Arnold Friend Research Paper

In the story “Where are you Going, Where Have you been?” Joyce Carol Oates tells us about a fifteen year old girl named Connie. Connie is confronted by a young man who is trying to persuade her to take a ride with him. He introduces himself as Arnold Friend and kindly asks her to come with him but she refused. He then threatens Connie and her family. She is then forced outside and leaves with Arnold Friend. Arnold Friend clearly symbolizes the devil through his physical traits, his knowledge of Connie, and his power over her kind of like he was hypnotizing her to go with him.

Besides Arnold Friend physical appearance, which makes the reader assume that his character is not a human being, Oates gives him supernatural powers that a normal person could not have. One example of this is the power that he has over Connie; he knows everything that involves her: “ 'Just for a ride, Connie sweetheart.' Arnold Friend says. 'I never said that my name was Connie, she said.' And he replies: 'But I know what it is. I know your name and all about you, a lots of things, Arnold Friend said' ”(584-585). The security of Arnold Friend words gives to reader the impression that he has been watching her closely and all the time without her knowing it or noticing it. This confirms the reader’s hypothesis that Friend's is Satan. Moreover, when Connie tries to hide from him in her house, Arnold manipulates her into leaving the house simply by telling her what to do, like a puppeteer and his puppet: “You won’t want your family to get hurt. Now get up all by yourself. Now turn this way. That’s right. Come over here to me. Now come out through the kitchen to me honey and let’s see a smile, try it, you are brave sweet little girl”(591). Oates makes the reader infer that Satan’s only way to make her comes out is by using his demon powers, because the devil cannot get into your house unless you have invited him in. Therefore, he uses his

"conned" into leaving with Arnold Friend, whose name becomes "An Old Friend" i.e. the devil,

shabby hair, his metallic sunglasses, and devilish grin, Arnold is shown as some kind of demon

Arnold Friend is seen as a symbolic satan due to the fact of how Oates uses dialogue through the short story.

Arnold Friend, a main character founded in the short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, is often a debated by many readers to be a demon, a crazed stalker and maniac, or in fact Lucifer himself. After reading the short story and analyzing the details of the characters, Arnold Friend really stands out and leaves many unanswered questions on what the author was intending to do with this particular character in identifying who he really is. After thoroughly analyzing the character, Arnold Friend, throughout the story, it is unclear to say that he is a human, yet it is much clearer to indicate that he is a demon, the Devil, or a figment of Connie’s imagination as her deepest desires coming to life.

The devil has long been associated with evil, and containing a negative connotation. Connie continuously acts promiscuously, resulting in the devil appearing at her house. Connie, however, when first meeting Arnold is unphased by the potential harm and acts in a flirtatious manner to grab his attention. In the story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, she uses symbolism to to represent that Arnold Friend is the devil.

Arnold Friend is a seductive man, or should I say ArN OLD FrIEND with a dark appearance hiding something deeper, something evil? Arnold, posing as a teen-age boy, is none other than the devil himself, which shows in his words and actions, and in his physical traits. From the very beginning of, Joyce Carol Oates', "Where are you going, Where Have you been?" a certain number of religious references are interspersed throughout. These references help to maintain a biblical feeling, as well as to set a path for Friend's entry into the story. They also foreshadow that; powers beyond a human level will be presented. Friend looks like one person in the beginning, but as the story unfolds, he is shown as someone else or

Arnold Friend plays the perfect role for an archetypical devil character. The minute he pulls up to Connie’s house, he acts as if the two had known each other for some time and him showing up at random was something that happened all the time. At first, Connie is somewhat flattered by his compliments and smooth way of talking, until he starts to get more persistent on her coming outside. Just when she starts to get scared, “his smile assured her that everything was fine.” (pg 4, Oates) Arnold uses his charisma to ease Connie’s nerves, and it actually seems to work for a little

Arnold Friend, Ellie, and Connie are all listening to Rock and Roll (R&R). If you take out the two R's in Arnold Friend, you get An Old Fiend, which means an evil spirit. The oldest and most popular fiend through time has been the devil. Another reason to suspect that Arnold Friend represents the devil is because of his shoes. In the story, Arnold Friend, "almost lost his balance again. He had to bend and adjust his boots. Evidently his feet did not go all the way down." Arnold lost his balance multiple times, like a drunk man would and when he bent down to fix his shoes, Connie realized that his feet did not go all the way down. This could stand to say that instead of having feet he had hooves, which he couldn't properly get into his shoes. It is also common for people to believe that unless invited into the home (through actions or through words), the devil can not step inside. This would explain why Arnold stayed outside even after Connie had threatened to call the police and ran into the back room where the phone was. The final reason it is possible that Arnold symbolizes the devil is that he says "I know your name and all about you, lots of things. I took a special interest in you, such a pretty girl, and I found out all about you- like I know your parents and sister are gone somewhere and I know where and how long they're going to be gone, and I know who you were with last night, and your best

Arnold Friend is the epitome of true evil. Anthony Ellis refers to him as “ostensibly evil… […], a devil, a satyr, and a psychic projection” (Ellis 55). Indeed, Friend appears to share many traits with Satan. Not only is Friend manipulative and deceptive; he also camouflages his appearance in order to manipulate his victims into obeying his whims. Satan’s disguise, telling of his character, was that of a snake. It could be argued that Satan is the reason behind snakes’ terrible reputation and the reason why one is viewed as a sleazy character when referred to as a snake. By this definition, Friend is indeed a snake. He attempts to manipulate Connie into taking a ride with him, and he makes himself appear younger in order to lure his victim into his trap. He has to hide agitation and anger whenever Connie questions him, which she does multiple times throughout the short story. His attempts to make himself appear to be a gangly, yet charming teenager are lost on her, forcing Friend to rework his

Indeed, Arnold Friend could be an allegorical devil figure, the protagonist who lures Connie into riding off with him in his car, or, in the contrary, far more a grotesque portrait of a psychopathic killer masquerading as a teenager. However, he has all the traditional, sinister traits of that arch deceiver and source of grotesque terror, the devil, with his painted eyelashes, shaggy hair, and stuffed boots.

Devils child by Juda Priest is about a relationship in which one of the people is seen as a devil by the other. In “Where are you going, where have you been?”, Connie a young teenager meets a boy who later on the reader realizes is seen as the devil. In the song it says, “I believe you're the devil, I believe you're the devil's child” (Halford 15-16). This closely relates to everyone seeing Arnold as the devil in the story. At one point in the story Arnold gives Connie a hint to his real identity when he says, “Now, theses numbers are a secret code, honey” (Oates 318). It then goes on to when he reads to numbers out loud to her 33,19,17. When you take a closer look at these numbers three plus three is six, nine upside is six and seven minus one is six, equally 666, the devil’s numbers.

In “Paradise Lost” I think that Milton’s character Satan may be considered one of the most complex characters and is always changing. Of course at first he comes off as a very evil guy, who had a strong thirst for vengeance and liked to wreak havoc. Even though

In the story the devil is put in a position in where the reader could have slight sympathy for him. I think this is because God is a hard being to relate to. It's hard for a mere mortal to relate to God because we don't have complete power over everything. The devil is a more relatable character because he is trying to change the world and improve his quality of life by gaining power. That is very relatable to us humans because we often try to do the same thing.