Analysis
“Where are you going, Where have you been?”
The text under analysis is a frequently anthologized short
story “Where are you going,
Where have you been?” written by Joyce Carol Oates. Joyce Carol Oates is an
American novelist, short story writer, playwright, poet, literary critic,
professor and editor. Oates was born in Lockport, New York. Joyce
Carol Oates was born into a working-class family. Joyce Carol
Oates developed a love for writing as a child under influence of such writers
as Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Fyodor Dostoevsky, William Faulkner, Ernest
Hemingway, and Henry David Thoreau. Oates began writing at the age of 14. The
Vanguard Press published Oates' first novel, “With Shuddering Fall” (1964),
when she was 26 years old. Her famous works include the novel “Them”, “Black
Water”, “A Garden of Earthly Delights”, “We Were the Mulvane’s”, “Blonde”, “The
Gravedigger's Daughter” and “The Accursed”.
The story presents a
life of a main character, Connie, a beautiful 15-year-old girl, who lives with her parents and her
sister. She is very pretty, but light-headed girl. She doesn’t reach an
understanding with her family, particularly she has misunderstanding
with her mother, who she thinks old-fashioned, and she is a rival with her
older sister, who is loved and admired by both mother and aunt. Connie spends a
lot of her time with her best friend visiting different cinemas and meeting boys. One evening she captures the attention of a stranger. His name is Arnold
Friend. He tells Connie he is 18 and has come to take her for a ride in his car
with his sidekick Ellie. Connie slowly realizes that he is actually much older, and starts to be afraid. When she
refuses to go with them, Friend starts to threat her, saying that he will harm
her family. The girl at last attempts to save herself and calls the police,
but then feels emotional devastation after the unsuccessful attempt to call the
police and her absolute obedience to Arnold’s will.
The basic theme
of the story, I believe is looking for independence. Every teenager is
dependent on the adults in her life for care and discipline as well as for
enabling her social life. It happens very often that they are annoyed by parent’s
control and care and they start to search for independence. Unfortunately, there
is a happy end not in every case, and the teens get in awful situations, like the
protagonist did. Connie’s search for independence has a brutal outcome.
As for the
setting of the story, it’s difficult to define for sure where the events happen, because the author doesn’t
present the name of the town and time. But of course we can guess that the
story take place somewhere in a suburb of America in 1960s in Connie’s house. Redding
the beginning of the story it’s hard not to notice the places which Connie
visits together with her friends: movie theaters, shopping malls and drive-in
restaurants. It’s not a secret that all these were
popular in 60s. These conditions influence Connie’s lifestyle, the way of
thinking and the behavior in general. The protagonist realizes that life of
adults is not so innocent and sweet as they said.
From the point of view of presentation the text is the 3rd person
narrative, because the author doesn’t take part in the events of the story, he
is just an observer.
Speaking about the characters of the story the author presents two main
characters – Connie and Arnold Friend. There are also some minor
characters, such as Connie’s parents, sister, her best friend and the driver.
The protagonist,
Connie, is 15-year-old girl, who lives with
her parents and her sister. She is very pretty, but light-headed girl: “she
knew she was pretty and that was everything”. Connie thinks
a lot about her appearance and spends a lot of time before the mirror: “she had
a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or
checking other people's faces to make sure her own was all right”. All her thoughts are occupied with boys.
Connie doesn’t reach
an understanding with her family, particularly she has misunderstanding with
her mother, who she thinks old-fashioned, and she is a rival with her older
sister, who is loved and admired by both mother and aunt. Connie spends a lot
of her time with her best friend visiting different cinemas and meeting boys.
The antagonist of the story, Arnold
Friend, is like “a man from another world”. We know just some things about him.
He is about 30, well-dressed fashion man. He has a gold car which no doubt
attracts girl for the first time. But then she realizes that “everything about
him and even about the music that was so familiar to her was only half real”.
Speaking about the plot, it’s worth saying that the
events of this story are very unpredictable. The story starts with the exposition, where the author
presents us the protagonist, Connie, 15-year-old girl, who lives with her
parents and her sister. She is very pretty, but light-headed girl. She doesn’t
reach an understanding with her family and spends her time with her best friend
visiting different cinemas and meeting boys.
The development of the story depicts Connie
gets acquainted with a stranger who calls himself Arnold Friend. He invites
Connie for a little ride and starts threatening her in making some
harm to her family if she refuses.
The climax is when the girl at last attempts to
save herself and calls the police, because it’s the most emotional part of the
story. As for the anticlimax, it’s
when the author describes Connie’s emotional devastation after the unsuccessful
attempt to call the police and her absolute obedience to Arnold’s will.
It’s necessary to
say, that the author manages to present the main idea of the story and the
characters with the help of dialogues between Connie and Arnold, to which the
most part of the story is given. There is no
conclusion here.
It’s worth saying
that this story is mainly narration
with the elements of description.
Reading the story it’s hard not to
notice that it’s written in journalistic
style.
The author uses lots of dialectical words
(toldja, wanta, don'tcha, can'tcha), colloquial (a dope) and low-flown
vocabulary ("Like hell you are." "Like hell I am", “Get the
hell out of here!"). With the help of these words the author underlines
Connie’s age, because it’s typical for a teenager to use such words; also she
shows Arnold Friend as low-educated and ignorant man, because of
his speech.
Speaking about the stylistic devices, the author uses a
similes "...he hadn't shaved for a day or two, and the nose long and
hawk like, sniffing as if she were a treat he was going to gobble up and it was
all a joke..."to show Arnold’s passion toward the girl; "His
eyes were like chips of broken glass that catch the light in an amiable
way." to describe Arnold’s appearance. Also there are different metaphors
“to a single face that was not even a face but an idea, a feeling” to
show Connie’s daydreaming habit; “was, the back yard ran off into
weeds and a fence-like line of trees and behind it the sky was perfectly
blue and still” to describe her emotional state which is shown in a
progress from the first thought of danger to overflowing horror.
It’s necessary to say
that the author creates the story as an allusion to the tradition of Western
European allegory known as Death and the Maiden. Here Arnold Friend is death
personified and Connie is his young, female victim. Arnold Friend, with his
wild black hair and connection to music, is an allusion to Bob Dylan, an
American singer-songwriter, artist and writer.
I
believe that Oates brilliantly uses all expressive means and stylistic devices
to present her characters and to make the reader create an image of their
personalities.
