"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"

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"I mean, anybody can break through a screen door and glass and wood and iron or anything else if he needs to, anybody at all, and specially Arnold Friend.” (Where Are you Going, Where Have You Been, Joyce Carol Oates, pg. 8) Oates manages to make the story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” a true horror, because it is relatable. The story leads us through the life of Connie until she encounters Arnold Friend and Ellie Oscar, who pressures Connie into leave her home and leaving thus leading to her murder. Throughout the story we have three main characters: Connie, Arnold Friend, and Ellie Oscar. We relate to Connie, we know people like Arnold Friend exist, and we could be Ellie Oscar.
We know Arnold Friend, not personally, but we know his character. Arnold Friend stalked Connie throughout the story convinced that she was his lover; he used threats and smooth talk to coerce Connie to leaving her house and into Arnold friend, Ellie Oscar’s, car. Arnold Friend is like many serial killers our society has encountered the past century including Charles Schmid, Ted Bundy, and Charles Manson by how they target their victims, their charisma, and their influence over others. Charles Schmid is the serial killer that influenced Oates to write “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” he had killed three teenaged girls while dressing up to resemble Elvis Presley (“Serial: It’s Not Just For Breakfast”, Schumaier, 2002.) Arnold Friend resembles Elvis to with his black wig and sunglasses. Ted Bundy was a serial killer, rapist, necrophile, and kidnapper whom targeted young women. Bundy found his victims at a public place, such as a park, he would then use his charm to convince them leave the safety of the public area to a more secluded...

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...me as Elizabeth Smart, Anne Sluti, and Jaycee Dugard show.
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates is a great Southern gothic because of how we, the audience, can relate to the main characters. We know people like Arnold Friend from the newspaper clippings and books about notorious serial killers like Charles Schmid, Ted Bundy, and Charles Manson. We could be an accomplice like Ellie Oscar as Milgram’s experiment, the Stanford Prison Experiment, and Susan Atkins shows us. Finally, we are Connie. Connie is a normal person, living a normal life, until it is ended by a cruel kidnapper which we know could be reality from the kidnapping stories of Elizabeth Smart, Anne Sluti, and Jaycee Dugard. Oates story is scary because it has the ability to be true and we, the audience, can identify with each character Arnold Friend, Ellie Oscar, and Connie.

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