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Analysis of Joyce Carol Oates’s Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on April 26, 2022

Probably the most gifted—and certainly the most prolific—literary talent of the second half of the 20th century, Joyce Carol Oates continues to be prolific into the 21st century. She has published more than 50 books; won the National Book Award for Them, her novel published in 1969; received countless O. Henry Memorial Award citations; and has been nominated frequently for the Nobel Prize. Her most widely anthologized short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is a chilling modern fable that uncovers the bleakness and emptiness of contemporary life and values. The story has become an American classic.

Oates’s grimly realistic portrayal of Connie, her adolescent protagonist, reveals the falsity of the Cinderella myth and the romantic stories on which young girls are raised. Connie, the rebellious teenager, is bored with and alienated from her middle-class family, preferring instead to spend her spare time trying on makeup, listening to rock and roll, and cruising through the shopping mall with her friends. At the mall she meets a sinister character named Arnold Friend.. Oates uses Magic Realism to suggest that Arnold is not all he appears to be; indeed, her third-person narrator suggests that he is not only obscene and slightly out of place but everywhere, knowing everything; in fact, he may be the devil himself, an identity many critics see inherent in his stumbling walk and his inability to balance in his boots: Cloven hooves may be the source of his difficulties.

where are you going where have you been essay thesis

When Arnold visits Connie at her house, he knows that her family is away and threatens to cause harm to them if she does not accompany him. Like the devil’s, his goal is to have Connie go to him of her own free will. Oates’s memorable building of suspense and horror is evident in the insubstantial screen door that separates Connie from Arnold and the insistently ringing phone, which Connie is powerless to answer or, later, to use to call the police. Volitionless, Connie moves toward Arnold as in a nightmare, and the final wording of the story suggests he will not only rape her in this world but take her with him to hell, whether biblical or earthly. In the pessimistic ending, the reader understands that Connie is gone forever and that her culture never prepared her to resist evil.

The title is from a line of a Bob Dylan song, and the story positions Connie in both the new world of rock and roll—presided over by the disk jockey Bobby King, a replacement for an earlier spiritual “king”— and the ancient world of the demon lover who spirits away his unresisting victim. The frightening contemporary parable that Oates has created resonates with the reader in deeply disturbing ways. The story was filmed in 1986 with the title Smooth Talk.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bastian, Katherine. Oates’s Short Stories: Between Tradition and Innovation. Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Peter Lang, 1983. Friedman, Ellen G. Joyce Carol Oates. New York: Ungar, 1980. Norman, Torberg. Isolation and Contact: A Study of Character Relationships in Oates’s Short Stories, 1963–1980. G teborg, Sweden: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1984. Oates, Joyce Carol. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Stories of Young America. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett, 1974. Wagner-Martin, Linda. Critical Essays on Joyce Carol Oates. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1979.

A Summary and Analysis of Joyce Carol Oates’ ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’ is a 1966 short story by the American writer Joyce Carol Oates. It is regarded by many critics as Oates’ best story, and is widely studied and praised for its treatment of some of the darker aspects of early 1960s America.

First published in the literary journal Epoch in 1966, ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’ was inspired by a series of real-life murders and dedicated to Bob Dylan, whose song ‘ It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue ’ was another inspiration on the story.

Plot summary

The story is about a rather rebellious fifteen-year-old girl named Connie, whose mother constantly berates her for obsessing over her appearance and not being more sensible like her older sister, the rather plain-looking June. Connie often goes and hangs out at a drive-in restaurant with her friend Betty, and one evening she is befriended by an older guy, named Eddie, who has a car.

After she spends a few hours with him he takes her back to her friend and then she goes home. To keep her mother from suspecting about such behaviour, Connie tries to present a different self at home, pretending to be more ‘steady’ and sensible than she actually is.

The next day is a hot July day, a Sunday, and the rest of the family go to Connie’s aunt’s for a barbecue, but Connie declines to go and so is left home on her own. While she is sitting in the sun outside the house, a car drives up and two older men, who call themselves Arnold Friend and Ellie Oscar, try to persuade her to come for a drive with them.

Although Connie doesn’t know them, there is something familiar about the appearance of Arnold, and he knows her name. Then she remembers she had seen him at the restaurant the night before.

Connie is reluctant to go for a drive with them, and is suspicious when Arnold reveals how much he knows about her life and friends. He claims to be the same age as her, but when she expresses incredulity, he claims to be a little older: eighteen. When she catches a glimpse of Ellie, who is listening to music inside the car, she realises that he is also much older, and has the face of an immature forty-year-old man.

Arnold becomes more persistent and intense in his desire for her, but that only makes Connie more nervous and suspicious, until she threatens to call the police.

Arnold agrees not to come into the house, where Connie has retreated while she talks to him. However, he threatens her, suggesting that something will happen to her ‘people’ if she doesn’t come with him. He repeatedly encourages her to come with him so he can show her what ‘love’ really is.

Although she goes to phone somebody, Connie is talked out of doing so and eventually agrees to come out of the house and go with Arnold and Ellie in the car. The story ends with her glimpsing at the sunlit land behind Arnold which stretches out like an unknown new land, a land she is heading towards.

Joyce Carol Oates was inspired to write this story after she read an account in Life magazine of a young man who had managed to entice and then kill several young girls in Tucson, Arizona in the early 1960s.

However, the ultimate fate of fifteen-year-old Connie is left open for interpretation at the end of ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’, and thus the story becomes almost a modern myth about the rite of passage of adolescence, crossing from the safety (and oppressiveness) of childhood towards the broad, ‘sunlit’ (but also dangerous and unnerving) lands of adulthood.

In this connection, the story’s title points up the threshold on which Connie stands, looking back to where she has been (childhood) and where she is going (adulthood). Oates reinforces this liminal status of Connie by having her literally spend most of the story on or near an actual threshold: the door of her parents’ house.

The ‘two sides’ to Connie’s identity which the third-person narrator of the story mentions early on are also significant here: she is caught between being daughter at home and free-spirited woman (or woman-in-waiting) outside of the family home. Once again, the boundary or threshold between ‘home’ and ‘not home’ (to use the narrator’s words) is marked with significance.

The meaning of that title, ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’, is hinted at again towards the end of the story, when Arnold Friend tells Connie that the place she came from doesn’t exist any longer, and where she had intended to go is also no longer an option. Her father’s house is something he can easily destroy (an allusion to the Big Bad Wolf from the famous children’s tale about the three little pigs).

But it is not clear what he means by stating to her that where she ‘meant to go’ is no longer an option for her. Arnold – whose very surname signals his (supposed) identity as her friend rather than her foe, but in a way that perhaps underscores too heavily, and suspiciously, his so-called ‘friendly’ nature – paints himself as someone who has arrived in her life in order to help her across this threshold towards a new land she could not find alone, or that she would be unwilling to embrace without encouragement.

It is important that the decision to cross the threshold at least be made to look like her own, even if it is only the result of extensive coercion.

The mysterious origins of Arnold and Ellie, and the extent of Arnold’s knowledge of Connie and her family – he even claims to be able to ‘see’ what is going on at the family barbecue across town – suggest that the two men are almost supernatural visitants who possess more symbolic and mythic force than they do existence as real people.

It is as if Arnold is a variation on the incubus , the male demon supposed to visit sleeping women and have sex with them, but a modern-day incarnation of this figure, in tight jeans and sunglasses. Alternatively, we might even regard Arnold Friend as a devil in disguise: F riend is only one letter away from Fiend .

All of this is not to suggest that ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’ is literally a tale of the supernatural. It is a realist story with dialogue and characterisation which reinforce the authenticity of the characters, who operate in a world familiar to us as our own.

But the symbolism of Arnold Friend is nevertheless of a mythic kind: he seems to represent all young men who are viewed by teenage girls as their induction into the world of adult relationships, including the realities of sexual intercourse and the dangers that can pose (not least to teenage girls in the 1960s).

Connie’s age is also significant: at fifteen she is legally still very much a child, although her body is obviously changing and maturing, her hormones giving her mixed signals about what she wants. Early in the story, Oates’ narrator implies that Connie is more in love with the idea of having a boyfriend than anything else: all the boys she has met, we are told, ‘dissolved’ into a single face that was more an idea than a real person.

And in this regard, Connie’s encounter with Eddie the evening before the arrival of Arnold and Ellie (whose name even echoes Eddie’s) acts as a symbolic foreshadowing of the events that follow on the Sunday: it is as if Connie is now ‘ready’ to be tempted by the strange devilish figure who arrives on her parents’ front drive, and here the fact that both Eddie and Arnold arrive in cars, a symbol of adulthood and independence, is of significance.

In the last analysis, ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’ is a powerful – one might almost say archetypal – exploration of the confusion, uncertainty, and hesitation that attend on adolescence, as young people, and especially young girls in this regard, negotiate the difficult path from girlhood to womanhood.

We might call this ‘rite of passage’ or ‘coming of age’, but Oates’ story, given the dark true events that inspired it, is unsettling because it implies that coercion and threats are not only usual but perhaps even necessary, at least in a patriarchal society, to wrest indecisive young girls over that threshold.

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Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?

Nov. 17, 2020

Caroline Cochrane

“Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates was first published in 1966 in the Epoch Magazine . In this story, A young girl named Connie strives to be nothing like her mother. She does everything she can to rebel against what she fears is her fate, so she frequently crosses the boundaries set for her to meet boys and experience what she feels is the life she deserves. She crosses paths with Arnold Friend, a figure who poses as the ideal boy to a young girl who puts value in superficial objects. He tracks her down and corners her when she is home alone. Sadly, Connie fails to realize his disingenuity until it is too late. She tries and fails to escape him, leaving her victim as he drives her far away with plans to take her innocence and possibly her life. In “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?”, Joyce Carol Oates presents a perturbing point of view on beauty versus reality that criticizes superficial culture and misguided youthful pursuits of love and sex.

Early in the story, it is made clear to the audience that Connie is extremely conceited and places much importance on the outer beauty of a person. Connie is gazing at herself in the mirror when her mother criticizes her and snaps, “You think you so pretty? (1)” To fully disclose exactly how Connie viewed this particular issue, Oates disclosed that “she knew she was pretty and that was everything.(1)” This particular phrase is vital to understanding how Connie has defined her own personal value and how she compares others to herself. Connie frequently makes statements regarding how ugly she thinks her mother and sister are and how she pities

them. With this perceived lack of beauty, Connie also criticizes their simple lifestyle, in which June, her sister, works at the local high school and has yet to find a long-term partner, or even a short-term one. Connie sees her mother’s life as wasted potential, as she claims that her mother was beautiful when she was young but is not anymore. It is clear that little other factors than outer beauty drive Connie’s judgments of other people. This is what ultimately dooms her fate to the palms of Arnold Friend.

When she first hears the tires of his car on her driveway, her initial reaction is described by Oates as the following: “Her heart began to pound and her fingers snatched at her hair, checking it, and she whispered, ’Christ. Christ,’ wondering how bad she looked. (4)” This reaction is not the typical reaction a teenage girl would have to a strange car pulling up to the house unexpectedly. Typically, there would be some element of fear and aversion to coming into contact with the person, but this is the opposite for Connie. Even when she opens the front door and realizes that she does not recognize the car or the people in it, she intentionally flirts with Arnold Friend even before she has fully evaluated whether or not she should trust him. She sees a young, conventionally attractive boy who appeals to her value system, so she bites, not knowing that his appearance is only bait, and as he gets closer, his outer beauty ceases to exist. He is revealed to be much older and is wearing over-the-top makeup to conceal his age. Because Connie trusted his youthful persona, it was too late before she realized that she was wrong.

This story is told in the third person but is limited to Connie’s point of view. The reader is made very familiar with Connie’s tricks to doing what she wants. Connie devises a plan where she can convince her parents and her friend’s parents that she is a sweet innocent girl, but in reality is using this false narrative to sneak off and make-out with boys in a fast-food restaurant parking lot. It is implied that she pulls off this plan frequently over the summer with a different boy every time. When she stays home from a family barbeque,

“Connie sat with her eyes closed

in the sun, dreaming and dazed with the warmth about her as if this were a kind of love, the caresses of love, and her mind slipped over onto thoughts of the boy she had been with the night before and how nice he had been, how sweet it always was, not the way someone like June would suppose but sweet, gentle, the way it was in movies and promised in songs. (3)“

Through this passage, Oates is conveying that Connie uses music and entertainment media to fabricate romantic fantasies instead of creating her own ideas of how love should be. To further this point, Oates also includes this sentence in the paragraph before: “all the boys fell back and dissolved into a single face that was not even a face but an idea, a feeling, mixed up with the urgent insistent pounding of the music and the humid night air of July.(p.3)” Through these statements, it is clear that Connie is exploring her sexuality as if she is chasing a specific feeling, perhaps love, but evading any kind of commitment or responsibility involved in a relationship.

This type of sexual exploration was a great source of controversy in the 1960s. short-term and informal sexual affairs were more openly explored and this was met with great pushback from the more traditional members of society. In this short story, Oates is criticizing these pursuits by portraying Connie’s experiences as naive and childish. She emphasizes that Connie is only chasing the feelings that are accentuated in music and other art forms. To show the influence of music on Connie, she presents multiple scenarios where Connie is overcome by song. One scenario in particular that demonstrates Oates’ perception of the music Connie listens to is when “She sat on the edge of her bed, barefoot, and listened for an hour and a half to a program called XYZ Sunday Jamboree, record after record of hard, fast, shrieking songs she sang along with.(p.3)” From the word choice in this sentence, Oates is making the statement that Connie is completely overcome with this music that Oates perceives as chaotic and unpleasant, judging by her description of hard, fast, and shrieking. The music playing is later revealed to be Bobby King songs, which are famous for being overtly sexual and appeal to the exact fantasy that Connie holds all of her sexual encounters to. Oates’ emphasis on the specific influence of music on the sexual environment surrounding this time and how such a perspective on sex can be dangerous reveals perhaps the purpose of this story: to criticize the sexual culture of the time and warn the youth of the dangers that could be lurking behind these fantasies.

In the early 1960s, a serial Killer in Tucson, Arizona emerged: Charles Schmid. He killed three teen girls in the span of one year. His first murder, that of Alleen Rowe, has a significant correlation to this short story and is widely regarded as Oates’ inspiration. Alleen Rowe was lured from her home to the desert where she was raped and murdered. Charles Schmid also has a disturbing correlation to Arnold Friend. Schmid was recalled to have dyed his hair black, used makeup to alter his appearance, and stuffed his boots with newspapers and crushed cans to appear taller. Connie observed that Arnold Friend wore mascara, a black wig, and seemed to be unable to walk properly in his boots. These correlations make the claim that Charles Schmid being the inspiration for this story almost undeniable. This connection adds to the significance that this story held when it was first published. Not only does it tackle the social/ethical dilemma surrounding sex culture, but it also references a fresh, real-life scenario in which a young girl is killed for being involved in the behaviors that are being criticized. Such a raw issue would have been highly emotional and disturbing for readers in the 1960’s. Even in the modern-day, this story has a profound effect on those who read it, especially young women. “Where are you going? Where Have You Been?” draws upon the fears of young girls that they will end up in the same situation as Connie, vulnerable, exploited, and alone as they are led to the final moments of their lives. Stories such as this one are told constantly as cautionary tales to daughters from mothers in an attempt to scare them into safety, which is what Joyce Carol Oates seems to be doing to the youth of the 1960s.

Joyce Carol Oates uses a retelling of a real-life story as a means to draw criticism upon the sexual revolution of the youth of her time and the false perception that superficial belongings and beauty reflect on a person’s value and character. Using references to popular culture and topical issues of the time, she is able to convey such a point of view. Through her highly specific detailing she is ultimately able to deeply disturb and terrify the reader into at least temporarily agreeing with her views on the potential dangers of a superficial, sexual culture that put young women at risk of being harmed by what most consider to be forces of evil, serial killers. She forewarns the readers that if they allow outer beauty to act as an indication of trustworthiness, they will be taken advantage of.

Works Cited

“Attractive and Unattractive Faces with a Marquardt Mask Overlay.” What Averaged Face Photographs Reveal About Human Beauty , 2013, petapixel.com/2013/05/28/what-averaged-face-photographs-reveal-about-human-beauty/.

“Caucasian Mother Arguing with Daughter – Stock Photo.” Getty Images , www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/caucasian-mother-arguing-with-daughter-royalty-free-image/573103239 .

“Charles Schmid.” Charles Schmid, “The Pied Piper of Tucson” Serial Killer , 2015, www.bizarrepedia.com/charles-schmid-the-pied-piper-of-tucson/.

“Cover of WAYGWHYB.” Google Image Search , www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.gr-assets.com%2Fimages%2FS%2Fcompressed.photo.goodreads.com%2Fbooks%2F1361846692i%2F397334._UY322_SS322_.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.goodreads.com%2Fbook%2Fshow%2F397334.Where_Are_You_Going_Where_Have_You_Been_&tbnid=cBHDMFuS2N4xbM&vet=12ahUKEwjOz6mrw-rsAhXRB1MKHTcYC1wQMygXegUIARDTAQ..i&docid=AB44zSfTLC8yLM&w=322&h=322&q=joyce%20Carol%20oates%2060s&ved=2ahUKEwjOz6mrw-rsAhXRB1MKHTcYC1wQMygXegUIARDTAQ .

Grossman, Emily. “School Secretary Monica Martinez Was Highly Spirited Back in High School.” The Roar , 5 Nov. 2015, scroar.net/1920/recent/school-secretary-monica-martinez-was-highly-spirited-back-in-high-school/.

Huskey, Lynelle, director. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” . Youtube , 2020, youtu.be/jSZs2sDX0Mg.

KHAIRALLA, ROFIDA. Coolidge Examiner , 2018, www.pinalcentral.com/coolidge_examiner/news/book-details-pied-piper-of-tucson-serial-killer-passage-through-coolidge/article_b3e0bf1a-920d-5038-be33-fa69e6d81163.html.

“Lonely 60s Girl.” 8tracks , petapixel.com/2013/05/28/what-averaged-face-photographs-reveal-about-human-beauty/.

Oates, Joyce Carol. “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?” Centricity PDF , 10 Mar. 2003, 9:13 AM, www.cusd200.org/cms/lib/IL01001538/Centricity/Domain/361/oates_going.pdf.

“Picture of Joyce Carol Oates.” Google Image Search , – https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2F3.bp.blogspot.com%2F_mWff9DstfQE%2FSfYV1mt4FaI%2FAAAAAAAAAI4%2FhZOE5yRAkYs%2Fs400%2FJCO1.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fthe-sphinx-without-a-secret.blogspot.com%2F2009%2F04%2F31-joyce-carol-oates-where-are-you.html&tbnid=w581vFM1G0q_XM&vet=12ahUKEwjOz6mrw-rsAhXRB1MKHTcYC1wQMygDegUIARCpAQ..i&docid=I3m-wov0N4wgwM&w=230&h=321&q=joyce%20Carol%20oates%2060s&ved=2ahUKEwjOz6mrw-rsAhXRB1MKHTcYC1wQMygDegUIARCpAQ .

Smith, Katie Bingham. “Girl with Boombox.” Are Your Kids Bored? Tell Them What We Did During Summer in the 80s , 2019, grownandflown.com/teens-bored-80s-summer/.

“Sullen Young Woman in a Car – Stock Photo.” Getty Images , – https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/sullen-young-woman-in-a-car-royalty-free-image/1283300771.

“Teenage Couple on the Bench – Stock Photo.” Getty Images , – https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/teenage-couple-on-the-bench-royalty-free-image/184639394.

“Teenage Girl Applying Mascara – Stock Photo.” Getty Images , – https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/teenage-girl-applying-mascara-royalty-free-image/119014428.

Wells, Mary Louise. “Charles Schmid Arrested.” The Pied Piper and Bob Dylan – Context for “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?,” 2020, teacherpress.ocps.net/wellsml/the-pied-piper-and-bob-dylan-context-for-where-are-you-going-where-have-you-been/.

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Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

Joyce carol oates, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Appearances and Deception

“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” opens with a physical description of its fifteen-year-old protagonist, Connie —a pretty blonde girl living in 1960s America whose life revolves around bickering with her family, hanging out with her friends, and drooling over boys. Right away, Oates makes clear that Connie is highly conscious of her looks; she has a “habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people's faces to make…

Agency, Control, and Manipulation

The teenage Connie frequently bristles against her mother , who attempts to control her daughter’s behavior and encourage her to be more like her responsible older sister, June . Yet where Connie seems somewhat at the mercy of her family at home, she holds an effortless kind of control over the boys she has sexual encounters with, and she takes pleasure in the simple sense of power this gives her. Oates introduces a subtler kind…

The Presence of Evil

In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” fifteen-year-old girl Connie is confronted—and it’s implied, raped and killed—by a sinister stranger named Arnold Friend . As the story unfolds, Friend manipulates and terrorizes Connie to such an extent that he becomes an embodiment of evil. In fact, the story goes so far as to suggest that Friend might be a personification of death, or even the devil himself—the very picture of violence, danger, and…

Music and Romantic Fantasy

Throughout the story popular culture—particularly music —is presented as a medium through which adolescents make sense of their inner emotional lives. As a fifteen-year-old girl who struggles to get along with her family and enjoys nothing more than spending time with her friends and flirting with boys at the plaza, Connie is highly attuned to music and the affect it has on her. Connie herself is described in musical terms: she wears “jingling” charms on…

Loss of Innocence

Over the course of the story, fifteen-year-old Connie is eager to appear like a mature young woman, and she believes a key aspect of this is to engage in sexual experiences. As such, she uses her good looks to attract the attention of boys and feels her knowledge in this area makes her independent and powerful. Connie’s desire to fast-forward her adolescence and become an adult, however, is fulfilled in a cruel and sinister way…

“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” Literary Analysis

Point of view.

The appearances people put on for others and the true essence of their being are vital parts of “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been.” A short story is a literary genre with distinct ways of conveying themes and messages concisely. Various authors utilize different elements to enhance and strengthen their writing. Oates uses unique tools to communicate the information to the readers, as her text is incredibly appealing and captivating. The story written by Joyce Carol Oates follows an unsettling encounter with a teenage girl and a man. Through the tone and description of the passages, both characters are relieved to be attempting to play a role with potentially sinister implications. The protagonist and antagonist both pretend to be someone who they are not either mentally or physically. The story’s theme is the conflict between appearance and reality, which is revealed through the devices of perspective, allegory, and symbolism.

The story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” written by Joyce Carol Oates explores the clash of perception and truth. The plot centers around a teenage girl of fifteen, described in the opening paragraphs of the story as beautiful. Connie purposefully attempts to look older when going out. The text reveals, “She wore a pull-over jersey blouse that looked one way when she was at home and another way when she was away from home. Everything about her had two sides to it” (Oates 1). This outward maturity conflicts with her actual lack of life experience, culminating, presumably, in violence. In addition, the villain of the story, a mysterious man who calls himself Arnold Friend, is a clear example of appearance not being all they seem. Arnold attempts to appear like just another teenage boy, utilizing a wig and referencing popular music. On closer inspection, Connie notices these discrepancies and concludes that he must be in his thirties. This juxtaposition of a youthful look and his actual age reveals the dangers Connie was too late to recognize. By the end of the story, nearly every element of Arnold Friend is shown to be possibly a disguise, including his name. Ultimately, both characters utilize outward appearance for their own ends.

The story follows Connie’s point of view, which underlies the central theme of facade versus reality. While Connie is not the narrator of the story, the audience does not get to see any other character’s perspective. This means the reader is just as blind to certain information as Connie. This creates a degree of tension, as Arnold Friend is only visible through her eyes and emotions, making him a more ominous and frightening character. The lack of insight into Arnold’s mind also supplements the idea that there is an inner world that can not be understood simply by appearances. Through this point of view, the reader can understand that much of Connie’s behavior, dress, and even worldview is simply an attempt to appear desirable to others. When regarding Arnold, Connie quickly becomes suspicious, identifying possible falsehoods in how he carries himself. She notices that “he sounded like a hero in a movie, declaring something important. But he spoke too loudly” (Oates 6). Furthermore, He repeatedly attempts to flirt, calling himself her friend and complementing her, yet his disguise indicates an underlying risk. Throughout much of their conversation, Arnold tries to be friendly, joking around, referencing songs Connie may have heard to make her less suspicious. This creates a feeling of tension, as Connie is shown to be in a state of distress, as she somewhat understands that she is in danger. Thus, the text uses perspective to allow the audience to identify with Connie while also revealing her thoughts and feelings.

Oates’s short story is particularly famous for conveying messages through the extensive use of allegory. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” portrays the conflict between appearance and reality; thus, presenting a comprehensive narrative about real-world issues. In particular, the account of Connie’s experiences represents a broader spectrum of topics, including the matters of what people project into the world versus who they are. Oates presents this complex idea through specific events, performances, and the depiction of music. Connie’s behavior with men in the restaurant is an attempt to project her independence and confidence, whereas, in reality, her actual mental state is not representative of her actions. The symbols presented by popular culture are another way a message is reinforced. It proposes ways people should act in society to fit in, regardless of their actual desires. Girls are continually being reminded of specific expectations that they have to follow to appear a certain way, “the music was always in the background” (Oates 1). Furthermore, the antagonist of the story, Arnold, always projects specific ideas about him into the world that do not correspond with reality to influence Connie. Thus, the events, characters’ behavior, and music portray an allegory of society’s constant desire to distort reality.

Lastly, symbolism is an essential literary element used in the story to represent its primary theme. In particular, Oates uses religious symbolism in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” to distinctly present the friction between illusion and reality. The protagonist view shopping malls and drive-in restaurants as religious places; thus, the author implies their church-like appearance. For example, Connie and her friends refer to the location as a “sacred building” (Oates 1). The fact that popular places are portrayed as religious symbols emphasizes the false display of their greatness. Girls find being there valuable, as a weekly church service that cannot be skipped, while, in reality, shopping malls are not designed to be as important to people. Therefore, the fake narrative that enforces the idea that popular culture is the most significant aspect of teenage life is represented through its grotesque religiosity. Additionally, the symbolism of youth revealed through the antagonist’s actions represents false assumptions about adolescence. For instance, Arnold’s wig and his fake tan create a false narrative of what being young is; on the contrary, Connie’s inexperience is a more accurate depiction. Overall, Oates’s symbols reinforce the message presented in the story that some life elements are not what they appear.

“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” depicts an account of the teenage girl and men’s unsettling encounter. The story’s central theme is the conflict between illusion and actuality. Oates uses numerous devices to convey the message of the text in an engaging manner. The story incorporates the point of view of a protagonist. Thus, the narrative is presented through a teenage girl’s infantile perspective, which dilutes the reality. Moreover, the author uses allegory to describe a complex societal issue of people’s relentless urge to twist actuality. Lastly, Oates’s use of grotesque symbols presents the idea that individuals are prone to developing illusionary thinking, which does not appropriately portray the truth. Overall, the short story skillfully uses literary devices to articulate the theme of the writing.

Oates, Joyce Carol. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been.” Community Unit School District 200 , 1966. Web.

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Critic’s Pick

‘Gasoline Rainbow’ Review: We’re on a Ride to Nowhere

This semi-fictional tale of a road trip for weirdos is full of joy.

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A group of teens walk along an empty dirt road, wheat fields, windmills and telephone poles beside them.

By Alissa Wilkinson

The thesis of “Gasoline Rainbow,” the latest cinematic fantasia from the brothers Bill and Turner Ross, is articulated in its first moments, in voice-over set atop a sunset. “Sometimes when I look at night, I see that light over the hills, and I just wonder what it’s like … to be there,” a youthful voice says wistfully. The speaker wants to know if they’re alone in being who they are — a “weirdo,” as they put it. “I want to be out,” they continue. “I want to be myself, I want to be accepted. I want to be loved for who I am.”

Technically we’ve not yet met this person, but that doesn’t matter: We know them. The misfit outsider is a familiar character in movies and literature, and often possesses some wisdom that people trapped in the more conventional daily grind can’t see. There’s a tiny bit of the prophet in every outsider — and, of course, all prophets are outsiders.

“Gasoline Rainbow” is a technically fictional tale of five such misfits who get in a car and go on a journey toward the Pacific Coast. I say “technically,” because like much of the Rosses’ work, there’s not much separation between reality and make-believe. Their previous film, for instance, the 2020 sorta-documentary “Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets” sets up a scenario — the final night at a Vegas dive bar, on the eve of the 2016 presidential election — and populates it with real drinkers, who have a real rager on camera. But the bar itself wasn’t technically closing, it wasn’t in Vegas and these people weren’t regulars there. What, you might ask yourself, are you watching?

You are watching people figure out how to live at the end of the world, how to relate to one another and find joy in the middle of loss and uncertainty. Whether or not the scenario is staged, the human heart of it is absolutely real. “Gasoline Rainbow” is a little like “Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets,” in that the five teenagers at its center, playing versions of themselves, are looking for a “party at the end of the world” that they’ve heard about. But mostly they are there to be with one another, and it’s obvious their real personalities are part of the story.

The five travelers — Tony Aburto, Micah Bunch, Nichole Dukes, Nathaly Garcia, Makai Garza — are all friends in Wiley, Ore. (a town which, incidentally, doesn’t exist). They’re seeking “one last fun adventure we can all do together” before they have to return home and get real jobs. These are kids who didn’t like school and didn’t like home life. In another movie, they’d be delinquents running from the law.

But “Gasoline Rainbow” isn’t that movie. There’s an uncommon sweetness to this film, which is less about running away from something and more about discovering the road of life is littered with goodness, if you know where to look. There’s a loose, languorous quality to “Gasoline Rainbow,” which the Rosses shot using a mostly improvised format, a collaboration between actors and filmmakers. It feels like a home movie, or a documentary — a capture of a slice of life in which there’s no plot other than whatever happens on the road ahead.

That road is full of people who also feel like weirdos. There are burnouts and stoners who generously share tips and directions with the kids. There are skaters they chat with on the street who share their own stories and make sure the kids are safe and OK. Not every encounter is well and good — at one point, the tires on their van are stolen, leaving them to figure out how to keep going. But as viewers, we soon settle into the sense that these teenagers are going to be just fine.

Along the way they talk about what haunts them back home: soured relationships, preoccupied parents, loss, deportation, the general sense that life’s sameness is stifling. But almost everyone they encounter is older than them, and offers mentorship of one kind or another. At one point, before visiting some older family friends of one of the teens, another expresses worry about hanging out with “old people” who are “30 or 40.”

“Maybe they’re hippies,” another says. It’s a tiny window to the whole point of “Gasoline Rainbow,” which is this: Every generation has had its outsiders. There’s always been a group of people who didn’t feel like they really belonged. The lucky ones found one another and, decades later, are ready to pave over the bumps as best they can for those who are coming up behind. That’s the joy at the heart of this movie — the sense that for every square peg jammed into the wrong-shaped hole, there’s a whole bucket of similar shaped pegs waiting for them.

The teens do make it to the party at the end of the world, but, as you might predict, it’s not quite what they expected. It never had to be. The destination, as most of us discover eventually, is almost beside the point.

Gasoline Rainbow Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 48 minutes. In theaters.

Alissa Wilkinson is a Times movie critic. She’s been writing about movies since 2005. More about Alissa Wilkinson

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Moral of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Essay

Introduction, short story analysis, personal opinion.

Usually, authors of the most outstanding pieces of literature explain their attitudes towards some significant issues with the help of dozens of chapters and hundreds of pages. Many people believe that it is impossible to create a full-fledged literary work consisting of just a few pages except for stories for children and rhymes. However, the opinion above is denied by many writers, and Joyce Carol Oates is among them. The writer is famous, thanks to her short stories addressing crucial topics for individuals and the whole nation. Thus, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? is one of her best works that describes essential themes with the help of not many characters, and it evokes relevant thoughts among readers.

To begin with, this piece of literature tells the story of a pretty 15-year-old girl, Connie. As it often happens, this girl is superficial – all she likes is watching movies, listening to music, and dating boys. At the same time, she is not very comfortable with members of her family, her mother, and her elder sister, June. Thus, Connie is said to be one of the most ordinary American teenagers.

One night, Connie goes on a date with Eddie, one of her numerous boyfriends. At some point, the girl notices another guy who points with his finger at her and says: “Gonna get you, baby” (Oates 2016, 1). After a while, Connie recalls this stranger when he, Arnold Friend, and his companion, Ellie, appear in front of her house in a gold-colored convertible. Arnold explains that he has come to invite Connie for a ride. At first, the girl is intrigued by this stranger, but a further conversation makes her nervous. The threat is intensified by the fact that she is alone at home because all her relatives are attending a barbecue. Arnold tries to make Connie leave her house and get into his car. In addition to that, she realizes that Arnold is almost twice older; Connie wants to call the police. However, she fails to do it because the man promises to harm her family in this case. Scared to death, Connie leaves her house and joins Arnold Friend for a ride. The story has an open final, and Connie’s further fate leaves unmentioned.

As has been mentioned, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? is a short story with its peculiarities. One can suppose that this piece of literature does not include many characters and themes. Even though it might be true concerning the first element, since Connie and Arnold seem to be the only meaningful persons in the story, the situation is not straightforward when it comes to topics. Thus, further analysis is required to analyze this short story and its content entirely.

Connie is a selfish girl who takes care of nothing and nobody except herself. In addition to that, she perceives the world through primitive concepts only ( Study Guide 2016). This fact appears to be dangerous for her because the first encounter with Arnold seems to be positive thanks to his appealing clothes. However, Connie is not an unchanged character since her final decision to join Arnold shows that she can sacrifice herself to save the family. Thus, the author shows that even the most usual people can become extraordinary in exceptional cases.

On the contrary, Arnold Friend is a determined antagonist of the short story. This man is much older than Connie is, but he tries to look younger using clothes. However, his appearance does not correspond to what he thinks and says. Arnold has decided that Connie should go with him, and he achieves this goal gradually. What is more interesting, he does not take any actions, and talking is everything he does. His words are enough for the girl to be threatened. According to Conover (2018), the author shows that psychological violence can sometimes be more dangerous and harmful than any physical force. Finally, his strategy appears successful in making Connie “voluntarily” join him for a ride.

Apart from the two main characters above, the story also has a few secondary persons. Connie’s mother does not seem to imply much importance in this literary work. She is an average married woman who experiences some troubles with her daughter. Nevertheless, a closer analysis reveals the fact that this poor relationship between Connie and her mother makes the girl appear under Arnold’s psychological attack. Anand and Chatterjee (2017) mention that this is a manifestation of naturalism, meaning that the environment determines people’s characters.

Furthermore, specific attention should be paid to Ellie, Arnold’s companion. Even though he seems to be the most irrelevant character, Ellie is depicted to show a particular concept. He manifests himself actively by asking: “You want me to pull out the phone” (Oates 2016, 7). Thus, this character denotes the difference between physical and psychological violence.

Main Themes

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Introduces a few significant issues. Firstly, it discusses the subject of violence, both physical and psychological. One should note that the author does not intend to show that older men can be harmful to young girls. The topic is that almost every member of society can be subject to violence. Secondly, the concept of freedom is also under consideration here. It refers to the fact that Connie wants to be free and independent of her family. She is, but this desired freedom creates more dangerous problems. Finally, Oates explains the role of family for many people. Even though it is impossible to say that Connie has good relationships with her relatives, her decision to join Arnold seems to be justified by the desire to save them.

As far as my personal opinion is concerned, this piece of writing seems to be useful for teenage girls and their parents. The author shows that some negative consequences can arise when there is no agreement between children and parents. In addition to that, Oates questions the theme of sexual education and growing-up. It is depicted that those girls who pretend to be older than they are can be subject to appropriate problems. I believe that the issues above are crucial at all times, which makes this literary work worth reading.

Oates’s Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? is an outstanding piece of literature that touches a few significant issues. Even though the story is only nine pages long, the author managed to include a vast system of characters and introduce many crucial topics. Considering its educational message, one should note that the story is a must-read for many teenage girls and those parents who want to save their young girls from adult problems.

Anand, Aswathi V., and Srirupa Chatterjee. 2017. “From Naturalistic Savagery to Humanistic Redemption: Artistic Transformations in Joyce Carol Oates’s Short Stories.” IUP Journal of English Studies 12 (2): 81–89.

Conover, Samantha R. 2018. “A False Sense of Security: An Analysis of Victims of Sexual Assault and the Progress We Have Made Compared to Joyce Carol Oates’ ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’” UCF Department of Legal Studies Law Journal 1: 121–133.

Oates, Joyce C. 2016. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Houston: Houston Community College. Web.

Study Guide for Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” 2016. Detroit: Gale, Cengage Learning.

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IvyPanda. (2024, February 1). Moral of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? https://ivypanda.com/essays/moral-of-where-are-you-going-where-have-you-been/

"Moral of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" IvyPanda , 1 Feb. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/moral-of-where-are-you-going-where-have-you-been/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Moral of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been'. 1 February.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Moral of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" February 1, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/moral-of-where-are-you-going-where-have-you-been/.

1. IvyPanda . "Moral of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" February 1, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/moral-of-where-are-you-going-where-have-you-been/.