Arnold Friend Character Analysis Essay

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Joyce Carol Oates begins "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" with a reference to Connie's vain habit of compulsively checking her reflection in mirrors.

Connie's obsession with beauty is neither atypical, nor isolated in "Where Are You Going, Where Are You Been." She has absorbed the lessons of the culture she lives in.

Joyce Carol Oates does not condemn Connie for her vanity or suggest Arnold Friend's violent and disturbing visit is a fit punishment, as a male Renaissance artist might have.

Their shared appreciation of the same radio station leads Connie to initially trust Arnold Friend, allowing him to lure her in.

Music connects Connie not only to Arnold Friend, but to a wider popular culture; her ideas about love and sex are derived largely from the songs …show more content…

June serves as the matronly foil to Connie's sexual character.

Even Connie's relationships with her female friends are weak.

Some have suggested that Connie never awakes from her mid-day nap and Arnold Friend is a figment of her imagination, a nightmare projection that reveals her inner desires and fears.

Unlikely for an earthly psychopath, Arnold Friend seems strangely reticent to enter Connie's home by force, something reminiscent of vampire mythology.

Arnold Friend knows Connie's name without being told and, more disturbingly, seems able to see across town and into her aunt's barbeque.

There is a sense throughout "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" that Connie is meeting her fate.

Finally, Arnold Friend refers to Connie's dead neighbor, which suggests he was somehow involved in or has special knowledge of her death.

In a New York Times piece Joyce Carol Oates writes that ending features an "Unexpected gesture of heroism," supporting an interpretation that Connie willingly sacrifices herself for her family, who Arnold Friend has threatened several

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