STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF THE STORY “WHERE ARE YOU GOING, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” BY JOYCE CAROL OATES.

Born on June 16, 1938, in Lockport, New York, Joyce Carol Oates developed a love for writing as a child and went on to become an acclaimed, bestsellingscribe known for her novels, stories, poetry and essays, winning the National Book Award for 1969's them.  Her first published book was the 1963 story collection By the North Gate, followed by her debut novel With Shuddering Fall in 1964.

The main theme of the story is the life of  Connie.She is a typical 15-year-old living in an American suburb. She doesn't get along with her mom, she's annoyed by her sister, she likes listening to music and watching movies, and she spends a lot of time going out with her friends and meeting boys.

The story is set in America in 1960s. That time and place remains vague, somewhere in mid-century suburban America. The very anonymity of the story’s setting allows it to communicate more universal themes about a country marked by sweeping changes. The 1950s and 1960s saw the beginning of the American Civil Rights Movement and Sexual Revolution, which upended traditional forms of moral authority. 

The message of the story contains the main thought that  immature person can`t make serious decisions.

The plot of the story. Connie, fifteen, is preoccupied with her appearance. Her mother scolds her for admiring herself in the mirror, but Connie ignores her mother’s criticisms. June, who is twenty-four and still lives at home, works as a secretary at Connie’s high school. She saves money, helps their parents, and receives constant praise for her maturity, whereas Connie spends her time daydreaming. While her parents and sister were at the barbeque Connie meets Arnold. Connie tells Arnold he should leave, but he insists on taking her for a ride. She recognizes his voice as the voice of a man on the radio. She tells him to leave and threatens to call the police. He becomes more threatening, telling her that if she doesn’t come out of the house, he’ll do something terrible to her family when they come home.

It is 3d person narration. Observing the story’s events through a narrator who presents things as Connie sees them allows the reader to identify with her terror as she is transformed from a flirt into a victim.

Characters

Connie rejects the role of daughter, sister, and “nice” girl to cultivate her sexual persona, which flourishes only when she is away from herhome and family. She makes fun of her frumpy older sister, June, and is in constant conflict with her family. Her concerns are typically adolescent: she obsesses about her looks, listens to music, hangs out with her friends, flirts with boys, and explores her sexuality. She takes great pleasure in the fact that boys and even men find her attractive. Connie has cultivated a particular manner of dressing, walking, and laughing that make her sexually appealing, although these mannerisms are only temporary affectations. She behaves one way in her home and an entirely different way when she is elsewhere.

Arnold Friend, with his suggestive name that hints at “Arch Fiend,” is an ambiguous figure who may be either demon or human, fantasy or reality. Demon or not, however, his strangely mismatched appearance adds to the threatening quality of his calm voice and seemingly gentle coaxing as he tries to convince Connie to come outside. Despite his strange appearance, Arnold is initially somewhat appealing to Connie in a dangerous way. Although we never find out exactly who or what Arnold is, he is the catalyst that changes Connie from a child to an adult.

The plot of the story has exposition, development of the events ,climax ,anticlimax.

Exposition :" Her name was Connie. She was fifteen and 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. Her mother, who noticed everything and knew everything and who hadn't much reason any longer to look at her own face, always scolded Connie about it. "Stop gawking at yourself. Who are you? You think you're so pretty?" she would say. Connie would raise her eyebrows at these familiar old complaints and look right through her mother, into a shadowy vision of herself as she was right at that moment: she knew she was pretty and that was everything. Her mother had been pretty once too, if you could believe those old snapshots in the album, but now her looks were gone and that was why she was always after Connie. "Why don't you keep your room clean like your sister? How've you got your hair fixed—what the hell stinks? Hair spray? You don't see your sister using that junk." Her sister June was twenty-four and still lived at home. She was a secretary in the high school Connie attended, and if that wasn't bad enough—with her in the same building—she was so plain and chunky and steady that Connie had to hear her praised all the time by her mother and her mother's sisters. June did this, June did that, she saved money and helped clean the house and cooked and Connie couldn't do a thing, her mind was all filled with trashy daydreams. Their father was away at work most of the time and when he came home he wanted supper and he read the newspaper at supper and after supper he went to bed. He 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 she herself was dead and it was all over. "She makes me want to throw up sometimes," she complained to her friends. She had a high, breathless, amused voice that made everything she said sound a little forced, whether it was sincere or not."

Development of the events :Connie meets with her friend; She meets some stranger; Once she sees that stranger at the door of her house;Arnold(stranger) wants to ride with Connie ;Connie tries to get rid of Arnold.

Climax: Connie  tries to call the police .

Anticlimax: She decides to ride with Arnold because he frightens Connie to do harm for her family .

The style of "Where Are You Going?" is somewhat journalistic in the sense that there are few excessive stylistic flourishes or cumbersome sentence structures.

There are lexical and syntactical stylistic devices which author uses to depict events more clearly and emotionally.

 Lexical devices:

·        The story's overall structure is 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. Some critics have theorized that Arnold Friend, with his wild black hair and connection to music, is an allusion to Bob Dylan.

·        Joyce Carol Oates uses powerful, almost surreal imagery to convey Connie's growing panic. In one memorable scene she compares the girl's jerking breath to sexual assault, confusing fantasy and reality. In another she describes an out-of-body experience to communicate Connie's fractured and powerless state.

·        The epithet “She had a high, breathless, amused voice…” characterizes the mother  from the point of view of her daughter Connie for who even the voice of her mother sounds very unpleasant as she hears from her only endless orders and complains and dissatisfaction.

·        Personification: “…but now her looks were gone and that was why she was always after Connie.” Stresses the main conflict because of which the relations between mother and daughter are so strained and tense.

·       “…her laugh, which was cynical and drawling at home—“Ha, ha, very funny,”—but highpitched and nervous anywhere else, like the ringing of the charms on her bracelet.” (2)

Oates uses a simile to effectively contrast Connie’s behavior, in this instance her laughter, at home and in public. The image of a jingling charm bracelet, often associated with teenaged girls, encourages readers to imagine Connie’s laugh as feminine and youthful. This contrasts with the more masculine “cynical and drawling" laugh she employs at home. The dual laughs exemplify the split in Connie’s personality. She has developed two personas: one she uses with her family and another used to explore her budding sexuality and ideas of womanhood.

·         

Syntactical stylistic devices:

 Repetition “Their father was away at work most of the time and when he came home he wanted supper and he read the newspaper at supper and after supper he went to bed.” it brightly express the personality of Connie's father .

Gradation “But 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.”

CONCLUSION

As for me , this story interested me because it combines the usual teenager problems (problems in communication with family and friends, greater attention to their appearance and the guys ,trying to be an adult) with interesting succession of events.

There are so many things that Joyce Carol Oates has done right with this story. She has created characters that are alive, the depth and emotion of Arnold Friend, of Connie, we care about them, we are worried, frightened, and invested. We are caught in a gray area between disliking Connie and rooting for her to get away, we are as uncertain as she is, up until the final moments, where we still think to ourselves that maybe she’ll be okay, maybe he’ll bring her back, maybe she won’t just be another number on the side of the car. But we know better. We have been hypnotized, we have been abducted, the world falling away as Oates has woven a magical tale with layers of imagery, and suggestion, so much to see and digest, so much to understand, our mind chasing the sentences to try and figure it all out. To this day, and I’ve read this story dozens of times, I continue to find new bits of information, one word or sentence sending the plot and outcome spinning. Ahead of its time, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates is a story to be read and re-read, and I hope you’ll do just that.

Stylistic devices in the story

Stylistic devices in the story

Allusions

The story's overall structure is 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. Some critics have theorized that Arnold Friend, with his wild black hair and connection to music, is an allusion to Bob Dylan.

Imagery

Joyce Carol Oates uses powerful, almost surreal imagery to convey Connie's growing panic. In one memorable scene she compares the girl's jerking breath to sexual assault, confusing fantasy and reality. In another she describes an out-of-body experience to communicate Connie's fractured and powerless state.

Colloquial and slang vocabulary ("Oh, that dope", "Who the hell do you think you are?") in Connie's speech and dialectical forms in Arnold's speech ("Toldja I'd be out, didn't I?", ""Don'tcha like my car?", "Can'tcha read it?") the author conveys the atmosphere of free informal conversation which seems to be very realistic.

Simile "...he hadn't shaved for a day or two, and the nose long and hawklike, sniffing as if she were a treat he was going to gobble up and it was all a joke..." 

CONNIE AND ARNOLD FRIEND

CONNIE AND ARNOLD FRIEND 

Connie -  The fifteen-year-old protagonist of the story. Connie is in the midst of an adolescent rebellion. She argues with her mother and sister, June, and neglects family life in favor of scoping out boys at the local restaurant. She tries to appear older and wiser than she is, and her head is filled with daydreams and popular music that feed her ideas of romance and love. When Arnold Friend arrives at Connie’s house, she must confront the harsh realities of adulthood, which bear little resemblance to her fantasies.

Arnold Friend -  A dangerous figure who comes to Connie’s house and threatens her. Arnold has pale, almost translucent skin; his hair looks like a wig; and he appears both old and young at the same time. He seems like a demonic figure, perhaps even a nightmare rather than an actual human being, but his true character is never fully clarified. He speaks calmly and quietly to Connie, which makes him seem even more threatening, and in an ambiguous scene near the end of the story, he may attack her inside her home. He ultimately convinces Connie to get in the car with him.

So,I can say that the both charaters are vivid.We can see the changes in Connie's character .Firstly,she tries to behave like adult but at the end of the story manifested her adolescence.About Arnold I can say that his character  brings mystery and mysticism in the story .This combination of the characters makes the plot intriguing .

THE PLOT OF THE STORY

Connie, fifteen, is preoccupied with her appearance. Her mother scolds her for admiring herself in the mirror, but Connie ignores her mother’s criticisms. Connie’s mother urges her to be neat and responsible like her older sister, June. June, who is twenty-four and still lives at home, works as a secretary at Connie’s high school. 

Connie is grateful for June for setting one good precedent: June goes out with her girlfriends, so their mother allows Connie to go out as well, with her best friend.

One night, a boy named Eddie invites Connie to eat dinner with him, and Connie leaves her friend at the restaurant’s counter to go with him. As they walk through the parking lot, she sees a man in a gold convertible. He smiles at her and says, “Gonna get you, baby.” 

One Sunday, her parents and June leave her at home alone while they go to a family barbeque.From the window she sees that it’s a gold convertible, and she grows afraid.

He gets out of the car and points to the words painted on the door. His name, Arnold Friend, is written next to a picture of a round smiling face, which Connie thinks resembles a pumpkin with sunglasses. Connie tells Arnold he should leave, but he insists on taking her for a ride.Connie runs from the door and grabs the telephone. In a rushed, blurry scene, something happens: Connie is sweating and screaming for her mother; she can’t dial the phone; and Arnold is “stabbing her . . . again and again with no tenderness.”From the door, Arnold tells her to put the phone back on the hook, and she obeys.She feels as though she is watching herself walk toward the door, open it, and walk outside toward Arnold. He comments on her blue eyes, even though she has brown eyes. Connie looks out at the vast expanses of land behind him and knows that’s where she is going.

The Setting of the Story

References to popular music and slang date the events in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” to the same period when Oates wrote the story in the mid-1960s. Oates sketches in few details of the town, which is meant to be a typical suburban landscape that includes familiar sights such as a shopping plaza and drive-in restaurant. This setting is further described in the reference to the newness and style of the three-year-old “asbestos ‘ranch house’” Connie lives in. Such an innocuous setting is incongruous with the violence suggested in the story, and the contrast serves to heighten the reader’s uneasiness. The lack of specific description of the setting serves to universalize the story’s themes, which suggest that Connie’s lack of identity is a legacy of modern suburban culture. Though the actual location of the story is irrelevant, the reference to the radio show Connie listens to, the “XYZ Sunday Jamboree,” may be a reference to radio station WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan, the area in which Oates lived at the time the story was written.

Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates was inspired to write “Where Are Where Have You Been?” after reading an account in Life magazine of a charismatic but insecure young man who had enticed and then killed several girls in Tucson, Arizona, during the early 1960s.

First published in 1966, Joyce Carol Oates's eerie "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" became an instant classic. It's regularly included in literary anthologies of "great" fiction, and better yet, it was even adapted into a popular 1986 film, Smooth Talk, starring Laura Dern.

According to Oates, the story was inspired by a Life magazine story about the serial killer Charles Schmid, who, like the story's villain, was an older man who preyed on adolescent girls. Was Oates struck by the gruesome serial killer? Nope. What stuck with her was "the disturbing fact that a number of teenagers – from 'good' families – aided and abetted his crimes" . It wasn't the twisted psychology of serial killers that intrigued Oates, but the abnormal actions of "normal" teenagers who helped Schmid either carry out or conceal his murders.

Part of what makes Oates's story so freaky is that it deflects most of the attention away from the would-be killer – who is still rendered totally terrifying as the creepy Arnold Friend (shudder) – and directs attention to the victim, Connie, and her "normal" social circle.

The story is set in 1960s middle-American, and the ideological turmoil of the times simmers just below the surface. You know about the 1960s – it was a decade when moral and social conventions were being challenged left and right, and the rush of American optimism and materialism after World War II was being questioned. (Think Mad Men time period.) This was the time of the civil rights movement, the birth of the hippie counterculture, and the wild popularity of rock bands like the shaggy-haired Beatles. Issues such as feminism, sexual freedom, and adolescent sexuality were hot topics.

The story itself has generated controversy since its publication. Oates has described Connie's actions at the end of the story as an "unexpected gesture of heroism," a decision to sacrifice herself so that her family would remain unharmed. But not all critics are convinced. Some read the story as an anti-feminist allegory: Arnold Friend is Connie's punishment for having sexual feelings for boys. Others read the story as a feminist critique of a male-dominated society: the ending is essentially tragic, Connie's submission to Arnold Friend standing for the ways women are oppressed in a patriarchal society. Some even read the last scenes as evidence of Connie's psychosis: there's no ennobling act here, just a fragile psyche falling apart (see Showalter's "Introduction" for a broad sketch of the debate).

Multiple, conflicting interpretations – that's the risk the story takes in leaving the ending open-ended. The "vast sunlit reaches of land" that dazzle Connie at the end of the story may well be the vast array of interpretations that generations of readers bring to it, and why the story continues to captivate us today. So, get reading, and decide what you think of this creepy little story.

Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates was born in 1938. As a child growing up in Lockport, New York, her preparation for her future career began early. At the age of fifteen she submitted her first novel to a publisher, but the book was rejected for being “too dark,” since it dealt with a drug addict who is reformed by caring for a black stallion. Such “dark” Themes are common to Oates’s work, including the frequently anthologized story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Oates completed her college education at Syracuse University in 1960 and earned a master’s degree in English at the University of Wisconsin a year later. This marked a turning point in her life, and her first published collection of short stories appeared in 1963, followed by her first novel, With Shuddering Fall, in 1964.

My Impression

I was very intrigued by the plot .Based on the circumstances of that time when American women were asserting their rights and independence from men it was hard to predict about what the story would be .It demands detailed analysis of the text because the gist of the story hides in the symbols and stylistic devices.But I consider to think that such story is worth reading as an example of successful implementation of the emotions in the text.