Since it’s first publication in 1966, Joyce Carol Oates’s short story “Where are You Going? Where Have You Been?” has led various critics to propose a tremendous array of sources for which the story has been based. While some of the more obvious ones, such as the Life article covering the story of murderer and rapist Charles Schmid, were revealed to be a basis by Oates herself, others, such as Thomas Mann’s “Tristan,” Little Red Riding Hood and the Bible, are not. Such influences enabled Oates to convey her edifying messages concerning the music, social behavior and promiscuity of adolescent culture.
The first and most obvious influence is music. Throughout the story, rock n’ roll is described as an unbroken presence in Connie’s life, as well as serving as a fundamental connection between Arnold Friend and her. There have been several speculations regarding the significance of these descriptions, some going so far as to conclude that Ellie Oscar is the incarnation of Elvis Presley (Kapper 2). One of the major influences in Oates’s work is the lyrical content and music of Bob Dylan. One song in particular that specifically swayed her to write “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?,” is Dylan’s “I

Along with such speculations, is the concrete link between “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” and widely reported case of Charles Schmid. Oates transferred several details of the case to her own story, and particularly into the character of Arnold Friend. Like Friend, Schmid was a fully-grown man who made a bizarre attempt to appear as a teenager. Both also had severe cases of instability – while Arnold throws sporadic outbursts at Ellie, Schmid is seen swinging a live cat by its tail and, for no legitimate reason, beating it against a wall. Also, the setting of the occurrences was in Tuscan, Texas, which, much like Connie’s surroundings, promoted a high level of boredom among adolescents. Also, at the end of “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?,” Connie is seen walking into a sunlit land with Arnold Friend, which can be viewed as a reference to the fact that Schmid killed and raped his victims in the desert (Latta 3).

This Wolf theory can be taken further by moving away from the idea that Friend’s motive is to rape and kill Connie, and by believing that he is instead Satan performing his assigned task. To begin with, Friend is omniscient, knowing the whereabouts and actions of Connie, her friends, and her family. He also invokes a conversation concerning the dead woman down the road, suggesting that he is sufficiently informed of the incident. Friend is only an inch or so taller than Connie, and “wobbled in his boots” as he approached her house (Oates 7). Since Friend is also strictly based on the real life rapist and murderer Charles Schmid, who stuffed his boots in an effort to look taller, such a description is usually linked to just that. However as Michael Carlson Kapper points out, “Some have inferred that the reason for his unurefootedness was that his boots were supporting a cloven h