It’s Only a Dream
In the short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” the author Joyce Carol Oates, tells a breathtaking story about a teenage girl named Connie. Connie is faced with an earth-shattering situation with a stranger who is known as Arnold Friend throughout the story. To the reader of the story, Connie could be seen as hopeless and self-absorbed, who is looking for someone to accept her. She uses her beauty to make herself feel mature and get the boys attention. However, when Connie ran into Arnold, her beauty only made her look like an easy target. Throughout the story, the character’s reactions made it clear to the reader Connie’s earth-shattering experience was only part of a dream. The dream in the short story,
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When Connie first saw Arnold, he was in his convertible at the restaurant her and her friends were at. Connie did not intend on running into Arnold; however, whoever plans on running into someone. In the short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” the author Joyce Carol Oates states, “and his face was a familiar face, somehow…” (204). Evidence from this quote makes it clear to the person reading the story that something about Arnold was familiar to Connie, but she could not tell how or what it was. It is said that, in a dream, it is something a person had been doing during the day, or it could be something they have been thinking about that day also. However, the mind is a powerful thing, it can take people places they never thought they would be in their …show more content…
Majority of the time dreaming can cause people to find themselves in strange places they have never been before. For example, this could be cause by sleeping walking or just simply moving around in their sleep. The author Joyce Carol Oates wrote a line stating, “The kitchen looked like a place she had never seen before, some room, she had run inside, but which wasn’t good enough wasn’t going to help her,” (202). With this being said, this is more of an indication that Connie was dreaming. It is shown in the story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, Connie is not able to make out her own home and cannot tell where she is at. At the end of the story the author, Joyce Carol Oates, states, “So much land that Connie had never seen before and did not recognize except to know that she was going to it” even though the reader knows she is outside her house (210). Connie is not able to recognize that, because she is dreaming; however, she is in her own
In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates, Connie is a normal teenage girl who is approached outside her home by a guy named Arnold Friend who threatens to harm her, and she obeys, if she does not get in the car with him. Connie is the main character in this story who teaches us that sometimes we might search for adult independence too early before we are actually ready to be independent and on our own. Connie is so focused on her appearance that she works hard to create a mature and attractive adult persona that will get her attention from guys. This search for independence conflicts with Connie’s relationship with her family and their protection of her. Connie’s insecurity and low self-esteem is triggered by her fear of intimacy. Connie confuses having the attention of men with actually having them pursue her in a sexual way.
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is a short story that is about a fifteen year old pretty teenager named Connie, who does not get along with her mother and is irritated by her sister. Her sister can do no wrong in her mother's eyes while she is constantly getting criticized. Connie enjoys listening to music, watching movies, and spends a lot of time going out with her best friend and meeting boys. Until one day, a creepy guy, she had seen out one night shows up in her driveway when her family is out. He introduces himself as Arnold Friend and insists that Connie go for a ride with him and threatens to harm her family if she doesn't. In the story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates portrays Arnold Friend as a rapist; he creates the climax of the story in which Connie is taken from her home and family, by him through violent means.
He’s coming to get me” (8). In her vulnerability, Connie even seeks her parents despite previous efforts to distance herself, revealing her childish nature. This demonstrates a loss of innocence and a desire to return to the safety of childhood, as Connie realizes the danger of Arnold Friend. Despite her efforts, Connie is not ready for adulthood. In her pursuit of independence, Connie becomes entangled with a dangerously mature situation she is unprepared to handle. This parallels the loss of innocence many adolescents suffer as they venture into adulthood: many teens quickly lose their idealized vision of adulthood as they realize the challenges of adulthood. Connie’s confrontation with Arnold Friend is a metaphor for the loss of innocence all teens are confronted with as they seek maturity. Although the story encompasses a teenage girl's dangerous romantic rendezvous, it is more of an encounter with the expectations and reality of adulthood, through Connie's infatuation and later fear of Friend. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" is a metaphor for the loss of innocence teenagers face, as their idealized perception of adulthood
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.
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.
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...
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.
Coming-of-age stories commonly record the transitions—sometimes abrupt, or even violent—from youth to maturity, from innocence to experience of its protagonist, whether male or female. Greasy Lake by T.Coraghessan Boyle and Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates are great examples of traditional coming-of-age stories. The roots of the coming-of-age narrative theme are tracked in the male protagonist’s perspective for Boyle’s short story, while the Oates’ story captures the coming-of-age theme from Connie; a female protagonist’s perspective. In both short stories, the authors fulfill the expectations of a coming-of-age genre when they take us through the journey of rebellion and self realization, as the
Ignorance and vanity can be good, in small amounts, but too much can lead to very unwelcome consequences. Connie, a teenage girl who can’t get enough of herself, learned this the hard way when a strange man by the name of Arnold Friend arrives at her house with the intent of taking her on a ‘date’. Instead of calling the police or locking herself in, like common sense would imagine, Connie uneasily greets Arnold from her door when he gets out of his car, instantly letting her vanity and ignorance get the best of her. Joyce Carol Oates shocks the reader with the twist ending in her short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” in which after hearing Arnold’s threat towards her family, Connie hands herself over to Arnold allowing him
Connie sits outside enjoying the sunny day and listening to music. We learn that music is her major weakness, it disconnects Connie from the real world, making her daydream and think of guys, in this case the author tells that she was thinking of everything she did with Eddie the night before and of how nice and gentle he was.
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.
Stories have an opportunity to leave the reader with many different impressions. When you look a different characters within the stories the ones that leave the greatest impressions are the ones that tend to scare us. The figures in Bob Dylar’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have you been?”, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”, and Stephen King’s “The Man in the Black Suite” all instill a bit of fear in the reader. They are symbols that represent the devil or devil like attributes in people and the uncertainties of human nature.
Dreams are extremely realistic imagery or memories depicted by the brain to seem like reality while you sleep, or in some cases, while you are awake. In the story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, the author uses Connie’s experiences, foreshadowing, and Arnold Friend’s character to reveal that the short story could all be a simple trashy daydream.
In Joyce Carol Oates’, “ Where are You going Where have you been,” it was a sunday morning when Arnold continues another one of his daily routines. The main girl, Connie, is a self-centered and shy girl, whose mother is always puts her in the background and makes her feel excluded. For instance, her mother says rude comments like “you think your so pretty” and “you don't see your sister using that junk” (1). Then a guy came into her life. “Where are You Going Where Have You been illustrates a man who uses charms and good looks to get young or middle aged women to satisfy himself, but with this one girl he has some trouble along the way.
the lack of knowing her true self lets Arnold Friend overpower her in the end. The words and letters on Arnold’s car symbolize warnings that Connie should have picked up on. Because Arnold symbolizes the devil, the evil inside of him gives him advantages to manipulate Connie into leaving her house, despite everything inside of Connie screaming at her not to go. The symbolisms in these objects or people are all deeply rooted to the theme of this short story, “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?”.