violets have no smell. This can show that he is not a very formal, “uptight” person and he may enjoy showing his appreciation, even when, in this case the flowers, have no smell. When he got into the dining room, he began to perspire with a surprised look on his face when he came in sight of the father’s chair. “He’d extracted a handkerchief from his pocket and was dabbing carefully at his face, where beads of perspiration shone.” This would indicate the visitor being nervous about being in the room. The fourth method of characterization used is the reactions of other characters. In the beginning of “Where is Here?”, the father reacts to the man in a kind, accepting manner. His wife, however, seems very anxious about his presence. As the story continues, the father obviously becomes annoyed by the visitor’s company while his wife shows the accepting manner the father once had. This shows the visitor tends to “play” towards the female audience when it comes to conversation topics and