Where are you going, where have you been is the most gripping short story that I have ever read so far. This story has sealed my interest in Oates and was very much a page turner. The short story follows a teenage adolescent girl name Connie; she is presented as a typical teenage girl finding herself. Connie is very confident; she spends time looking at herself in the mirror and aware of her beauty. She is portrayed as caring for herself more than her family. By the end of the story there’s growth within Connie by the act of self sacrifice for her family. Her mother who’s described as having faded beauty was always after her, a frumpy boring sister and a disconnected father. Connie spends her time hanging out with her friends, boys and listening He’s been stalking her, which was evident by the facts that he knew where she lived, he knew all her friends’ names and where her family was. He clearly had ulterior motives and this became evident to Connie after talking with him for a bit. As Connie came to the realization that this man was not going to leave her alone, the fear set in. I felt terrified for Connie, in that very moment as she stood in her kitchen behind the screen door. He threatened her that if she calls the police he will have to come in. Also that he will wait until her family comes home and they will all get it. Regardless of his threats she gained the courage to call for help but she was over come by the fear inside her and was not able to carry out the call. It was at that very moment she thought “I am not going to see my mother again, I’m not going to sleep in my bed again” (Oates 265). Arnold Friend kept taunting her through the screen doors; that she doesn’t want her family to get hurt. Connie’s action at that moment to me was an act of self sacrifice to save her family. She walked out of her house and towards Arnold Friend. Before she left the house she was thinking that she must know what to do. The act of her attempting to call for help shows that she has the strength in her to stand up to this psychopath and I hope for Connie’s sake she
I think in some strange way Arnold becomes to Connie the way to escape into her fantasy. When she learns his true intentions she is scared to death at first but eventually that fear gives way to "an emptiness." Connie thinks, "I'm not going to see my mother again... I'm not going to sleep in my bed again.
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.
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.
... come across a police officer following them, Marion continues to do the opposite of normal in her frazzled state. Much like how Marion’s paranoia develops once she is in her car, Norman’s paranoia intensifies and becomes much more evident within his first, and continuous encounters with people. In meeting his first, and only, customer for the night, Norman becomes edgy and nervous and constantly tries to engage Marion in conversation. Knowing fully well that his mother would disapprove of such interactions, Norman becomes protective, obsessive and deranged at the mention of his sick mother. Norman’s sickness combined with his obvious paranoia of people coming around him and his “mother” only leads to him committing several murders all being blamed on his mother. This sickness that each character suffers from can only leads to a greater downfall; obvious insanity.
Joyce Carol Oates begins the story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been by addressing Connie’s “habit of craning her neck to glace into mirrors or checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was all right” (316). This is interesting because when Connie’s personified death, Arnold Friend, arrives honking at her driveway, her very first instinct is to check and see how her looks. This later plays a role when Friend asks if she would like to go for a drive in his topless car where her hair will be blown around. To Connie, “gawking” (316) herself, was a form of making herself feel high and beautiful but she had two sides of doing everything, “one way when she was at home and another way when she was away from home,” (317). Linda Wagner
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 a short story written by Joyce Carol Oates. The 75 year old American author and professor at Princeton University, introduce the story of 15 year old Connie who is rebelling against her mother’s whishes. A very arrogant and selfish girl that in her world the only thing that matters is how many heads she can turn when walking into a room. Through the story life gives her a test, to confront Arnold Friend, the antagonist of the story; who possesses a nefarious power beyond her own experience.
The film Psycho, details the story of a woman by the name of Marion Crane, as played by Janet Leigh. The film starts of a with a bedroom scene where Marion starts to discuss her future with her lover Sam. After her brief encounter with Sam, she returns to her work where she comes into contact with $40,000 in cash. With possession of such a large sum of money, Marion runs off with the money; it's implied that she wishes to run away with Sam and the money so they can start fresh. While on the road, she stops at a motel which becomes the scene of her murder and also the scene that will be explored in greater deal. However, after running away with the money, private investigators are hired to track her down to avoid having to involve police. The investigators find her far too late and find and arrest a psychotic man who lives as the memory of his controlling mother.
...f the bad that is going on in her real life, so she would have a happy place to live. With the collapse of her happy place her defense was gone and she had no protection from her insanity anymore. This caused all of her blocked out thoughts to swarm her mind and turn her completely insane. When the doctor found her, he tried to go in and help her. When the doctor finally got in he fainted because he had made so many positive changes with her and was utterly distressed when he found out that it was all for naught. This woman had made a safety net within her mind so that she would not have to deal with the reality of being in an insane asylum, but in the end everything failed and it seems that what she had been protecting herself from finally conquered her. She was then forced to succumb to her breakdown and realize that she was in the insane asylum for the long run.
Oates, Joyce Carol. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Backpack Literature. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2010. Print.
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.
Have you ever been so focused on achieving your dreams that you become unaware of your current situation? When we focus on the goals ahead of us, we fail to see the obstacles and dangers that are in front of us. In order to achieve our goals we involuntarily put ourselves in an unwanted situation. Connie, herself, struggles to achieve her goal of being a desirable girl that turns heads when she walks into the room. She becomes so set on being this girl that she doesn’t realize the danger of the situation. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Oates utilizes metaphors, diction, and imagery to show how Connie is in a constant tug between her reality and her dreams, and how this confines her freedoms in a world that is surrounded with malevolence.
Connie’s clothes and infatuation with her own beauty symbolize her lack of maturity or knowing her true self, which in the end enables her to be manipulated by Arnold Friend. Connie was enamored with her own beauty; in the beginning of the story Oates states that Connie “knew
...ddenly loses consciousness. The narrator exclaims, “ [She has] to creep over him every time!” This very line shows how irrational the woman is as a result of her mental and physical quarantine in the vast, yellow room.
Bates Motel, a television show based off of the original movie Psycho, follows the events of a serial killer in his childhood and his inevitable path to the infamous satanic creation of Norman Bates. This prequel offers something very different in the world of television, developing an awkward relationship between a mother and her son. However, the actions portrayed by Norma and Norman Bates, played by Freddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga, develop into a deeper meaning of motherhood and the impossible expectations placed upon it. The small town in which they live judge them for their unsociable ways and place burdens upon their way of life, ultimately forming their outcast from society and Norma’s ignorance of properly caring for Norman. Within