Joyce Carol Oates’s short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, tells a story about a rebellious teenage girl and her dealing with her own personal devil. The young girl is named Connie, and while she is not the modest religious girl her family wants her to be, her family is not the most equitable people on the block either. Joyce Carol Oates’s characterization of Connie’s vanity and her actions implies that she is open to moral corruptions that invites the devil to take what he wants when he wants.
In Oates’s short story she describes a rambunctious teenage girl that does not follow the rules and is an egotistical, senseless girl. She lies to her mother on a daily basis, she cares more about her looks than being in danger and
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is unapologetically inconsiderate to everyone in her family. Oates’s characterization of Connie is that Connie invites in evil with her lying tongue, her sinful hands, and her narcissistic eyes. Connie has no regrets about the things she does and does not do until she meets her own personal devil, Arnold Friend. At the beginning of the short story, Connie sees Arnold Friend in a parking lot of a dinner, in which she goes to make out with boys much older than her in an outfit that she hides from her mother.
In the first scene with Arnold Friend he says something unusual to a girl he does not even know, according to how Connie first describes him, but in all scenes of the short story, Arnold Friend talks to Connie as if he’s known her for years. In the parking lot Arnold Friend “wagged a …show more content…
finger and laughed and said, ‘Gonna get you, baby’” (471), from this single comment Arnold Friend, is forewarning Connie, and Oates’s for the readers, that he will get her one way or another. This comment is readers first big red flag that Connie will be dealing with Arnold Friend in the future of this short story, through Oates’s initial characterization of Arnold Friend the readers get a sense that he is not only dangerous but could also be hiding in the lightless corners of Connie’s sinful life brought by her vanity. Connie’s vanity leads the devil into her life as she opens herself up to moral extortion by caring more about her looks than her relationship with her mother and possibly dangerous situations.
By the second sentence Oates’s sets up Connie's vanity, “[Connie] had a quick nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors, or checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was all right” (469). By the very beginning Oates’s lets the readers into Connie’s vanity and insecurities about herself, a characteristic most teens have, but usually, do not act on. Connie’s mother was always after her for checking herself out, to which Connie believes is jealousy because her mom “had been pretty once too” (469). Connie puts her looks before her own safety when Arnold Friend shows up one Sunday when her family is not home. As Arnold Friend’s car pulls up the first thing Connie does is “snatched her hair, checking it, and she whispers ‘Christ, Christ’, wondering how badly she looked” (473), not that there is someone she does not know in her driveway like a normal teenager. Not only does this show a raw version of Connie’s vanity, but she also uses the Lord's name in vain all because her hair was not
perfect. Oates’s depictions of Connie’s actions suggest that she is open for ethical rotting which leads evil into her lightless life by not going to church, showing herself off, and going to drive-in restaurants where older boys flocked. However, Connie is not the only one that allows themselves to slip into the hands of the devil. None of Connie’s family goes to church either, “One Sunday Connie got up at eleven—None of them bothered with church” (472), this alone invites in darkness and gives the reader’s another clue down the line of how morally corrupt she is, after we have already met Connie and her sinful ways. In earlier scenes Connie shows her deviant side when she goes out to the mall and “She wore a pull-over jersey blouse that looked one way when she was at home and another way when she was away from home” (470). In this Oates’s lets, the readers know that Connie allows herself to be seen how she wants to be seen at different locations and for different people. Any other teen would have gone and hidden if a stranger like Arnold Friend had shown up to their house, but Connie “went into the kitchen and approached the door slowly, then hung out of the screen door, her bare toes curling down off the step” (473). By even opening the door and hanging out of it Connie lets the devil, Arnold Friend, in. Connie’s loss of morals and values, from which most people get from church and family, invites evil into her life in the form of Arnold Friend, who is the devil himself and allows Arnold Friend to take Connie, far away from her friends and family. Joyce Carol Oates’s short story is about an egotistical, senseless fifteen-year-old girl and her dealing with her own personal devil, her own vanity and reprehensible actions. Through Joyce Carol Oates’s characterization of Connie’s pompousness and her behavior denotes that she is open to moral extortion that invites the devil to take what he wants when he wants, and at the end of Oates’s short story Arnold Friend ends up taking Connie.
"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.
Throughout “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Arnold Friend is a very intimidating and mysterious character that is hard to figure out. Arnold knows everything about Connie, a teenage girl that he has never met before. He is very persistent with getting Connie to run away from her awful teenage life at home with him. Arnold’s appearance adds even more mystery to who he actually is. Arnold has a roughed up look to him, a secret code painted on his car that can be interpreted as a Bible verse, and he can not stand steady on his feet, because of all of these attributes Arnold appears that he is possibly Satan.
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.
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.
Connie has the need to be viewed as older and as more mature than she really is, all the while still displaying childlike behavior. She shows this childlike behavior by “craning her neck to glance in mirrors [and] checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was all right” (Oates 323). This shows that Connie is very insecure and needs other people’s approval. Although on one side she is very childish, on the other side she has a strong desire to be treated like an adult. This longing for adulthood is part of her coming of age, and is demonstrated by her going out to “bright-lit, fly-infested restaurant[s]” and meeting boys, staying out with those boys for three hours at a time, and lying to her parents about where she has been and who she has been with (Oates 325, 326). “Everything about her ha[s] two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home” (Oates 324). Even her physical movements represent her two-sided nature: “her walk that could be childlike and bobbing, or languid enough to make anyone think she was hearin...
Joyce Carol Oates intrigues readers in her fictional piece “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by examining the life of a fifteen year old girl. She is beautiful, and her name is Connie. Oates lets the reader know that “everything about her [Connie] had two sides to it, one for home, and one for anywhere but home (27). When Connie goes out, she acts and dresses more mature than she probably should. However, when she is at home, she spends the majority of her time absorbed with daydreams “about the boys she met”(28). This daydreaming behavior is observable to the reader throughout the story. From theories about dreams, theories about subconscious thought, and the clues that Oates provides, the reader is lead to believe that Connie’s experience with Arnold Friend is a nightmare used to awaken her to the consequences that her behavior could result in.
Connie's character plays a big role in what ultimately happens to her. Connie is a vain girl that thinks the way you look is everything. She plays the stereotypical part for girls in today's society. She thinks that as long as you are pretty and dress a certain way then you are everything. This comes across when Oates writes "Connie thought that her mother preferred her to June because she was prettier" (980). By flaunting her looks she could easily give a guy like Arnold Friend perverted ideas about her. It could make them see her as easy, which he did.
In the short story, Connie is a young, naïve, sassy, little girl who hates her mom and sister. According to Oates, “Connie wished her mother was dead” (324). Connie enjoys going out with her friends and going to a drive-in restaurant where the older kids hang out. Connie is innocent, but thinks about love and sex. She is desperate to appeal to boys and succeeds at it when a boy with shaggy black hair says to her, “Gonna get you, baby” (325). Her encounter with this boy will change her life forever, because he is the antagonist that influences Connie’s loss of innocence. On a Sunday afternoon, the boy, Arnold Friend, visits Connie and asks her to come for a ride, which she declines. But, Arnold Friend won’t take “no” for an answer and threatens to go in the house. For example when Connie says she will call the cops, Arnold says “Soon as you touch the phone I don’t need to keep my promise and come inside”
In the story “Where are You Going, Where Have You Been?’ Connie does not have a good relationship with her relatives. Her family relationship is unhealthy. Her mother says demeaning things to her like “Stop gawking at yourself, who are you? You think you’re so pretty?” (Oates qtd. in Kirszner and Mandell, 453 ). Or
Oates is accused of "producing too much" (676). This story is no different. Her exposition is painstaking. She sets the scene by making the main character and protagonist, Connie, parallel to an average girl in the sixties. Oates' narrator introduces Connie using elements of description which puts emphasis on the vanity of the main character. Connie's mother is quickly introduced and is used by the narrator to reveal how much disdain her mother has for her vanity. The narrator uses the main character's mother to introduce her sister, June. One is led to believe that sibling rivalry is one of the many causes that lead to the demise o...
Being sexualized by the boys around her, Connie is self-conscious and finds her worth in beauty. The story even states, “She knew she was pretty and that was everything” (Oates 422). She is concerned about her appearance and what others think of her because she has been taught that she lacks any value outside of physical beauty norms. Arnold Friend, even tells Connie, “...be sweet like you can because what else is there for a girl like you but to be sweet and pretty and give in?” (Oates 432). Between this coaxing and the consistent message about the importance of beauty, Connie is nearly forced to conform to this mentality, which displays the lack of respect for young females as human beings. This in turn leads women to self-degradation as they are consistently viewed as sexual
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.
Connie’s clothes and infatuation with her own beauty symbolize her lack of maturity or knowing her true self, which in the end enables her to be manipulated by Arnold Friend. Connie was enamored with her own beauty; in the beginning of the story Oates states that Connie “knew
Oates drew the character of Connie very well - she possesses many of the qualities that teenaged children share. According to developmental psychologists, adolescents become highly critical of siblings, and peer relationships take precedence over familial ties during these years (Feldman, 455). These traits are apparent in Connie’s unflattering description of her older sister June, “…she was so plain and chunky…” (209) and the fact that Connie spends many nights out with friends, but refuses to attend an afternoon picnic with her family (211).