Reader Response Essay - Joyce Carol Oates's Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
As I began reading “Where are you going, where have you been?” by Joyce Carol Oates I found myself relating the experiences of Connie, the girl in the story, to my own personal experiences. She spoke of going to a friend’s house and having her friend’s father drive them to the shopping mall so that they could walk around and socialize or go see a movie. I found that this related very closely with my own experiences of being fifteen years old because it was always someone else’s parents driving my friends and I to the movies or to the mall.
However, as I continued to read the story I began to wonder if maybe Connie’s life was not in any way parallel to my own. I have a younger sister where she has an older sister, but that is where the similarities end. Her mother is always telling her that she should be more like June, her older sister. It seemed to me that June living with her parents at her age was unusual, but the fact that she seemed to enjoy this and was always doing things to h...
Oates, Joyce C. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been"" N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2014.
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.
stuffed boots; these features led her to believe he was not a teenager, but in
The Theme of Temptation in “Where Are You Going , Where Are you Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates
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.
Connie is only concerned about her physical appearance. She can be described as being narcissistic because "she had a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirror or checking other people's faces to make sure her own was all right" (Oates 148). Connie wants her life to be different from everyone else's in her family. She thinks because she is prettier, she is entitled to much more. She wants to live the "perfect life" in which she finds the right boy, marries him, and lives happily ever after. This expectation is nothing less than impossible because she has not experienced love or anything like it. She has only been subjected to a fantasy world where everything is seemingly perfect. This is illustrated in the story when Connie is thinking about her previous encounters with boys: "Connie sat with her eyes closed in the sun, dreaming and dazed with the warmth about her as if this were a kind of love, the caresses of love, and her mind slipped over onto thoughts of the boy she had been with the night before and how nice he had been, how gentle, the way it was in movies and promised in songs" (151).
In her famous short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” Joyce Carol Oates shows the transition from childhood to adulthood through her character Connie. Each person experiences this transition in their own way and time. For some it is leaving home for the first time to go to college, for others it might be having to step up to a leadership position. No matter what, this transition affects everyone; it just happens to everyone differently. Oates describes Connie's unfortunate coming of age in a much more violent and unexpected way than the typical coming of age story for a fifteen year old girl.
Oates, Carol Joyce. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?." Kirszner and Mandell. 505-516. Compact Literature. Boston: Wadsworth,2013,2012,2007. Print.
During the teenage years they no longer want to be labeled the “child; matter of fact, they have a strong desire to rebel against the family norms and move quickly into adulthood. This transition and want for freedom can be a very powerful and frightening thing as there are evils in this world that cannot be explained. Most parents try to understand and give their teens certain freedoms, but at what expense? Joyce Oates gives us a chilly story about a teenager that wanted and craved this freedom of adulthood called “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”. This is a haunting story of a young girl by the name of Connie who gives us a glimpse of teenager transitioning from childhood with the need for freedom and the consequences of her actions. Connie is described as a very attractive girl who did not like her role in the family unit. She was the daughter who could not compare to her older sister and she felt her Mom showed favoritism towards her sister. Connie is your average teen who loves music, going out with friends, and she likes the attention she receives from boys. During this time, Connie is also growing into her sexuality and is obsessing with her looks as she wants and likes to be noticed by the opposite sex. Her sexual persona and need to be free will be what is fatal to her character’s life and well-being.
Zung, W. W. K., (1965). A self-rating depression scale. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry. 12:63-70.[Duke Univ. Med. Ctr., Dept. Psychiatry, Durham, NC]
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.
The validity of psychometric tests is determined within the range of construct validity meaning whether a test is measuring a construct it is supposed to be measuring. Accordingly, Schotte et al (1997) presents a study with 338 patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder according to the DSM-III. The paper determined 2- and 3-factorial structures of BDI. The two –factorial structure could be summerised as one factor representing cognitive/psychological dimension and a second factor elaborating on somatic/vegetative aspect. Consequently a three factorial structure emerges where the factors are respectively ‘Anhedonia/Inhibition’ which measures mood, somatic inhibition, etc; the second factor being ‘Negative self concept’-pessimism, self-perception, etc. and the last factor- Somatic complaints. The second factorial model of BDI is in strong correspondence with a research by Steer et al. (1987a) who also indentified 3 factorial components of the instrument. Affective and performing difficulties, self-denigration and physiological disturbances present the structure presented in this study. The data which is the experiment based is drawn from 300 outpatients diagnosed with Major depressive disorder – a similar sample to the afore presented
Full of suspense, personality and adventure, Monkey by Wu Ch’eng-En is considered to be one of the most influential works of Chinese literature in history. The 16th century novel follows the demanding journey of a small group of travellers — including the carefree, trickster character Monkey — from Chang'an to India on a quest to acquire ancient scriptures. By reading Monkey, one can acquire knowledge about several important aspects of ancient Chinese culture, the most prominent being the path to nirvana, an idea present in Buddhism— known not only for being China’s oldest religion, but for being one of the most widely followed religions in modern China as well.
The variables used was a 1 Qualitative IV (Therapy), with 2 levels (yes/no), and a Quantitative DV (behavioral measures score). This particular test was done to analyze these variables because they are paired, and the patients used before, during, and after treatment were the same patients. The numerical results of the test for violent behavior was t(29)=3.69, p >0.001 we reject the null hypothesis. The numerical results of the test for drugs used was t(29)= 5.05, p>0.001 we reject the null hypothesis. The numerical results of the test for medical visits was t(29)= 6.16, p>0.001 we reject the null hypothesis. The numerical results of the test for self-harm was t(29)= 3.82, p>0.001 we reject the null hypothesis. The numerical results of the test for time away from work was t(29)= 4.90, p>0.001 we reject the null hypothesis. The numerical results of the test for hospital admissions was t(29)= 3.03, p>0.001 we reject the null hypothesis. The numerical results of the test for time as an inpatient was t(29)= 2.73, p>0.001 we reject the null hypothesis. The numerical results of the test for Index score was t(29)= 5.68, p>0.001 we reject the null hypothesis. The numerical results of the test for DSM-III score was t(29)= 7.48, p>0.001 we reject the null hypothesis. Yes, it was significant because the test statistic is larger than the t critical value, and in this study we reject the null for all measures, p>0.001. The
Throughout each revision, the DSM faced challenges by the professional community in reference to nomenclature, scientific developments, lack of specific definitions, inconsistencies, and finally, with the need for empirical foundations of criteria in the DSM IV (American Psychiatric Association, 2015). These issues lead to the twelve-year compilation of the DSM V in 2013. Before the release of this manual, the group in charge of the mechanics of the manual requested input from the professional community of practitioners from around the world, which lead to a great deal of peer experience and knowledge. However, the selection and choices determined by the group of what information was applied and not applied, has drastically changed the manual in multiple