English
Joyce Carol Oates’ story. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been is dedicated to Bob Dylan and his song “It’s all over now baby blue” and is said to be inspired by the three murders committed by Charles Schmud in Tucson, Arizona, which were featured in an article by Don Moser in Life magazine on March 4, 1966. The title of the story itself is intriguing, hinting at things to come; at the dilemma that Connie is in when Arnold Friend wants to take her away from her familiar surroundings to an unknown place and future, "The place where you came from ain't there anymore," Arnold tells her, "and where you had in mind to go is cancelled out" (333). The main theme of the story is that of control; the lack of it between mother and daughter and how Arnold psychologically imposes control over Connie and ultimately manages to bend her to his will.
The story begins on a casual note describing a typical American teenager, Connie, obsessed with her looks, fascinated with boys. She is vastly different from the rest of her family and her conflict with her mother, who picks on her constantly, “How’ve you got your hair fixed – what the hell stinks?”(321) is apparent. Sometimes she hates her mother and she believes that her mother gets after her because she has lost her own looks. She also believes her mother is simple enough to be fooled; so Connie at home and outside is two completely different people. Her looks, walk, talk and laugh are all geared to catch the attention of the boys when she is outside and her parents are totally unaware of it or of her escapades at the restaurant across the highway and at the plaza. She even thinks “It was maybe cruel to fool her so much” (323). Connie’s search for independence is revealed in various aspects of her behavior at the beginning of the story. She is fifteen but unhappy at home. She does not want to be like her sensible, stable sister. She needs adventure and romance in her life and therefore she does not reveal the actuality of her actions when she is out of the house. That is also the reason why she refuses to go to the barbeque with the rest of the family.
The conflict in the story makes an appearance when Connie sees a stranger with “shaggy black hair” (323). Although she feels vaguely threatened by him “Gonna get you, baby” he says (323); she cannot help look back at him. She forgets all about him until he arrives with a friend at her driveway when her family is away and she is at home alone on a Sunday. Her initial reaction is to check if her hair is alright. Wrapped up in the idea of romance as projected by the popular songs she listens to on the radio, she is at this point both amused and intrigued by this creepy looking guy in a gold convertible jalopy with inscriptions on it, who introduces himself as Arnold Friend. He tells her he is eighteen and has come with his friend to take her for a ride. But she soon realizes that he is not what he seems and is actually far older, possibly thirty. His car has outdated phrases inscribed on it; he himself uses terms that are not used by her peers any more. His calm voice has a threatening quality and his gentle coaxing an ominous ring to it. “I’m always nice at first, the first time” (330). He is not only much older than he claims, “His whole face [is] a mask” (330). When Connie tries to hide inside Arnold says “Anybody can break through a screen door and glass and wood and iron or anything else if he needs to” (331). The hidden threat convinces Connie that she has a lot to fear.
When Connie understands that Arnold is a threat she asks him to leave but he promises to harm her family if she doesn’t comply with his demand, “Give me your hand and nobody else gets hurt” (332). She races to the phone to call the police, but paralyzed with fear she cannot go through with it, instead she screams in terror. When she stops she feels hollow, as if “All that screaming had blasted it [fear] out of her” (333) and Arnold’s control over her is complete. And the narrator says “She watched herself push the door slowly open as if she were safe back somewhere in the other doorway, watching this body and this head of long hair moving out into the sunlight where Arnold Friend waited” (334).
A recurrent theme in this short story is that of reality versus fantasy. Connie lives in an imaginary world where romance is the primary motivator. She dresses and behaves like an attractive woman and even experiments with sex in the alley with her peers. But she is not really ready for the brutality of the adult world and this is evident when Arnold tells her in graphic detail what he would like to do to her. “People don’t talk like that, you’re crazy?” she says (330). Her beautiful, imaginary world is shattered and she is forcibly pushed into a reality she finds hard to accept. Where Arnold is concerned, “His physical appearance makes him seem both human and less than human, and Oates never makes explicit whether he is reality or fantasy” (SparkNotes Editors).Many critics have likened Arnold to the Devil, and raised a question about his actual existence. Is he a figment of Connie’s imagination? “She had the idea that he had driven up the driveway all right but had come from nowhere before that and belonged nowhere” (329). His booted feet are often looked upon as the clubbed foot of the Devil. And at the end when she finally leaves her house there seems to be an element of fantasy because she seems to watch herself open the door and leave, and all she can perceive is the “vast reaches of the land behind him and all sides of him” (334).
Joyce Carol Oates has written a marvelous story that even after its end leaves the reader guessing. Is there a chance that Connie will not be harmed or ultimately murdered? Is her fear as much her imagination as the romance that had occupied her world previously? Or is it the author’s way of telling her readers to beware of the unknown? “It’s a beautifully written story, where the tension slowly builds, very creepy and distressing in its subtleties—surreal and dark, rooted in the real world, with hints of something supernatural at hand” (Richard Thomas).
Works Cited
Oates. Joyce Carol. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? A Collection of Short Fiction Pages 321 - 334
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
Plot Analysis."Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
http://www.shmoop.com/where-you-going-where-you-been/plot-analysis.html
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2007. Web. 6 May 2016
http://www.sparknotes.com/short-stories/where-are-you-going-where-have-you-been/themes.html
Thomas Richard. Storyville: Dissecting ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? November 25, 2013 Retrieved May 15, 2016
https://litreactor.com/columns/storyville-dissecting-where-are-you-going-where-have-you-been-by-joyce-carol-oates
McManus, Dermot. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been – Joyce Carol Oates."
The Sitting Bee. The Sitting Bee, 22 Jul. 2014. Retrieved May 15, 2016
http://sittingbee.com/where-are-you-going-where-have-you-been-joyce-carol-oates/
