Arnold Friend: The Old Fiend Personification

The Falling Mask of Arnold Friend: The Old Fiend Personification
The story “Where are You Going, Were Have you Been” is the type of story that leaves an acrimonious impression on the readers. Based on true events (Coulthard), it was written in the late 1960s’, this story starts describing a teenager girl, by the name of Connie, who is sunken be her vanity filled by trashy dreams. She was obsessed by her looks, as her own mother would complaint about it (205). Her father did not care much about her, he worked for long hours. Connie’s behaviors were rebellious, as she would even wish he mother’s own death. It can be noticed the sense of arrogance in her. Her sexuality was pluming, she was living careless, in her own promiscuous world. Her mind

would only be set on attractive boys and she had secretly envied her sister June (Gratz).
These types of behaviors and thoughts attracted the Devil itself.

As the story roles, her family goes out to a Sunday, and as usual she stays home, thinking of boys. In the mist of her thoughts, along came a man, Arnold Friend, in a gold car, attracting young Connie. After all, the only thing set on her mind was a sexual or emotional encounter.
It would be said that Arnold Friend, who means “An Old Fiend” is a demoniac personage. Beside the odd approach, he presents himself with numbers that characterizes him 33, 17, and 19. Symbolically, these numbers when added, give a sum of 69, which represents a “secret sexual code” (White)
At first Connie’s description toward Arnold Friend is pleasurable. She describes him wearing nice jeans, boots and attractive muscles (208). Altogether this twisted story is more related to a religious metaphor. As the story unrolls, she find out who she is dealing with. She realizes that she is dealing with super natural forces (Ubranski), as he says: “Do you know who I am.” She realizes how his voice transforms and how his smiles fades (209). It is a folkloric belief that the Devil comes in disguise, deluding who he wants (White). The Devil himself came for Connie, as he marks her with an X, perhaps already knowing that her soul was his. The devils’ desire to devour Connie is insistent. He calls her his

lover.
Connie threatens to call the police, and does not succeed. With tremendous powers, the devil mentally pressures Connie to come to him. Struggling, she puts all her effort not to surrender. Miserably she leaves with him, like a pig going to a slaughterhouse, to be physically abused by wickedness. Connie’s desire to explore her sexuality, ended up attracting a rapist, who the devil embodied. Sadly many young girls are brutally abused by cold-hearted rapists, who uses terror to ravage the victims (Coulthard).