Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been by Oates

For centuries, society has placed a remarkably large emphasis on protecting the young from the many perceived errors of growing up. Effective sex education is resisted in many locations across the country in favor of somewhat comical biblical suggestions for abstinence until marriage even while the majority of those targeted teens are viewing the world as a more and more sexual place. So many views are weaving in and out of teenagers' newly formed adolescent minds that any effective argument for responsible attitudes or analysis of sexual behavior in teens should be expressed with a certain minimal degree of clarity. Unfortunately, this essential lucidity of advice is missing in the short story “Where are You Going, Where Have You Been,” in which the misguided Joyce Carol Oates creates the character of Arthur Friend as a cliché personification of the inner demon of uncontrollably budding sexuality. Instead, the murky characterization of the antagonist presents nothing more than a confused and ambiguous view of the meaning of the story.

According to popular belief, the character in question, Arthur Friend, is essentially the devil, or if not the fiend himself, a reasonable symbolic facsimile that serves to represent a similarly sinister aspect of society. There’s such a plethora of textual evidence to support this analysis that it’s often skipped over in discussions in favor of more “thought provoking” conversation. However, the demonic illustration of A. Friend is so present in the story that to skip it would be to unforgivably neglect an integral part of the story. In nearly every detail of description resides a sometimes insidious demonic allusion. The physical appearance being the most present, it describes Arthur as a man beh...

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...ert explanation of the character, the audience would be able to see that Arnold meant exactly what she intended him to mean, and then could move onto the next aspect of the story. This would have cleared up the audience disconnect that currently remains present in her painfully dense story. Her choice to veil her main antagonist with so much symbolism hindered the reader’s ability to understand her story, thereby hurting any intended effect the story was to have.

Works Cited

Nmachiavelli, et al. “Question: What do the numbers 33, 19, 17 signify in the story? They are written along the side of Arnold Friend’s car.” Enotes.com. Enotes.com, Inc., n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2010. .

Oates, Joyce Carol. Where are You Going, Where Have You Been? N.p.: Epoch, 1966. N. pag. Print.