Analyzing Oates 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?'

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To criticize Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” as a horror story, I will examine three main Criteria. First, the story’s main characters and their description as victims and predators. The readers’ identification of how the characters are relatable, and how the author’s portrayal of them touches the reader’s sympathy. Secondly, suspense and extraordinary and mysterious elements taking place in the story and the predator’s motive. Anticipation and dread also belong to this criterion, but I will not examine it because it is not relevant to the story. Lastly, the ending of the story and whether it is predictable or it is unexpected.
“Where Are you Going, Where Have You Been?” tells the story of a girl named Connie, who spends …show more content…

She is relevant to readers because of her precociousness; the reader understands her conflict in finding independence and sexual desires. The author represents her as the ‘victim’ of the story but not as a victim who suffers from violent abuse. Oates portrays her as a victim of mind-manipulation from the strange guy standing in her driveway. Arnold’s character is not relatable to the readers because he is an unordinary character, a psychopath, and a supernatural human being. In contrast to Connie's deep and emotional character, Arnold identity is not clear, and the reader isn’t provided with a background story similar to Connie’s. As the story goes on, it is obvious that he’s not the person he pretends to be. He is much older that he says he is. His intentions could be interpreted as a rapist and even a …show more content…

There’s a mystery in the ending itself, which gives a sense of horror to the audience. The reader doesn’t know what is going to happen to Connie. Is she going to be raped? Or get killed? When Connie runs to the phone, the reader gets excited and feels that something good is going to happen to her and that her destiny is about to change to better. But the author misleads the audience and manipulates them to make the story more horrifying and exciting. As soon as Connie realizes the danger she’s in is pretty serious, the language of the story shifts from being realistic to supernatural. Connie’s hearts starts “pounding, living thing inside this body that wasn’t hers either”/ “She watched herself push the door slowly open as if she were back safe somewhere in the other doorway”. (Oates, 1974) This seems like more of a fiction and horror than real events. Arnold calls her “blue-eyed girl”, but her eyes are brown, which suggest that Connie isn’t the same anymore she has transferred into something completely different. The very last scene that we get from the story is Arnold surrounded by “vast sunlit reaches of the land behind him and on all sides of him—so much land that Connie had never seen before and did not recognize except to know that she was going to it.” (Oates, 1974) This image can be interpreted as Connie’s defeat of sacrificing herself to save her family from Arnold’s threats of hurting

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