English 101 Where Are You Going Where Have You Been Analysis Have you ever met someone and realized they're not the person you thought they were at first? In the short story “Where Are You Going Where Have You Been” the audience is given an immaculate example of a shift in character. When Arnold Friend is first mentioned in the story he seems like a nice charming guy, but then his personality starts to go downhill. The reader is able to see this change in Friend due to Oates commanding use of characterization and underlying symbolism to reveal his true character. Friend is first introduced in the story when Connie sneaks off with her friends to the the drive-in restaurant across the street. She first sees him when shes walking off with a …show more content…
guy Eddie she has just meet. His introduction is a little strange and sinister being he states, “Gonna get you,baby”(Oates159) and marks her with his “sign” which is an x he writes in the air. We don’t see his character again until that sunday when he comes over to Connie's house. Friend seems nice at first, constantly flirting with Connie and insisting on her going for a ride with him. After Connie finally tells Friend and his accomplice Ellie to leave friend loses the friendly charming approach, and begins to reveal his true devilish nature. He then takes a more forceful approach towards Connie and finally tells her, “You come out here nice like a lady and give me your hand, and nobody else gets hurt”(Oates 169). After that method fails to lure her out, he proceeds with threats, and eventually the reader is shown a unclear action that resembles him raping her. Oates is able to effectively switch Friends personality from being a charming nice guy to this point with her strong use of characterization and development. Another method Oates uses to give the audience a sense that something is not quite right and possible supernatural about Friend from the beginning is her use of symbolism.
Oates gives the reader plenty of evidence to infer that Friend is a satanic figure from the beginning. For example the secret code he provides Connie,”33,19,17” (Oates162) lands you in the book of judges in the bible if you look flip through it backwards. The scripture is,"And when he raised his eyes, he saw the traveler in the open square of the city; and the old man said, “Where are you going, and where do you come from?” This gives you the title of the story, and another anti-christ element regarding Friend, being you have to scroll backwards in the bible to find it. We are also shown elements such as his feet not going all the way down in his shoes which could indicate hooves, the misfitting wig which could represent horns underneath, and even the way she describes his eyes,” His eyes were like chips of broken glass that catch the light in an amiable way”(Oates163). Also he uses the X as his sign, which he explains to Connie, “Didn't you see me put my sign in the air when you walked by?(Oates 164). And finally he mentions burning her house down. He specifically states, “If the place got lit up on fire you'd come running into my arms”(Oates167) which is the most obvious symbolistic element linking him to the devil. All of these uses of symbolism gives the audience a very good indication linking Friend
with a devilish figure. Without Oates strong command of literary devices, the characterization may not have been as effectivly established without her efficent use of symbolism. The use of literary devices throughout truly made this story not only easily understandable, but also efficacious in showing the development of Friend and the change in his mentality. This dramatic shift in the character was perfect to making this story as efficient as it was. Without the dominating use of these two literary methods utilized by Oates this story would have been nowhere near as entertaining as it was.
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
In literature, Archetypal Criticism is a critical approach where the reader interprets the meaning of a story by looking at the archetypal characters, events, and symbols that it contains. In general, an archetype is a universal, primordial representation of an event or character that is seen as a general blueprint for stories and myths, such as the Hero or Death and Rebirth (Meyer 1587). Archetypes can be very important in identifying and supporting a theme by giving us background and references for aspects throughout the story. Carol Joyce Oates uses a couple vital archetypes in her short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” a tale about Connie, a teenage girl, who goes through an innocence to experience situation, signifying a transition from childhood to adulthood. Arnold Friend is an important character in Connie’s story because he is one of the main reasons she goes undergoes a change.
In the short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” written by Joyce Carol Oats, the writer includes a very interesting character. One of the main characters, Arnold Friend, is a dynamic character due to the sudden changes of this physical appearance and personality. At first he seems charming and a little on the sweet side, but then his dark side starts to show as the story progresses. He first appears when Connie abandons her friend to go with a boy named Eddie. Arnold is seen in his gold convertible Jalopy, which is the first sign that he wants to be alluring. His first words in the story are "Gonna get you, baby" this foreshadows his intentions when it comes to 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.
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
Throughout the entire book, O’Brien makes several references to how normal men can completely change their persona if placed in such an environment. I picked four instances, which truly represented how the mind changes. When Dave Jensen broke lee trunk’s nose, he became absolutely paranoid about every aspect of his life. The young lady who be...
The narrator implies that Arnold Friend is Satan by giving certain clues that the reader can easily deduce. The name that Oates gives to the character is one hint to the reader: “Connie looked away from Friend's smile to the car, which was painted so bright it almost hurt her eyes to look at it. She looked at the name, Arnold Friend. She looked at it for a while as if the words meant something to her that she did not yet know” (583). The name “friend” was commonly used by the Protestants to refer to evil or the devil. Moreover, Arnold Friend's appearance also hints that he is Satan: “There were two boys in the car and now she recognizes the driver: he had shaggy, shabby black hair that looked as a crazy wig”(583). The narrator emphasizes the “wig” to make the reader think that he is wearing it for a purpose, which is hide his devil’s horns. Also, the fact that Arnold Friend's eyes are covered is another stragedy use by Oates to confirm the assumption of the diabolic presence: “ He took off the sunglasses and she saw how pale the skin around his eyes was it, like holes that were not in shadow but in...
The characters in short stories, ‘Where are you going, Where have you been?’ by Joyce Carol Oates and ‘The man who was almost a man’ by Richard Wright, have lot of similarities between them even though the stories themselves take place in different setting in different time periods, but using symbolism, context clues, and our own experiences we as students of literature can better understand both characters and get an insight into their inner workings beyond what the text tells us on the surface.
Ignorance and vanity can be good, in small amounts, but too much can lead to very unwelcome consequences. Connie, a teenage girl who can’t get enough of herself, learned this the hard way when a strange man by the name of Arnold Friend arrives at her house with the intent of taking her on a ‘date’. Instead of calling the police or locking herself in, like common sense would imagine, Connie uneasily greets Arnold from her door when he gets out of his car, instantly letting her vanity and ignorance get the best of her. Joyce Carol Oates shocks the reader with the twist ending in her short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” in which after hearing Arnold’s threat towards her family, Connie hands herself over to Arnold allowing him
Oates takes us to a journey of rebellion as the protagonist sorts through self-created illusion in order to come to terms with her own sexual inexperience. Connie’s desires for attention from the opposite sex, her vanity and immaturity blind her to think of the real intentions of guys, in this case Arnold Friend. A character that many critics argue is real, yet, others argue it was created by Connie’s mind.
A transformation took place during the story and it is evident through the narrator?s character. In the beginning he was lacking in compassion, he was narrow minded, he was detached, he was jealous, and he was bitter. Carver used carefully chosen words to illustrate the narrator?s character and the change. Throughout the story his character undergoes a transformation into a more emotionally aware human being.
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.
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.
...en he was at her house, and who Arnold Friend truly was. Some people believe that Arnold Friend is a predator seeking out a new victim, but I think that in some strange way Arnold becomes Connie way to escape into her fantasy world. When she learns his true intentions she is scared to death at first but eventually that fear gives way when entering his car. Connie may think that she’s not going to see her mother again or sleep in her bed again, but at the same time she’s going to escape from her old life. Maybe she has made her decision at that moment; Connie no longer resists Arnold after that moment and does everything he says to do. As she steps out the door, she sees the "vast sunlit reaches of the land behind him," in contrast with the house she is leaving, which "looked small." This shows that she is stepping out into her fantasy world, or so she thinks she is.