Character Analysis Of Joyce Carol Oates Where Did She Go?

“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” was published in 1966 by Joyce Carol Oates. The story follows a girl, Connie, who encounters a mysterious man. She catches him watching her walk away with another boy, but doesn’t bother to think of him. As the days pass, she is stuck home alone to do whatever she wants; she enjoys her day relaxing—daydreaming about boys—until a car drives up to her house. Who might it be? The man… the man we soon call as Arnold Friend. Connie’s failure to look beyond her fantasies makes her prone to manipulation and deception; so one of her major character flaws is naiveté.

A door to the beginning of her outcome is all that divides Connie in, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” from Arnold Friend, the devilish predator. Symbolism takes a big part in this story that gives a deeper meaning to Connie’s choices that ultimately extent to giving herself to Arnold. The author, Joyce Carol Oates in the short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” represents Arnold Friend as the real world by being challenging and malicious, and Connie as the innocent world by being defenseless and naive.

how Arnold Friend sees her and does not realize that she cannot see him or his motives. Arnold

In the story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” Connie, the main character, is already struggling with many things in life and sneaks her way to date guys. There was also conflicting between her and her mother due to her mother favoring her sister, June and describing her as someone who is a good example of what she wants Connie to be. Her father is never at home due to work and when he is home, the girls do not relate to him. Arnold Friend is described as a dangerous figure with his pale complexion and his slick black hair looking like trouble by not presenting himself in a pleasing way to Connie, by not walking properly. This was an indication on how he was not in the right state of mind and how Arnold shouldn’t be near Connie. There was one scene in the story where Arnold Friend shows up, uninvited, notifying Connie that he is not a friend, but has come to take her away from her home to possibly kidnap her. "Connie felt a wave of dizziness, rise in her at this sight and she stared at him as if waiting for something to change the shock of the moment, make it alright again”. Connie feels safe in the house and does not come out until Arnold convinces and demands her that she come out. Things took an unpleasant twist when Arnold tells Connie not use the phone or he will break his promise of not coming in the house

Connie does not want to be the nice and innocent pretty girl. She wants to be known for being very sexual. In the story she makes fun of her sister June because she is very modest and not sexual and causes conflict with their family. Also June is overweight twenty-four years old and still living at home. But she also does chores and does them without complaining to her parents. While Connie is a way from home she has two totally different ways of acting. Be that as it may, Arnold friend ‘s landing in her home drives her two sides to consolidate fiercely. As it were, Connie is not completely sexual until Arnold's interruption into her home until then; her sexuality was something outside of her "actual" self, the self that she permitted her family to see. Arnold also has a friend named Ellie. While Arnold drives up to Connie’s house Ellie stays in the car and she listens to music while Arnold speaks to Connie. Also Connie’s mother shows a large amount of frustration towards her and the way she acts and dresses. Connie and her mother fight constantly. But towards the end of the story when Connie is attacked my Arnold she cries out to her

Her knowledge of her beauty allows her to draw attention to it from many guys of many ages. She loves the attention that she gets from these boys, and that often seduces her into the decisions that she makes. Her first encounter with Arnold Friend occurs when she is in the car with one of the boys she met, Eddie. She glances to her right and sees Arnold, in his car, staring at her. Arnold spoke with his lips to tell her “Gonna get you, baby”, and perhaps it is this threat that causes Connie to symbolize him as a jeopardy to her innocence that the reader sees in her nightmare (Oates 28).

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.

In the short fiction Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? tells a story about a young 15-year-old girl named, Connie. Connie spends her time meeting boys, lounging around the house and going out with her friends. One night an unusual man makes a threatening gesture to her in the parking lot of a local drive-in restaurant. Until, one day the unusual man pulls up in her driveway in a gold colored car. The man introduces himself as Arnold Friend and asks Connie to join him for a ride. During their conversation, Connie is aware that Arnold is dangerous; his language becomes more sexual and violent, and he warns her that he will hurt her family if she calls the police. In the end, she leaves the house and joins Arnold. Connie is stuck between the lines of her sexual daydreams and reality up until she is entangled among by Arnold Friend and his infatuating music playing in his car. Everything about her had two aspects to it, one when she was at home and one for anywhere but home.

Not everybody is who they seem to be. Be careful about what you wish for, because it just might come true. In Joyce Carol Oates’ “short story” “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, a fifteen year old girl named Connie comes face-to-face with a man named Arnold Friend. Oates successfully portrays the similarities between Arnold Friend and the Devil through plot, setting, and characterization.

Connie, the girl that every guy wants but only a few are lucky to get, is quite possibly one of the most cliche characters in literature. She’s a two-faced, insecure girl with a smart mouth and resentment towards her family members. In the beginning of the story, Oates sets the scene with Connie out with her friend, whom she then ditches to hang out with some random guy she met at the diner. Everything seems to be going predictably, until the unimaginable happens when Arnold Friend pulls into her driveway, beckoning her to come outside since he knows her family isn’t home. He knows this because he has convinced himself that Connie is in love with him, and he wants her so bad that he has been stalking her for who knows how long. In Where are you going, Where have you been?, Oates uses the cunning and charismatic Arnold Friend along with the insecure Connie to foreshadow the horrible fate that is met.

She finds self satisfaction in knowing that boys and even men acknowledge her. There's power in being the onlooker versus who is being looked at and with Connie being immature is always searching for validation and security, constantly looking to see how people respond to her and checking in the mirror to compare to see if her look was alright. She pride herself in having a particular manner of dressing, walking, and laughing that make her sexually appealing, although these mannerisms are only temporary affectations. Arnold knowing this exploited her naiveness at the arrival of her house forcing her two personalities to collide forcefully. Connie wasn’t fully sexual until Arnold’s invasion into her home—until then, her sexuality was something outside of her “true” self, the self that she allowed her family to see. He kept holding the possibility that he was gonna come inside as a means to an end and ultimately Arnold uses his powerful persuasion to push Connie to sacrifice it all in the name of

In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” Connie is viewed by the readers as being in a state of unconsciousness, which is actually a nightmare, and it shows her the reality of a life when girls desire to grow up too fast. In the beginning, the author, Carol Oates, describes Connie as “She wore a pullover jersey blouse that looked one way when she was at home and another way when she was away from home.

Both the movie and the story emphasize the dramatic separation of understanding between Connie and her mother. The apparent lack of depth in Connie and her father’s relationship dims in comparison to the almost-tangible hatred Connie seems to feel toward her mother, her mother “who had been pretty once too, but now her looks were gone, and that was why she was always after Connie” (Oates 148). Despite the anger she feels, however, it is her mother that Connie cries out to for help in both versions as she sees herself forced to give into Friend’s wishes in an attempt to spare her family the evil he hints will come

When Arnold begins to mock Connie with her home life, and hows she describes it as a prison “her heart as almost to big for her chest and its pumping made sweat break out all over her body.” Connie exemplifies how her mind and even body is facing conflict because Arnold is presenting both of her personalities to her, because he wants her to leave with him. Connie is now unsure how to handle the situation, because she can not manage both of her sides. Connie’s reaction to the situation, is a panic mode in her body. Based on her actions of how she acts when she is in differnet places, she is unsure how to synthesize both of her dispositions in one situation, especailly when Arnold presents both of her personalities to her Arnold had said to Connie “Be nice to me, be sweet like you can because what elese is there for a girl like you but to be sweet and pretty and give in?- and get away before your people get back?” Arnold is trying to sweet talk connie in getting her to leave with him, because he sees how her body langauge shows panic. Connie is being shown both sides because Arnold is aware of how her home is a prison to her. Yet, connie is not mature enough to say how she feels to Arnold about the situation he has put her

Arnold is later pictured looking devil like. He first talks to Connie in a bright and light hearted tone seeming relatively friendly until she threatens to call the police, he then gets serious and threatens to kill her family if she doesn’t do as he says. This could be due to the fact Jordan 4 that no matter how much she says she can’t stand her family, in reality she really cares for them deeply and loves them. She has a sense of security at home, one that’s normally unshaken.