Reed Player Ms. Poarch English 12 16 November 2017 Arnold Friend Is Definitely A Friend As life continues throughout a world of uncertainty, many believe that a messiah or christ figure is needed to uphold a life of purity. Those in need of saving obtain a sense of mentality in which they would never stare into the eyes of grief. Connie, a girl concerned with genuine beauty, endures a lifelong hardship of worries until eventually a “Friend” comes to release her of her deprivation. Through plot, characterization, and setting, in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?, Joyce Carol Oates successfully achieves making Arnold Friend a savior for Connie. Oates uses plot to build up to Arnold Friend’s unexpected arrival. In the short story, “It was a boy with shaggy black hair, convertible jalopy painted gold [...] without Eddie noticing anything” (Oates 1). Connie is walking with Eddie to his car when she sees Arnold. Arnold made his sign, the x, the first letter of the greek word for Christ. Coincidence? One would think not. Others agree in this sense. From a critic who has the same views, “And if Arnold Friend is not satanic [...] golden ‘machine’” (Tierce and Crafton 2). When Connie notices Arnold pulling up to her house in her jalopy, she whispers “Christ, Christ,” watching him pull up and fixing her hair. But she could …show more content…
"Connie's Tambourine Man: A New Reading Of Arnold Friend." Studies In Short Fiction 22.2 (1985): 219. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 26 Oct. 2017. Kozikowski, Stan. "The Wishes and Dreams Our Hearts Make in Oates's 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?'." Short Story Criticism, edited by Joseph Palmisano, vol. 70, Gale, 2004. Literature Resource Center, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GLS&sw=w&u=avl_madi&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CH1420056819&asid=22c8b2317a25bc24bae39d92a1b7b8ed. Accessed 30 Oct. 2017. Originally published in Journal of the Short Story in English, no. 33, Autumn 1999, pp.
Oates uses a great number of symbols in her short story "Where are you going? Where have you been? to create an aura of unease and Devilishness. Her principal symbols are Arnold Friend, his disguise, and the music Connie listens to. Oates' use of symbolism and Biblical allusions to Satan force the reader to raise an eyebrow to the character of Arnold Friend and the doomed future of 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.
Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” focuses on two main characters, Connie and Arnold Friend. The two characters have extreme conflict throughout the short story and in the end only one wins. The literary device of characterization in the story helps to clarify the Greek and Biblical reasons for one character’s win and the other’s lose.
Arnold Friend imposes a devilish and menacing pressure upon Connie, who ultimate gives in, like a maiden entranced by a vampire's gaze. His appearance, sayings, and doing all combine to form a terrifying character that seems both reasonable and unlikely at the same time. There are people like Arnold Friend out there, not as incoherently assembled, and still he seems an extraordinary case of stalker. A small and even insignificant aside about his name, Arnold Friend, is that with the R's his name would read A'nold F'iend, or "An Old Fiend" i.e. the devil. But, regardless, Arnold Friend is very precisely portrayed as a corrupter of youths and a deflowerer of virgins. Without his useless sweet-nothings or his strange balance problem, he would come across less dangerous and alluring.
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...
Tierce, Mike, and John Michael Crafton. "Connie's Tambourine Man: A New Reading Of Arnold Friend." Studies In Short Fiction 22.2 (1985): 219. Academic Search Complete. Web. 19 Feb. 2014.
Gale Kozikowski, Stan. " The Wishes and Dreams Our Hearts Make in Oates's 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?'. " Journal of the Short Story in English. 33 (Autumn 1999): 89-103.
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.
* Tierce, Mike and John Michael Crafton. "Connie's Tambourine Man: A New Reading of Arnold Friend. Literature: Thinking, Reading, and Writing Critically. 2nd ed. Eds. Sylvan Barnet, et al. New York: Longman 1997.
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.
The Eternal Present in Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, Michele D. Theriot, Journal of Short Story in English, 48, (Spring 2007): 59-70. Academic Search Complete. Web. 2 November 2013.
Reader Response Essay - Joyce Carol Oates's Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
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.
Tierce, Mike, and John Michael Crafton. "Connie's Tambourine Man: A New Reading Of Arnold Friend." Studies In Short Fiction 22.2 (1985): 219. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 Mar. 2014.
Oates’ use of the way Arnold looks and acts so similar to the devil, her use of the words on the car meaning something foreign and her subtle symbolism with Connie’s attire make the story’s theme of evil and manipulation stand out so much more. Connie’s clothing symbolizing