Oates' story, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? is one that has sparked the interest of numerous commentators who have read a multiplicity of views into the plot and characters? Some have seen the story as cautionary tale to teenagers. Others have read Jungian or Freudian archetypes into the story, whilst others have packed it with psychological insight. Certainly, Oates has skillfully used her background, motifs and other elements of fiction (such s point-of-view, foreshadowing, irony, and symbolism) to paint us a tale that shows a multiplicity of meaning. The element of music that winds through the tale is one of them. The following essay develops some of these implications
Most readers see the story serving as cautionary tale to adolescents. Connie is a naive restless teenager at the beginning of the story, typically, as most teens are, preoccupied with her appearance, and feeling frustrated with her life.
In her soporific, sheltered existence, she wishes that she and her mother were dead (she hates the nagging) and attempts to model her friends as much as people.
Connie's life sounds like the life of any contemporary American teenager obsessed with shopping and having a good time. She sounds like a quintessential middle-class American whose father is absorbed in making a business, whose mother is absorbed, possibly in homemaking or making a business too and Connie tries to fit in.
She dreams and chats of boyfriends as all her friends do and as all teems do, reinforced by the books they read, movies and TV programs that they watch, and simply their state of life absorbs herself in innocent sexual fantasies where she meets the perfect idealized stranger who loves her.
Life being mundane and boring, Connie exults in the pathetic rebellion of sneaking across the highway to a drive-in restaurant to meet boys. This again, is normal of most teens.
Connie's life, however, ends up being tragic for her escapades with Eddie make her encounter a molester who has all the trappings of being a rapist.
Up until that moment, Connie was a child of fifteen.
From the moment that she begins to observe Arnold, the man in the gold convertible, more closely and her impressions concretize, the story proceeds in an ominous slow pace, and we become more mature as Connie matures along with us.
At first Connie tries to play him up. This is her flirting adolescent streak. When she realizes that both he and Ellie, his accomplice, are far older than they attempt to be, Connie begins to fear, and her fear transforms her. She realizes that they are deceiving her and her fears intensify when the man provides her with accurate descriptions of what her parents are doing at that moment at the barbeque.
When Arnold pursues her and threatens to harm her family implying (it seems) that he was responsible for the death of a neighbor -- this is the moment when Connie is no longer the teen who wished for her and her mother's death. Rather, she has matured within the space of a few moments and, no longer autonomous or belligerent, relinquishes herself to Arnold's possession. The story itself by telling us that Connie thinks to herself that she will never see her mother again implies that Connie is no longer the thoughtless young teenager that we started the story with. Rather, Connie has matured years ahead of her age and may be possibly walking towards her death. We see that this is so from the final sentence:
"the vast sunlit reaches of the land behind him and on all sides of him -- so much land that Connie had never seen before and did not recognize except to know that she was going to it." (http://www.usfca.edu/jco/whereareyougoing/)
The vast expense of land may represent the infinity of death and that, Connie knows, is her destination.
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Other critics, however, see it as far more than a cautionary tale, reading into it Jungian or Freudian implications or other psychological innuendoes. Those who have supplied it...
Joyce Carol Oates story, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? The writer of this paper explores why society sometimes punishes those who are different using the story as an example. Society has always treated people who are differently with a less welcome attitude than those who are like everybody else. It has held true in almost every life setting from school classrooms, to work environments to social gatherings.
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? The characters in Oates' story are so brilliantly crafted that critics and scholars have had created enormous volume of literature about those characters. Some critics have suggested that Arnold is the devil and that Connie, the protagonist, is the devil's target. And this certainly can be justified by looking closely at the descriptive elements surrounding Oates' narrative descriptions. Thesis: Oates has crafted a
Oates Arnold Friend is a Stalker There are many nebulous aspects to Joyce Carol Oates short story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been," for example, the origins of Connie's troubled relationship with her mother (is it strictly a jealousy thing?), the peculiarity of Arnold Friend's last name (what kind of friend is he?), the relevance of those secret numbers that Arnold Friend rattles off ("33, 19, 17") or even why
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Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? A failure to communicate The heroine of Joyce Carol Oates "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" is a young woman who has only just begun to understand the power of her sexuality. Like so many young girls, fifteen-year-old Connie is simultaneously an adult and a teenager: "Everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere
Where Are You Going this assignment did not pass the instructors critique-her comments below: anthony, Thank sharing group project contributions. Your team a good job discussing text managing responsibilities group tasks group discussion board / group live chat, Suburban tragedy: The character of Connie in Joyce Carol Oates' "Where are you going, where have you been?" In her short story "Where are you going, where have you been?" Joyce Carol Oates describes the fate
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