Arnold Friend

“Where are you going, where have you been” has been surrounded in a veil of mystery since it was first written by Joyce Carol Oates in 1966. This is largely due to the uneasiness caused by the story’s premature ending. Many different theories have been developed to try to make sense of the cliffhanger.

“Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been,” is a testament of a true artist, because art can be interpreted into many forms and meanings. These meanings can differ from person to person, such as each reader of this tale can walk away with a different understanding of what the deeper implication may be. With the element of religious metaphors and allusions, the author is able to connect her short story to a much deeper value that pertains to today’s society and it’s current relations with religion.

One may never realize the people surrounding one’s everyday life, crammed with bodies of contrasting characters, pasts’, and styles; however, who are these people genuinely? Arnold Friend, in the short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates, managed to deceive with his false characteristics. Arnold Friend was brought to life from Oates’s imagination of the mischievous serial killer Charles Schmid. Arnold Friend and Charles Schmid similarly attempted to delude with false attributes, had an interest in women, deceived women, both tried to create a false imagine for themselves, however Friend knew about everything about his victim while Schmid did not.

When a reader first reads “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, by Joyce Carol Oates, the story may seem to be “realistic or naturalistic”; however, when interpreting Oates’ short story biblically, the work becomes an “existential allegory” of humanity realizing they cannot control an “externally determined fate” (Urbanski). Through the use of dialog, descriptive imagery, and symbolism, the reader may conclude “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is an allusion to the biblical story of Adam and Eve.

Arnold Friend, Joyce Carol Oates's antagonist in "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is a man that persuades Connie, the fifteen-year-old protagonist and target of Arnold's thirst, into abandoning her home, her family and succumbing to his power. Observed through the supernatural lens, Arnold Friend can be described as a malevolent force that displays many characteristics of a vampire.

Connie. He says, "I know who you were with last night, and your best girlfriend's name is Betty

The author Joyce Carol Oates mixes the literal, figurative, and psychological, symbol of the short story, “Where are you going, Where have you been?” to the point that it explains a more powerful meaning. From the readers understanding the mix is evident in Oates’s view of Connie and Arnolds double identities, “Everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home”. Arnold was more of a satanic symbol. For example, Arnold stuffs his boots in order to appear taller and more attractive or to hide his cloven feet.

This shows a possibility of the type of unwanted attention she may receive in the future. Provided that she remains focused on a male’s attention, she may attract unsolicited attention from a dangerous predator such as a stalker who knows all aspects of her life. After, Connie feels “her breath start jerking back and forth in her lungs as if it were something Arnold Friend was stabbing her with again and again with no tenderness” (5). The description illustrates Arnold stabbing her chest, without actually touching her. This sounds rather bizarre and uncanny.

She ends up leaving with him not knowing what he in stored for her. Connie characterization as a self absorbed

Where are you going, Where Have You Been, written by Joyce Carol Oates, was a about young girl named Connie who wanted freedom and independence. Connie did not understand the consequences of having freedom and how to protect yourself from malicious people. In the beginning of the tale, Connie was conceited and thought she superior to everyone else. “Stop gawking at yourself, who are you? You think you’re so pretty?

The short story Where are you going, Where have you been? by Joyce Carol Oates is a chilling tale of teen abduction. Although horrifying, the story didn’t end like I thought it would on my first read through. Connie isn’t carried away by her abductor kicking and screaming, nor dragged away unconscious. While not exactly based on her own freewill, she chooses to go.

“ Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is a short story by Joyce Carol Oates. In this short story, the setting took place in the 1960’s with a 15 year old girl named Connie. Connie is a teenager who is playing around with her friends and guys. Connie’s mother is rude to Connie, so Connie starts to acts up. When Connie starts to play around with guys, she meets a man named Arnold Friend.

Joyce Carol Oates’s Where are you going, where have you been? is a post-modernist story. The primary theme is childhood versus adulthood. The story explores Connie’s, the main character’s, ambivalence about adulthood.

As technology continues to evolve, our understanding of sickness and disease grows as well. Modern day technology is able to tell doctors what caused the disease and in ideal situations how to cure it. Recent scientists have begun to look at the desire to kill as a disease. This theory poses an interesting concept that if it is a disease, then maybe there is a cure that prevents serial killers from killing. In Christer Claus and Lars Lidberg’s article they look at the desire to kill as a disease. The article states that while using Schahriar Syndrome as a model, they are able to explain even the most vicious human behaviours, such as planned and repeated homicide (Claus/Lidberg 428). This disease is broken down into five main characteristics: omnipotence, sadistic fantasies, ritualized performance, dehumanization, and symbiotic merger. These five traits are not only common among people with the disease, but among serial killers as well (428). The article states that after a successful killing, the killer is surprised. When the killer is able to get away with murder, a sense of amazement consumes them. Once the killer has repeatedly killed their victim and escaped the authorities, they begin to feel like they are omnipotent. As time goes on, over fifty percent of serial killers experience sadistic fantasies that make them want to keep committing the crimes. Each killer uses their success and sadistic fantasies to form a certain ritual. They begin to believe that if they are

British neuroscientist Adrian Raine was the first to scan the heads of murders to observe their brain activity in California. The reason Professor Raine was drawn to California was because of the homicides and murders there were in the whole state of California. Throughout a couple years, professor Raine kept scanning the brains of murders and noticed something that appeared in similarly in most of the murders. There was reduced activity in the frontal cortex of the brain. The frontal cortex is the area of the brain where our emotional instincts are controlled. Professor Raine also discovered that the amygdala, is where our emotions and motivations come from, is over activated. This proves that serial killers and murderers have trouble controlling themselves due to the their emotional state from the frontal cortex. What causes the brain to behave this way? Well, Raine’s studies suggest that childhood abuse and childhood trauma is the cause for the emotions of a person to be overwritten. One of the patients Professor Raine scanned was Donta Paige. He was charged with brutally murdering a twenty four year old woman who caught him breaking into her house. As a child, Paige was abused by his mother and every time it got worse. His mother would use electrical cords, shoes or whatever was around her to abuse her son usually on a daily basis. "Early physical abuse, amongst other things could