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Example of symbolism essay
Where are you going where have you been summary
Where are you going where have you been summary
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In the story “Where are you Going, Where Have you been?” Joyce Carol Oates tells us about a fifteen year old girl named Connie. Connie is confronted by a young man who is trying to persuade her to take a ride with him. He introduces himself as Arnold Friend and kindly asks her to come with him but she refused. He then threatens Connie and her family. She is then forced outside and leaves with Arnold Friend. Arnold Friend clearly symbolizes the devil through his physical traits, his knowledge of Connie, and his power over her kind of like he was hypnotizing her to go with him.
First, Arnold Friend’s physical traits portray him as Satan. Oates says that “There were two boys in the car and now she recognized the driver: he had shaggy, shabby black hair that looked crazy as a wig and he was grinning at her,” (Oates 316). The hair could actually be a wig hiding something that he didn’t want someone to see. Maybe he was hiding his devil horns. Also when he was standing Connie had mentioned that “He was standing in a strange way, leaning back against the car as if he were balancing himsel...
Tom Walker’s devil is a dark-skinned man with red eyes, red sash, and an axe. Tom was a malicious, greedy person who dealt with the devil in order to gain some wealth. He and his wife would fight constantly day after day. Tom was not a wealthy person
Where Are You Going, Where have You Been by Joyce Carol Oates is a tale of a naive young lass taking her first steps into the illusion of the teenage dream. For the regular viewer of the film Smooth Talk, one would not pick up on the elaborate history behind the movie. Dating back to the 1960’s, the written story sheds very little light on the true sadistic nature of the means and intentions of Arnold Friend. Going back even further, the written tale is based on Life Magazine's article “The Pied Piper of Tucson” the true story of a middle aged man who preys on adolescent girls, getting away with devious sexual acts and sometimes murdering said adolescents. Without this previous knowledge, both the story and the movie seem for the most part innocent, with only a tad of creepiness generated
A spider, a zombie, a serial killer, all of these things would scare most but why do people pay good money to be scared by all these things? Because people like to be scared. Ever since people could speak to one another, they have been telling these stories. whether it be around a dim lit campfire, in the form of a book, or even on the big screen. these stories stand out through time because of their graphic word choice, unique characters, and suspense. Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Black Cat” and Joyce Carol Oates “Where Are You Going Where Have You Been?” both possess these elements of word choice and suspense along with psychotic like characters such as Arnold Friend (WAYG) and the narrator (The Black Cat). Poe's character the
Like all great stories throughout time, a compelling villain is the key to making a story worthwhile. In short stories like, “Where have you been, where are you going,” and, “Love in LA,” a though provoking antagonist was used by the authors to really give the stories some depth. The antagonist of, “Where have you been…”Arnold Friend takes on the persona of temptation to the protagonist Connie and really emphasizes the theme of be careful what you wish for. Connie was a young girl who repeatedly met up with older more mature boys; but one day Arnold Friend arrives at her house and coerces her to leave with him. The story abruptly stops there leaving the reader hoping for more. The antagonist of, “Love in LA”, Jake, an unemployed dreamer, meets the heroine of the story, Marianna, when he mistakenly hits her car on the freeway. From there, he proceeds to lie and do whatever it takes to make himself look better, and go out with Marianna. Both of these antagonists are similar in that both could have some underlying biblical meaning or connotation, both hit on younger, seemingly “innoce...
Connie, from “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”, wants to rebel against her family. She uses her attractiveness to flirt with boys at the local restaurant behind their backs as a form of rebellion. She feels as though her family does not appreciate her; her father does not pay any attention to her and her mother constantly compares her to her sister, criticizing her every move and asking why she cares so much about her appearance. On one of her outings she sees a boy who she vainly chooses to ignore. Later he shows up at her house posing as her friend, calling himself Arnold Friend, and talking to her as though he is another boy she flirts with down at the diner and pretending to be her age. She subtly flirts with him at first, only realizing the danger when it is too late.
"Connie, don't fool around with me. I mean—I mean, don't fool around," he said, shaking his head. He laughed incredulously. He placed his sunglasses on top of his head, carefully, as if he were indeed wearing a wig…” (Oates 6). Joyce Carol Oates’ short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” highlights an altercation, meeting, conflict and dispute between a teenage girl, named Connie, and a psychotic rapist named Arnold Friend. Throughout their altercation, Arnold Friend tempts and encourages Connie to get in the car with him and lead her to a variety of possible dangerous situations, one of which includes her getting raped . There is no doubt that Joyce Carol Oates’ uses Arnold Friend in her short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” to symbolize the Devil and embody all of the evil and sinister forces that are present in our world. This becomes apparent when the reader focuses on how deranged Arnold Friend is and begins to
My definition of evil is in its most general context, is taken as the absence of that which is ascribed as being good. Often, evil is used to denote profound immorality. In this situation I would have to say Arnold’s friend most exemplifies evil. Arnold Friend could be an allegorical devil figure, the protagonist who lures Connie into riding off with him in his car, or, in the contrary, far more a grotesque portrait of a psychopathic killer masquerading as a teenager. However, he has all the traditional, sinister traits of that arch deceiver and source of grotesque terror, the devil, with his painted eyelashes, shaggy hair, and stuffed boots. In the story, Oates does make Arnold out to be a psychopathic stalker, but never objectively states the diabolical nature to his character.
In “Where are You Going, Where Have you Been?” Joyce Carol Oates uses an allegorical figure of evil to illustrate the theme of temptation. Oates alludes to hell through the character Arnold Friend, as the devil, and his victim Connie, who invites him in by committing the sin of vanity.
There have been numerous stories, tunes, movies, and craft depicting the exemplary story of man vs. the fallen angel. The old German legend of "Faust," which is accepted to be the primary impact in Washington Irving's "The Devil and Tom Walker", was utilized as a lesson to alarm individuals from wrongdoing. On the other hand, Washington utilized the general subject of bartering with the villain for a lavishly typical and captivating story with inconceivable detail and style of prominent gothic fiction in Europe, where he inhabited the time it was composed. Irving's dull unmistakable style and three naughty characters passed on the ethical message of Faust all around by utilizing typical talk and dark parody.
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.
Arnold Friend could possibly be a symbol of the devil. Friend tries to be kind and tells Connie he will take care of her and everything to try and get her to come with him. Oates says, “His whole face was a mask, she thought wildly, tanned down onto his throat…”; this could symbolically be connected with the devil. The devil would never be out in the open he would be in disguise. McManus also talks about how Friend is related with the devil. “Friend’s suggestion is that if Connie’s house was on fire, that she would run out to him, may also suggest symbolism. Fire being associated with devil.” This is a great symbol of Friend and the devil because fire is most definitely associated with the
Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” tells the tale of a fifteen year old girl named Connie living in the early 1960’s who is stalked and ultimately abducted by a man who calls himself Arnold Friend. The short story is based on a true event, but has been analyzed by many literary scholars and allegedly possesses numerous underlying themes. Two of the most popular interpretations of the story are that the entire scenario is only dreamt by Connie (Rubin, 58) and that the abductor is really the devil in disguise (Easterly, 537). But the truth is that sometimes people really can just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Connie, a victim of terrifying circumstance will be forever changed by her interactions with Friend.
Oates uses a great number of symbols in her short story "Where are you going? Where have you been? to create an aura of unease and Devilishness. Her principal symbols are Arnold Friend, his disguise, and the music Connie listens to. Oates' use of symbolism and Biblical allusions to Satan force the reader to raise an eyebrow to the character of Arnold Friend and the doomed future of Connie.
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.
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.