... Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Joyce Carol Oates is no doubt one of the greatest authors of her time it is obvious that her writings endure even today. Upon reading her biography and descriptions of her works it is inferred that Oates is a bit strange in the way she chooses to ... literature even today. Perhaps, one of her most notable works is the short story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? "The material for Oates's writing comes from everywhere [and] her characters are admittedly composites of real people" (3: 120) this statement could not be more true when you con...

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... plot devices to select and order the events that constitute a story's plot so that what is told is brought into focus (Meyer 64). In Joyce Carol Oates' story The Night Nurse', the author does a magnificent job incorporating many, if not all, of the plot devices described in Meyer. From ... relationships with other parts of the story and then uses flashback of earlier events to supply the exposition of the plot (Britannica 2002). Oates moves the story through her character's struggle of her medical emergency and has her pondering her life and the possibility of dying alone in ... fear, t...

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Joyce Carol Oates is noted for her ability to create stories with terror and also known for the descriptive violence in her portrayals of America life. Oates wrote in many types of forms, but most of her books have strong elements of naturalism, a literary style emphasizing an objective ... presentation of life. Gothic elements, emphasizing the mysterious and horrifying aspects of life, also appear frequently in Oates's writing. For example, violence, often male and sexual, consistently plays an important role in the lives of her characters (Creighton 26). In story "Where Are ... the one he h...

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Joyce Carol Oates's "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" takes place in the early 1960's and tells the tale of fifteen year old Connie who is stalked ... as she pleases. She is unsophisticated and does not clearly understand how treacherous the real world can be for a naive young person. The depth of her innocence becomes clear when Oates' writes, "but sometimes they went across the highway, ducking fast across the busy road, to a drive-in restaurant where older kids hung out." Connie's wants to feel ... values in life are not real but rather make-believe... She represents a typical te...

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Joyce Carol Oates" "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" tells us about the life of Connie who has no guidance in life, because her family has not provided any moral support to help through her teenage life. She only knows about popular culture and not the consequences that comes with it. With...

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... set in Russia in the early part of the century and Joyce Carol Oates" "The Lady with the Pet Dog" told from Anna's point of view in the 1970's in Nantucket. Matthew Brennan, a literary critic, distinguishes between Chekhov's conventional, sequential plot and Oates" circular plot, and identifies the third person point of view ... that's used in both versions. These different literary techniques demonstrate the change from the male protagonist (Chekhov) to the female protagonist (Oates) and affect the development of the conflict in the two stories. The contrasting male and female points o...

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... not of a chance meeting-turn-date rape, but instead, a dream sequence induced by popular culture, transformed into a self-actualizing nightmare. In his article "Joyce Carol Oates's Where are you going, Where have you been as pure realism-, Coulthard argues that Oates's story is strictly, a written representation of a victim of the real-life murderer, Charles Schmid. He claims that the characters are not "personifications of ... perfectly matches the description of Alleen Rowe, Schmid's first victim. However this view seems flawed given the inconsistencies that exist in the story's realis...

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... there is a clear interpretation of evil in Arnold Friend's portrayal of a demon who tries to lure Connie into his world of sex and emotion. Joyce Carol Oates seems to create scenarios of real life and center them into her story. The harsh reality she includes in this story is that there actually are ... even have a sexual connotation that Connie does not pick up on because she is so young and blind to the world of sin that Arnold lives in. Oates chooses her words carefully to show that Arnold is a devious yet recognizable snake. For example, the narratorsays: "And his face was a familiar...

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... voice that allowed the reader to imagine Connie in a child-like manner. She had thin wrists which she would always wear jingling charm bracelets. Joyce Carol Oates overall described Connie as a pretty, young girl. Most teenage girls have two different sides concerning their social life; the side they show to their ... wanted to make it clear that she was not one of "those" girls. "She always drew thick clear lines between herself and such girls- (Oates, 18). The actions concerning Connie's social life were clearly not abnormal for a girl of her age. The emotions that Connie experienced b...

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... People assume that when put in a situation where rape would be a possibility they would be able to fight their attacker away or somehow escape. As in Joyce Carol Oates" short story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? The truth is that in many instances of rape, the victim can not resist. In ... Oates" story a young, naive girl (Connie) is confronted by a man (Arnold Friend) who intends and succeeds to take her away from her home and rape her. The ... complaints and look right through her mother, into a shadowy vision of herself as she was right at that moment: she knew she was pr...

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... those childish things aside. You also hear the question, "Who are you?" in a sense that the Connie has yet to deveop your own personality. Joyce Carol Oates tells "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" from a 3nd point of view. This allows the readers to hear and see what Connie is ... feeling. As Connie develops throughout the story we can see and feel what she is going through. Oates" "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" is very descriptive and reads like a movie in one's mind. Every event, every sound, ... example, when Connie meets up with Arnold Friend, we are given a ...

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... use the following short stories: "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner, "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" by Katherine Ann Porter and "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" by Joyce Carol Oates and discuss the characterization of three women found in those works. In "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner, the main character is Emily Grierson a product of a by gone era, who ... through those tough times until "she stretched herself with a deep breath and blew out the light." In the third short story, "Where are you going, where have you been" by Joyce Carol Oates, we are characteri...

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In "Where are You Going, Where Have You Been?" Joyce Carol Oates uses symbols of evil to illustrate the theme of temptation. Oates refers casually to hell through the character Arnold Friend, as the devil, and his victim Connie, who invites him in by committing ... not in shadow but instead in light. His eyes were chips of broken glass that catch the light in an amiable way" (450). In this quote, Oates suggests that Arnold Friend is hiding something more than an evil "look"; he is hiding his own satanic appearance. Besides Arnold Friend physical appearance, which makes ... the reader assume ...

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... see people as created equal by God. Instead, she has an order of classes that she often thinks about. Ruby looks down upon those whom are below her "class". As Joyce Carol Oates puts it " Mrs. Turpin cannot conceive of human beings except in terms of class, and is obsessed by a need to continually categorize others and speculate upon her position in regard ... Parable: Four Conversion Stories by Flannery O"Connor." American Literature 55:1 (March 1983). Rpt. In The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Micheal Meyer. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000. 358-359. Oates, Joyce Ca...

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Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been? Throughout the short story, "Where are you going? Where have you been?", Joyce Carol Oates uses a story of a teenage girl coming of age in the mid 1960s, which was difficult in the fact that people expected a certain outcome ... she is after. Connie is putting herself out there, and Arnold is going to grab hold tight. The most important element of the story is symbolism. Oates uses symbolism through Arnold, Connie, and music. With the music that is played throughout the story, and the characters actions, they tell the reader of what ... knows each i...

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Joyce Carol Oates? short storyWhere Are You Going, Where Have You Been?? shocked, horrified, and struck audiences across the nation. So much that it is one of the most discussed pieces of literature ever.Smooth Talk,? a movie based on this story, did not get so much attention, and rightly so. Oates portrays an image of ... portrays the image of a young girl throwing away her innocence, becoming borderline slut, and then eventually giving in to the persistent attacks of the evil one. Oates writes about a loss of innocence, while the movie tells of a further loss of innocence. Where Are You Goi...

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T.V. Takes a Back Seat "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates takes place in 1966. The story evolves around a teenage girl named Connie. Connie is at the point in her life where she is drifting away from her parents ... didn't bother talking much to them, but around his bent head Connie's mother kept picking at her until Connie wished her mother was dead and it was all over." (Oates 380) Wow! Now this is one frustrated young lady! Connie's father never even looks at her when he talks, as if the newspaper and everything else in the world ... around his eyes was, lik...

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In Joyce Carol Oates" story "Shopping," Oates tells a story of a mother and her daughter spending the day shopping together. The mother, Mrs. Dietrich, loves her daughter more than life itself. Oates alludes to the idea of Mrs. Dietrich loving her daughter, Nola, more than she loves her own mother by stating, "She loves Nola with a fierce unreasoned passion , certainly far stronger ... than any she felt for her own mother" (Oates, 170). Nola is a seventeen-year-old girl who attends a private school in a different state. With Nola at home for spring break, Mrs. Dietrich plans a day to go shopp...

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An Old Friend Joyce Carol Oates writes "Where are you going, Where have you been" in a very symbolic way. The first time people read her story, they come away wondering what the story you have just ... read was really about. In the story, Connie, a fifteen year old girl is confronted with the real world through a mysterious stranger named Arnold Friend who teaches her a lesson in life. Oates uses Arnold and Connie in the story to symbolize pop culture and evil, the way pop culture affects people in their adolescence negatively, and how we should constantly be aware ... of where people are go...

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... , Jane Caputi describes the legendary fictional serial killer Freddy Krueger as an "unrepressed individual, a revolutionary figure who disregards and destroys traditional mores and values". I feel that Q_P_, the main character in Joyce Carol Oates" Zombie also fits the description of Krueger given by Caputi in her article. There are several instances of behavior and attitude displayed by Q_P_ in Zombie that I feel put him in ... afford to dwell on the past, because if he does he will be reluctant to attempt creating another "zombie", which he feels he must have. It is very evident throug...

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... and nervous anywhere else, like the jingling of the charms on her bracelet." (p.216) Inductive Reasoning (Conflict in Oneself) The essay, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?," Joyce Carol Oates, is about a pretty fifteen year old girl named Connie, who has split personalities with "everything about her [having] two sides to it". Connie lives with her parents and ... ...

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After reading Joyce Carol Oates story " The Night Nurse" it was obvious that the main plot was that of revenge. The author did a wonderful job using rising action to set up the plot in the beginning of the story. As the story begins with the main character Grace Burkhardt collapsing of an unknown ai...

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Compared to the other characters in the short story "Where are you going, Where have you been?" by Joyce Carol Oates, the character Arnold Friend is one of the most developed and multifaceted. Besides have an intriguing personality, Arnold Friend is symbolic to the devil. Through out reading the text I came ... ...

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"Where are you going, Where have you been?" by Joyce Carol Oates reveals a pattern that mainly consists of two things: Arnold Friend symbolizes Satan and Connie must be raped and murdered. The portrait of Arnold is created in the mind of Connie ... ...

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Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? The techniques that Joyce Carol Oates incorporated throughout "Where Are You Going, Where Have you Been," are ineffective in making this a believable narrative. The one technique the author overused throughout the story is symbolism. The symbolism ... ...

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