Essay on Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been

In 1966, Joyce Carol Oates published her short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”. Oates was inspired to write this story after reading about a serial killer that was referred to as “The Pied Piper of Tucson”. Oates was disturbed by the number of teenagers that this killer was able to persuade to help him and keep his secrets (Oates 1). Oates uses irony, imagery, and symbolism to support her theme of evil in this short story.

Where there is desire, there is hope, despair, and struggle. Joyce Carol Oates illustrates animatedly the asphyxiated struggle of desire in her short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” The story narrates the life of a young girl, named Connie, and her fated and enigmatic confrontation with a strange man. Feeling trapped in her own home with her own family, Connie, a self-conscious and rebellious teenager, tries to figure out a way to identify herself with the world around her. Her desire of escaping the reality fuels her struggle to enter adulthood. Through the physical form of Arnold Friend, who embodies both the hope and the despair in Connie’s struggle, the author metaphorically portrays a vigorous and psychological pressure that Connie has to endure. The story is scripted to allude to the danger of identifying oneself through sexuality in young girls. To better understanding this cryptic story, it is important to follow the psychological processes and conflict of Connie’s character, which help unveil the allegorical meaning of a young girl’s rite of passage through sex.

Urbanski, Marie. "Existential Allegory: Joyce Carol Oates 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" Studies in Short Fiction 11 (1978): 200-03. Print.

In this essay, I argue that the main theme of “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is internal conflict. The main character, Connie, struggles with multiple internal conflicts throughout the short story. Some of these internal conflicts include a search for independence, internal judgment, and fantasy versus reality.

Joyce Carol Oates plays upon the stereotypic female gender role through her adolescent character, Connie, in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” The story was written at a significant time in America’s history. It was a season when social and moral conventions were challenged. This period experienced the rise of women struggling for sexual freedom and gender equality in a patriarchal society. Oates portrays the protagonist, Connie, as naive, unaware and inexperienced; she has yet to find her identity and fully understand her place as a women in the world. She believes she has learned to play the game of the sexes and that she has the upper hand. This belief, though, is quickly subverted when she is confronted by Arnold Friend, a man who works to reinforce patriarchal standards by punishing Connie for acting outside stereotypic female role boundaries, she then realizes as a women, she has very little power.

Joyce Carol Oates is an excellent writer who is well-known for her work. In her short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” she managed to deliver a piece that is pleasant to read, but filled with evil. This essay will discuss, the form which the evil takes, its origin, and how this story is aesthetically “beautiful” despite that evil.

In the story, “Where are you Going, Where Have you Been?” the author, Joyce Carol Oates, uses literary devices to convey a message about the loss of innocence. To be more specific, Oates’s characterization of the protagonist, Connie, specifically shows the actions leading to her innocence being taken from her. The literary device of characterization gives a clear picture Oates thoughts at the time she wrote the story, expressing concern for young girls who are at risk of having their innocence taken from them.

There are some stories that capture the reader’s attention and which keep us riveted from the beginning to the ultimate line of the tale. ‘’Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’’, a short story written by Joyce Carol Oates in 1966, is one of those. Inspired by the mythic song of the phenomenal singer Bob Dylan entitled ‘’It’s all over Now, Baby Blue,’’ the author describes the main character as a 15-year-old girl named ‘’ Connie’’, who is obsessed by her beauty and does not get along with her family. The heroine of the story ‘’Connie,’’ engages in an adolescent rebellion against her entourage by acting to appear older. This increases her vulnerability through the story and at the end

In 1970, Joyce Carol Oates published a short story titled “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Oates writes about the life of Connie, a girl whose parents are uninvolved and unaware of the true intentions Connie as when leaving the house with her friends, mingling with the older crowd and meeting boys. Out with her friends one night, she sees one boy in particular Arnold, who wants to get to know Connie and goes to drastic lengths to meet her. Connie’s experience with Arnold reminds me of my experience with an older guy.

Where are you going, where have you been by Joyce Carol Oates is a story that focused on a fifteen year old girl named Connie who many would consider self-centered, she was a beautiful girl with flawless features, she knew she look good and us that to her full advantage, she wanted nothing to do with her family. Connie got herself tangled in a complicated issue with a thirty year old something man who was trying to pass for an eighteen year old. Under the pressure and curiosity Connie end up going with her predator Arnold Friend on drive that end up with her losing her life. I feel as if Connie was a lost beautiful girl with no guidance; she was shallow and uneducated when it came to life.

The short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” written by Joyce Carol Oates is told from Connie’s point of view. Connie, the main character of the story, is fifteen years old who is preoccupied with her appearance. Her mother usually scolds her for her behavior and restricts for everything she like to do. She even wishes sometimes that she and her mother were dead. This restriction motivates Connie to become even more desperate for her freedom. When she got chance to go outside, she often sneak across highway to restaurant and meet boys.

In the short story “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?”, by Joyce Carol Oates, the use of the symbolism of Connie’s clothes, her fascination with her beauty, Arnold Friend’s car and Arnold Friend himself help to understand the story’s theme of evil and manipulation. The story, peppered with underlying tones of evil, finds Oates writing about 15-year-old Connie, the protagonist of the story, a pretty girl who is a little too into her own attractiveness, which eventually gets her into trouble with a man named Arnold Friend. The story is liberally doused with symbolism, from the way Connie dresses to the shoes on Arnold Friend’s feet. In “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?” the reader can pick up on some of the symbols

“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates is a haunting short story capable of taking a reader on a freighting but realistic journey of emotions. Revolving around a young girl in an adolescent rebellion phase, Oats creates a relatable character that goes on to demonstrate the dangers of immaturity. Such a threat emerges from the character who is often perceived by the reader as a predator. Throughout this story, these two main characters are precisely used to build a captivating plot that highlights threats hitting society at the turn of the late nineteenth century.

There is a stage in life, when the childhood belief that everything will always go our own way fractures, when we find parents and figures with authority irritating and austere, and we strain against our restrictions with acts of defiance, just like a chick struggling to break free of its shell. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” is a haunting story by Joyce Carol Oates that tells of a egotistical girl in this particular stage of life, Connie, who resisted her mother’s discipline with her intemperate behavior, but as a cost of breaking out of her protective shell, she lost her sheltered life and her innocence. Even though Connie begins the story as being self-absorbed, caring only about her appearance and sneaking out with improper company behind her mother’s back, she ends as a self-sacrificing girl who left with a foreboding dark stranger in order to keep her family out of harm’s way.

The first of many stops throughout my travels was an extraordinarily sketchy shack out in the middle of nowhere. Trust me when I say this, a shack is the kindest word I can give it. In reality, it was a decrepit wooden hut that was riddled with holes. Hardly the type a place a diamond of my stature belongs. But alas, I had no control over where I travelled. I could barely see out of the cart itself, my only view was from the tiny cracks in between the planks of wood used to construct our vehicle. Notably, the cart itself I was traveling on wasn’t exactly the highest of quality. Especially compared everything else around me, armed guards for example. Anyways, when we arrived to this shack, I knew something was going to happen. I was