Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

He can always answer where they are and who they are with. With this being said obviously he has been stalking her and her family. Arnold represents evil. Connie is shocked by his ability to know what she is thinking, and his laugh. Clearly he knows how precisely to corner Connie and not let Connie get away.

I believe Connie was murdered and raped by Arnold. I wish that was the case that he dropped her off at the hospital or even back at home with her family. Like you stated, I highly doubt he had a change of heart. She was a misguided teen who wanted to be more mature than she actually was. A sad story that left us all guessing what happened to her. The kid defiantly had a lot of mental issues.

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

Arnold Friend picks up on this instability within Connie and uses it to his advantage. He tries to make her feel loved and wanted by him. He even had “Seen [her] that night and thought, that’s the one, yes sir. [He] never needed to look anymore” (Line 23). He is proving to her that she is perfect in everyway that he imagines. He is absolutely sure that he will not find anyone better than her. He plays to her emotions from the excerpt. He wants her to feel as if she is loved, and filling whatever emotional voids are present within her. He wants her to feel loved and accepted whenever she is around him. He is using the power of emotional appeals, because he is doing his best to show her that he loves everything about her. He wants her to feel safe, loved, and protected whenever around him. He wants her to feel safe because after he assured her that he’ll keep his promise he proceeds to “...[resumes] his erect position and [tries] to force his shoulders back. He sounded like a hero in a movie…”(lines 36-37). He uses this position in order to portray to her that he will protect her. He will guard her and make sure that she will make him happy. This is a fantastic emotional appeal because he is playing to the dream that he is a hero bound to fulfill all of her desires. This in turn allows for the girl to have the emotions to love and to trust

In the short story, it is portrayed that Arnold Friend knew everything about her from looking her up and watching her closely. On the other hand, the film says that Arnold Friend asked Connie’s friends for information about her. (Oates 337). Connie’s friend Jill comes over to Connie’s house and tells her of how a man is asking information about her. Connie is surprised but doesn’t seem to be bothered.

Connie starts out in the story as someone that is self-absorbed, concerned for no one but herself. Arnold Friend is really the same way. He tells her that he saw her “that night and thought, that’s the one” (Oates 480). In spite of the words he uses, the reader knows that Arnold does not have any true feelings for Connie because he says “My sweet little blue-eyed girl” (Oates 483). Arnold is oblivious to the fact that Connie has brown eyes. “In Arnold’s view, Connie’s personal identity is totally unimportant” (Wegs 3).

She tries to relate to sex through popular music that romanticizes relationships and life. The short reveals how it affects Connie when she is listening to a popular radio station, “…bathed in a glow of slow-pulsed joy that seemed to rise mysteriously out of the music itself and lay languidly about the airless little room” (Oates 424). Additionally, Connie felt her date with Eddie was similar to “the way it was in movies and promised in songs”(Oates 424). She felt she was living the dream and was beginning to relate to this sexualized, romantic media. In Marie Mitchell and Olesen Urbanski’s literary review of the story, they state “the recurring music then, while ostensibly innocuous realistic detail, is in fact, the vehicle of Connie's seduction and because of its intangibility, not immediately recognizable as such” (1). However, Arnold Friend was quick to remind her of her young age and innocence at the end of the story.

He urges her to leave with him in a threatening manner and at that point, Connie persistently resists until she realized that it wasn’t about herself anymore, it was about protecting her family. And so, Connie got up off of the kitchen floor, listened to Arnold Friend’s voice, and went with him, not knowing where she’d end up. By applying Sigmund Freud’s “interpretation of dreams” theory to Connie’s life, it is evident that Connie is grappling with issues of guilt and shame as a result of her promiscuous nights out, feeding her sexual

During a conversation between Connie and Arnold, it is revealed

Since Connie is a teenager, we know that she is constantly out with her friends, and even more so because of her relationship with her family. Part of Connie’s hobbies include going to the shopping mall and drive-in restaurants, which were very popular hangout spots during the 1960’s. We get an even better glimpse of the time period once we meet Arnold Friend and Ellie. Arnold’s appearance is bold. He shows up in his flashy car, wearing his “metallic and mirrored” sunglasses. Ellie, the passenger in the car, had slicked down black hair with thick sideburns. During this time, people often had gaudy things and crazy hairstyles. For example, Elvis Presley wore sparkles and metallic, also greased his hair and grew out his sideburns. Even though Arnold doesn’t know Connie, he shows up to her house uninvited and asks her to “come for a ride.” This seemed quite casual to Connie at first and she reacts very naively. This situation was probably more common than it is nowadays, because violence and crime has increased so much throughout the years. People are much more cautious and aware of these situations because the media, news, and technology has rapidly

The 1960s was a time of political upheaval, war protests, drug use, and misconception of women. Teenagers during this time period looked for freedom and finding their own identity, some experimenting through sex and drugs. In the short story Joyce Carol Oates “Where Are You Going Where Have You Been?” uses conflict and characterization to show that even though teenagers crave independence they are not always socially mature enough to handle the freedom. “Where Are You Going Where Have You Been?” takes place during the 1960s in suburban America. During this time young adults were beginning to speak out against political issues within the United States.

Arnold makes a grand entrance at Connie’s house in his gold convertible, but beyond his ostentatious car, his appearance is less than impressive. In the film the first thing he says to Connie is, “ i’m gonna get you baby,” quite creepy.Indeed, he looks strange enough to suggest that he has mental problems or is even somehow

The first-time Connie saw Arnold friend when she went out with Eddie for dinner. A man smile at her from a gold convertible, and says "Gonna get you baby" when she hurries away with Eddie. Second time, the meeting of Connie and Arnold got even creepier than she would have imagined. She always wanted an older man to be attracted to her but the meeting with Arnold seemed like a disaster. Her behavior was changed from being a matured lady to an innocent child in a moment.

If this were the case, Connie’s mental disorder is every bit as signification and valid as before. Here a mental disorder would cloud Connie’s judgment, perhaps encouraging her to play a game with Arnold Friend, tempting him from the doorway - half in, half out - just like she tempted all the other teenage boys she encountered. Connie did not detect or acknowledge the danger of the situation until it was too late, and at that point she quite possibly left willingly with Arnold Friend in attempt to escape her dysfunctional family, or to prove a point to her mother; the possibilities are infinite because individuals with mental disorders do not apprehend reality in the same way everybody else does. That being said, due to Connie’s mental delusions, her actions can be judged reasonable considering she had no control over it. Although her decisions were not always perceivably correct through society’s eyes, her psychological disease paralyzed her from analyzing situations

Adding on to that, Connie’s shortfall that rock music has molded her has come to light when Arnold Friend gives sexual advances to her. Joyce Carol Oates shows this by writing, “It was the same program that was playing inside the house. “Bobby King?” she said. “I listen to him all the time. I think he’s great.” “He’s kind of great,” Connie said reluctantly.” “Listen, that guy’s great. He knows where the action is.” (p.3-para.2). This shows how Connie feels shocked that Arnold was also listening to the same music as she was when she was inside the house last time. Since she was incompetent in realizing how teenagers interpret the music than adult figures, Connie is vulnerable when Arnold threatens her to come to him because of the rock music that is being allotted to teenagers. To sum it up, the sexual song lyrics and the image of rock music that is normally played and embraced in the American culture has influenced Connie, a teenager, physically and mentally; therefore, she is taken advantage of by Arnold because of her immaturity and youth.