Delivering Moral Messages in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been and A Good Man is Hard to Find
School shootings, bombings, rape, and murder are words that are commonly seen in newspaper headlines and heard on the morning news. To most people these acts seem like senseless violence. However, writers like Joyce Carol Oates and Flannery O’Connor use these same violent images to deliver a powerful moral message. Their stories “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find” are very comparable in the lessons that they teach.
Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” begins with the introduction of it’s main character, Connie, a fifteen year- old girl. Oates makes Connie’s vanity quiet well know by telling the reader that Connie has the “habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors”. Indeed, it is this vanity and Connie’s innocence that places her right in the path of Arnold Friend. Arnold will confirm this by telling Connie that there is nothing else for “a pretty girl like you but to be sweet and give in.” In fact, critics generally interpret this story as Connie’s initiation into evil.
What’s in a name? If you’re talking about one of Joyce Carol Oates’s characters, a name can say a lot. Arnold Friend’s name can be interpreted as “aren’t no friend” or “A. Friend” (Johnson 150). Either way his is a demonic figure that represents the death of Connie’s spirit. In fact, Arnold Friend is based on a serial killer know as “The Pied Piper of Tucson.” As Oates reports, this “tabloid psychopath” specialized in “the seduction and occasional murder of teenage girls” (Wesley). The Pied Piper was in his thirties; yet, he managed to counterfeit teenage dress, talk, and behavior. He also stuffed rags into his leather boots to give him height. These elements of the Pied Piper’s behavior are very obvious in Oates’s portrayal of Arnold Friend (Johnson 148).
Joyce Carol Oates dedicated “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” to Bob Dylan. His song “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” was her inspiration. The many lines from Dylan’s song obviously influenced the story (see appendix A).
The vagabond who’s rapping at your door
Is standing in clothes that you once wore.
However, the mood and tone of the story also reveal more subtle connections (Davidson).
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” has ...
... middle of paper ...
... and The Misfit play similar demonic roles and serve as a reminder that evil can come in many forms. They both violently lead their victims to make religious epiphanies. The price paid for their spiritual rebirth is an immediate death.
Both Flannery O’Connor and Joyce Carol Oates have been criticized for their violent writings. However, the acts portrayed in their stories aren’t senseless. They are meant to show the purification of the involved characters. Also, they serve as a catharsis or reassurance of faith for the reader.
Works Cited
Davidson, Rob. Dedication of Joyce Carol Oates’s Short Story to Dylan. 16 Mar. 2000
.
Friedman, Melvin L., and Clark, Beverly Lyon. Critical Essays on Flannery O’Connor.
Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1985.
Johnson, Greg. Joyce Carol Oates: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne, 1994.
Portch, Stephen R. “O’Connor’s ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’.” The Explicator 37 (1978): 19-20.
Schott, Webster. “Flannery O’Connor: Faith’s Stepchild.” The Nation 201 (1965): 142-44, 146.
Wesley, Marilyn C. “The Transgressive Other in Joyce Carol Oates’s Recent Fiction.” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction XXXIII (1992): 255-62.
Reader Response Essay - Joyce Carol Oates's Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
Oates, Joyce C. "Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?" Compact Literature. By Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. 8th ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2013. 505-16. Print.
Friedman, Melvin J. Introduction. Critical Essays on Flannery O’Connor. Ed. Melvin J. Friedman and Beverly Lyon Clark. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1985.
O’Connor, Flannery. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” Flannery O’Connor: Collected Works. New York, NY: The Library of America, 1988. 137-153.
O’Connor, Flannery. “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing, 4th ed. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gloria. Boston: Pearson, 2012. 352-365. Print.
The Theme of Temptation in “Where Are You Going , Where Are you Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates
In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, Oates wants to show a more intellectual and symbolic meaning in this short story. Oates has many symbolic archetypes throughout the short story along with an allegory. Oates uses these elements in her story by the selection of detail and word choice used. Oates does this because she wants to teach her audience a moral lesson.
During the teenage years they no longer want to be labeled the “child; matter of fact, they have a strong desire to rebel against the family norms and move quickly into adulthood. This transition and want for freedom can be a very powerful and frightening thing as there are evils in this world that cannot be explained. Most parents try to understand and give their teens certain freedoms, but at what expense? Joyce Oates gives us a chilly story about a teenager that wanted and craved this freedom of adulthood called “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”. This is a haunting story of a young girl by the name of Connie who gives us a glimpse of teenager transitioning from childhood with the need for freedom and the consequences of her actions. Connie is described as a very attractive girl who did not like her role in the family unit. She was the daughter who could not compare to her older sister and she felt her Mom showed favoritism towards her sister. Connie is your average teen who loves music, going out with friends, and she likes the attention she receives from boys. During this time, Connie is also growing into her sexuality and is obsessing with her looks as she wants and likes to be noticed by the opposite sex. Her sexual persona and need to be free will be what is fatal to her character’s life and well-being.
The overuse of biblical allusions throughout the story helps to expose the naive nature of Connie that reveals her as a victim of evil which shows that lust often transgresses on an individual’s identity. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” Joyce Carol Oates expressed the subjective ideas by symbolizing Arnold Friend as a devil that tempts a clueless teenage girl Connie, who wanted to experience love.
1. Robinson, Sally. "Heat and Cold: Recent Fiction by Joyce Carol Oates." Michigan Quarterly Review, Vol. XXXI, 1992. In Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol. 108. 383.
Joyce Carol Oates' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" is about a young girl's struggle to escape reality while defying authority and portraying herself as a beauty queen; ultimately, she is forced back to reality when confronted by a man who symbolizes her demise. The young girl, Connie, is hell- bent on not becoming like her mother or sister. She feels she is above them because she is prettier. She wants to live in a "dream world" where she listens to music all day and lives with Prince Charming. She does not encounter Prince Charming but is visited by someone, Arnold Friend, who embodies the soul of something evil. Arnold Friend symbolizes "Death" in that he is going to take Connie away from the world she once knew. Even if she is not dead, she will never be the same person again, and will be dead in spirit. With the incorporation of irony, Oates illustrates how Connie's self-infatuation, her sole reason for living, is the reason she is faced with such a terrible situation possibly ending her life.
Have you ever been so focused on achieving your dreams that you become unaware of your current situation? When we focus on the goals ahead of us, we fail to see the obstacles and dangers that are in front of us. In order to achieve our goals we involuntarily put ourselves in an unwanted situation. Connie, herself, struggles to achieve her goal of being a desirable girl that turns heads when she walks into the room. She becomes so set on being this girl that she doesn’t realize the danger of the situation. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Oates utilizes metaphors, diction, and imagery to show how Connie is in a constant tug between her reality and her dreams, and how this confines her freedoms in a world that is surrounded with malevolence.
In the short story “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?”, by Joyce Carol Oates, the use of the symbolism of Connie’s clothes, her fascination with her beauty, Arnold Friend’s car and Arnold Friend himself help to understand the story’s theme of evil and manipulation. The story, peppered with underlying tones of evil, finds Oates writing about 15-year-old Connie, the protagonist of the story, a pretty girl who is a little too into her own attractiveness, which eventually gets her into trouble with a man named Arnold Friend. The story is liberally doused with symbolism, from the way Connie dresses to the shoes on Arnold Friend’s feet. In “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?” the reader can pick up on some of the symbols very easily, while others need deeper thought. The subtle hints of symbolism throughout the story create a riveting tale that draws the reader in. Connie finally succumbs to Arnold Friend at the end of the story, it then becomes obvious that he represents the devil and the symbolism of her clothing and Arnold’s car all tie together to create a better understanding of the story.
Reading between the lines of Flannery O’Connor’s work “A good Man is hard to find” leaves the reader puzzled and engrossed as their minds remains onto the setting of the story. The story begins with a bad mood, and the reader keeps waiting for good to prevail over it, but unlike most stories, the ending is a captivating draw.
O’Connor, Flannery. “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. Eds. John Schilb, and John Clifford. "Chapter 13 Doing Justice" Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. p1283-1296. Print.