This paper will compare and contrast the short story written by Joyce Carol Oates, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” and Joyce Chopra’s very popular film, Smooth Talk, which is based upon the short story. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is told from the point of view of a girl with “long dark blond hair that drew anyone’s eye to it” named Connie. Connie was a very pretty fifteen year old girl, which loved to go out with her friends and meet new people. Laura’s, the best friend of Connie, father “drove the girls the three miles to town and left them at a shopping plaza so they could walk through the stores or go to a movie”. It became a lifestyle for Connie which eventually became a problem being that she met a suspicious …show more content…
man named Arnold Friend. The plot of the movie Smooth Talk is almost the same as the short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” but the movie does leave out certain things and also includes unmentioned events that were not in the short story. Smooth talk and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” are very similar to me in many ways. Although I did catch a few things that were different between the two. First, I’ll describe how the short story and the movie are similar. In both the short story and the movie many things were exactly the same if not very similar. One of the similarities I found between the two is that both of them have the same exact characters. Although some names did get changed around it was still the same person with the same personality. Not only are the same characters mentioned in the short story and movie but they all have the same conversations and if not the same very similar. Connie and Laura go to the mall, movies, and drive in restaurant in both the stories. From that we can see that same locations were mentioned in Smooth Talk and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” In both the stories we notice that the relationship between the characters remain the same. Connie and her mother didn’t have a good relationship, Connie and Laura were best friends, Connie’s father kept his distance from the family most of the time, same relationship between June and Connie, and also Connie did not have a very good feeling about the stranger, Arnold Friend. Lastly the stories both included similar details about Arnold Friend’s car. They mentioned the same exact color, dents, and some of the designs on the car. Now, I’ll describe how the two things are different.
In my opinion I think the stories are more alike than different but there were a couple things I did notice. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” included several things that were failed to be mentioned in the movie Smooth Talk. Toward the beginning of the short story it was mentioned that, Connie “spent three hours with him [Eddie], at the restaurant where they ate hamburgers and drank Cokes in wax cups that were always sweating,” which in fact the film did not include. At the point in time when Connie and Arnold Friend were communicating, the short story mentioned that Connie’s “bright green blouse was all wet” although in the movie her blouse shows white. Also the movie leaves out a certain quote on Arnold Friend’s car. The quote being “MAN THE FLYING SAUCERS,” was “and expression kids had used the year before but didn’t use this year”. Now the movie, Smooth Talk, includes some things as well that were not included in the short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Being one the movies introduction is a few scenes that include Connie, Laura, and Jill. The opening scene takes place at a beach with the three friends, then they hitch hike a ride back to the shopping mall. At the shopping mall they spend their time chasing after some boys, then later go watch a movie. A night when Connie and Laura go to a drive in restaurant, Connie meets a boy named Jeff. Jeff offers to take her out to eat and Connie accepts. On the way out of the restaurant, Connie sees a man pointing at her and the man says “I’m watching you”. In the short story this same man pointed at her and said “Gonna get you, baby”. Connie and Jeff, who didn’t notice anything, go on with their night and end it with a kiss. The second night comes around at the drive in restaurant where Connie now meets a boy named Eddie. Eddie asked Connie to go out to eat with him, which in fact Connie accepted. The screen play then lead us to the scene
of Eddie parking his car in a parking garage, then started kissing Connie. As we get more into the movie we see that Connie’s family has been working on painting their house, which was not mentioned in the short story. Lastly the movie adds a scene when Connie returns to her home and family after the ride with Arnold Friend. Aside from all the differences and similarities, personally I much rather prefer the movie Smooth Talk over the short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” I prefer the movie because I like that Joyce Chopra included many more things to the story. The ending is what caught my attention the most because it is unclear which makes me think about it. There could be so many results to what happened during the car ride but Chopra left it to us to decide. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” and Smooth Talk both have their similarities and differences with their own twist, which makes them both wonderful pieces of art.
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
Oates, Joyce C. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been"" N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2014.
The characterization of Connie in the short story, “Where Are You Going? Where have you been?” affects the theme of who is to blame for the kidnapping by portraying Connie as a pretty girl to into herself, a puerile teenager that cannot decide who to be, and a reluctant girl that ignores her mother. This characterization makes Connie seem immature. When Arnold gets to see Connie, the ignorance and immaturity of Connie gives Arnold Friend the perfect opening to abduct Connie.
In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, Oates wants to show a more intellectual and symbolic meaning in this short story. Oates has many symbolic archetypes throughout the short story along with an allegory. Oates uses these elements in her story by the selection of detail and word choice used. Oates does this because she wants to teach her audience a moral lesson.
The overuse of biblical allusions throughout the story helps to expose the naive nature of Connie that reveals her as a victim of evil which shows that lust often transgresses on an individual’s identity. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” Joyce Carol Oates expressed the subjective ideas by symbolizing Arnold Friend as a devil that tempts a clueless teenage girl Connie, who wanted to experience love.
Authors of great stories often use good technical writing skills. The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast two short stories: Where Are you going, Where Have You Been by Joyce Carol Oates and Hills Like White Elephants by Earnest Hemingway. The comparison and contrast will be done based on their use of plot, point of view and character development.
Oates, Joyce Carol. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" Exploring Literature: Writing and Arguing about Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and the Essay. By Frank Madden. 5th ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2012. 436-48. Print.
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.
Reader Response Essay - Joyce Carol Oates's Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
She immediately trusts him because they simply like the same radio station. The young girl has proven throughout the story that she is curious about sex. The reader also learns that she loves attention and Connie initially finds the attention that she is receiving by Friend to be rather flattering and the fact that she thinks he’s an older boy intrigues even more. Her fate though, seems to fit the extremist world in which she inhabits. A habitat where women are viewed by men as objects of beauty for their consumption. Connie later realizes that something is odd about Arnold. She notices that the slogans on his car are outdated. She notices his painted face, his wig, and his boots. Susan Nyikos was another writer that wrote an analysis on Where are you going, where have you been. She suggested that the reason Connie realized this was because he was only a figment of her imagination and that she had never awaken from her nap. Nyikos also noted that another critic stated that Arnold Friend was the devil and that’s what explained the hooves hidden by the boots. What Susan mainly argued was that “Like many of Oates's stories, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is based on real events—the story of a "tabloid psychopath known as 'The Pied Piper of Tucson'" whose specialty was the seduction and occasional murder of teen-aged girls,"
The open ended design of “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” leaves what happens to Connie to the reader’s interpretation but it also brings to question how it could’ve gone for her if she hadn’t been ignorant and self obsessed and whether if she would’ve been kidnapped either way. Everything can be good in moderation, whether it be the blissfulness of ignorance or the confidence that comes with small amounts of narcissism, but without moderation these ideals can be detrimental to what happens to those who go too
Joyce Carol Oates' short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" written in the late sixties, reveals several explanations of its plot. The story revolves around a young girl being seduced, kidnapped, raped and then killed. The story is purposely vague and that may lead to different interpretations. Teenage sex is one way to look at it while drug use or the eerie thought that something supernatural may be happening may be another. The story combines elements of what everyone may have experienced as an adolescent mixed with the unexpected dangers of vanity, drugs, music and trust at an early age. Ultimately, it is up to the reader to choose what the real meaning of this story is. At one point or another one has encountered, either through personal experience or through observation, a teenager who believes that the world is plotting against them. The angst of older siblings, peer pressure set upon them by their friends, the need for individualism, and the false pretense that at fifteen years of age, they are grown are all factors which affect the main character in this story.
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? is about a teenage girl named Connie, that tell us about her life who has no guidance in life, because her family has not provided any moral support to help through her teenage life. She only knows about popular culture and not the consequences that comes with it. Without proper direction to face her problems. There are different types of conflict in this story.
Oates, Joyce Carol. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”. Backpack Literature. An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. X.J. Kennedy & Dana Gioia. 4th ed. New Jersey: Pearson, 2006. (323-336). Print.
One way that, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", is a perculiar story is how at Connies house, Connie tells him again to leave and then she fear strikes her as she grows a little dizzy when Arnold Friend begins to tell Connie where they are and what they are doing at that exact and precise moment. She gets very nervous when he tells her that he knows that they are at the barbeque at their neighbors house. Hearing this information and everything that this man knows, Connie grows extremely horrified, but also very fascinated by his precise description of what was happening. Connie wants to go into the house because Arnold Friend moves closer towards the porch ...