Where Are You Going, Where have you been? Essay example

In the short story "Where are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Carol Oats is about a girl that is fifteen years of age that flaunts her beautifulness which ultimately leads to her abduction. After reading the short story we are left with the question, was the Oates trying to show us was the situation Connie was in fate or was it freewill? I personally believe that the situation Connie got herself in was caused by freewill. The way Connie carried herself outside of home played a big role in what ultimately happened to her. Connie's behavior could also make the readers have bad views about her,

She knows he is threatening her and her family but it seems she is controlled by an unknown source that makes her go with him. Someone could argue that Connie went willingly to protect her family, but that seems weird since she tried to call for help. When she tried to call for help it seemed like Arnold Friend was controlling her so that she wasn’t able to call for help. Arnold Friend has a mysterious control over Connie that makes the reader believe that she is under his control. The story says, “She felt her pounding heart. Her hand seemed to enclose it. She thought for the first time in her life that it was nothing that was hers, that belonged to her, but just a pounding, living thing inside this body that wasn’t really hers either”(Oates 325). This could prove that she didn’t have control over the situation, kind of like someone or something was controlling her.

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

“Nothing about Arnold Friend is genuine, except his violent intentions and his skill at psychological and physical intimidation. By the story’s end, Connie understands that she is not the confident flirt she thought, but a powerless pawn in the hands of a dangerous individual.” (Cormier)

“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” a short story written by Joyce Carol Oates, revolves around two main characters — Connie and Arnold Friend. Connie is a 15 year old girl, the protagonist in the story, who disrespects her family, and tries to act more mature than she actually is. Arnold Friend is the mysterious “villain” figure in the story that places Connie in an unpleasant situation that causes her to question the extent of her maturity. Throughout the short story Arnold pushes Connie’s comfort level, and tries to get her to be adventurous by getting in his car for a ride; however, Connie realizes that she cannot get out of this troubling situation on her own. Even though the characters’ overall personas are different, they both show arrogant tendencies, which serve as both of their greatest weaknesses in the short story.

In the story, Connie is faced with two internal conflicts throughout the whole story. She desires independence from her family and wants to go on by herself into society and blossom into who she really is. Constantly looking for sex appeal and wanting to look pretty, is her way of becoming who she is. She would “glance into mirrors checking other peoples faces to make sure her own was alright” (Oates 1). It is obvious that she wants to make sure she is always looking good, trying to fit in with the rest of society. Her and her friend would lie to their parents saying they were going to the movies, but instead they would meet boys. Connie has an interest in boys and is willing to lie to to her parents so she could see them. In my opinion, she is almost rushing into things because she wants to know what the big deal is. She fantasies about them, “…the rest of the time Connie spent around the house…getting in her mothers way and thinking, dreaming about the boys she met” (Oates 2). It is evident that she has an interest in boys and wants a sexual relationship, but has to hide it from society. In search to accomplish her goals, she is face with an obstacles with herself and family and the other with Arnold Friend.

The interaction between Connie and Friend start when Friend shows up to Connie’s house uninvited. The author Oates states “After a while she heard a car coming up the drive. She sat up at once, startled, because it couldn't be her father so soon. . . It was a car she didn't know,” (qtd. Oates. pg.2) Connie’s first reaction was to evaluate how good she looked instead of finding out whether Friend was somebody she knew or not. When they finally come face to face, she was met with flirtatious small talk from Friend, who exclaimed “Don’tcha like my car? New paint job,… You're cute” (qtd. Oates. pg.3) Connie is in awe of his faded pants and his huge black dark boots and actually considers getting in the car as he requested. The awe of the mysterious however, rapidly shifted as he makes demands and threats due to Connie’s refusal to get in the car with him. Alarmed, Connie tries to put a call. Arnold request that she come out of the house and if she doesn't comply to his demands she and her family are going to “get it”. Slowly, Connie begins to realize that there's something off about Arnold Friend. He looks to be wearing a wig, and he's

Initially, when Connie sees Arnold’s car on the street, she’s excited, she wants to meet whoever is driving, even carefully flirting with him in the beginning. However, as she talks with him, she slowly realizes he’s not the “cool guy” she first thought he was. Some details about him, from his hair to his shoes and his way of talking, seem oddly displaced, she tries to evaluate him “but all these things [don’t] come together.” (325) Despite her awareness of the danger awakening, it is too late; Arnold’s deceiving appearance induced a false sense of safety long enough for him to have power over her. Even more, the mere name of Arnold is misleading, the irony between “Friend” and his horrible behaviour taking all its meaning at the end of the story. As Arnold true personality and the danger he represents are revealed, the deceiving nature of his appearance is

Throughout many cultures, age has been seen as a determinate factor of maturity. And with this maturity, comes power. This belief is clearly defined in Joyce Carol Oates’ short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”. In this story, the main character, Connie, struggles to reach maturity. Wielding her sexuality in hand, Connie charges into the battle for power, leaving her vulnerable to Arnold Friend’s temptation. Through the use of a symbolic figure, Arnold Friend, who represents the devil, Oates is able to manifest the power struggle between youth and maturity and how Connie strives to obtain the power that comes with maturity.

By the end of the story ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’ Connie proves that her persona of being and acting like a mature adult is just an act. Connies relationship with her family makes her feel as if acting like an adult and receiving attention from boys and older men will help her escape from

Towards the end of the story, Arnold Friend 's tune turned a bit more aggressive. He eventually got his way by making Connie his puppet; she moved on on cue with every string he pulled. As Connie got closer to the door, she saw herself leaving, as if she were officially being torn apart from her old ways. She did not recognize anything, her front yard was a foreign landscape to her. Connie knew that by going to Arnold Friend she would never see any of her family again, nor her house with the music still playing in her room. In the beginning of the story, Connie mentioned to her friends how she wished that she could just kill her mother and sometimes herself, just to end it all. At the very end of the story, she places her now relaxed hand over her heart just to notice for the first time that it was not even hers, but

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

“She backed away from the door but did not want to go into another part of the house, as if it would give him permission to come through the door” (Oates 7-8). Arnold Friend has a mental hold of Connie. Connie felt as if any action she made would cause a negative reaction from Arnold, letting him get closer. Connie felt as if she was being taken over. “She felt 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” (Oates 8).

Rape is a very serious crime that can and should result in a life sentence for the convicted (“Rape”). In “Where are you going, where have you been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, Arnold Friend should be convicted for the rape of Connie. Friend had the means, opportunity, and motive to commit the crime -- rape. Friend had the means to commit the crime of rape on Connie. Friend left plenty of evidence that he was at the house while Connie’s parents were gone.

In the next story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”, Connie is the main character and also living in lies and negativity towards the people around her. Her situation is similar to Jackie’s situation in which, Connie is just simply living in uncertainty towards herself and to the people around her. Connie is just ungrateful towards her family to the point where she wants her mother dead and even herself. The reason Connie’s case differed from Jackie’s is because Connie is forced to confront the truth about herself. Although, in her case, she is forced to find the truth despite the fact that it could very well lead to her death. The quote, “His smile faded. She could see then that he wasn’t a kid, he was much older; thirty maybe more. At this knowledge, her heart began to pound faster” (Oates 150) shows that when Arnold Friend shows up at her house she gets scared for her life. Life and family are the two most important things in this earthly life. “Lying is a ubiquitous feature of everyday social convention and also permeates the intimate bonds of romantic and family life” (Tosone 335).