EXPRESSIVENESS OF THE STORY

    The style of the story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" may be described as journalistic as Carol Oates tries to express the flowing of the story in the detailed and objective way but still some expressive means and stylistic devices are used by the author to reveal the idea of the story.

    The age and the social status of the main character Connie we may guess not only by description and by her actions but also by her speech. Using 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.

   A lot of stylistic devices expresses the mood of the story. For example, describing Arnold, the author uses a 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..." showing his devil passion toward the girl.  The simile "His eyes were like chips of broken glass that catch the light in an amiable way." also expresses his cruel nature.

Connie and Arnold Friend

     The main character, Connie, is an ordinary teenager who lives in an ordinary American family. She has conflicts with her family because she thinks that her mother is old-fashioned and can't understand her and it seems to her that everybody loves her elder sister but not her. Connie thinks a lot about her appearance, spends a lot of time before the mirror and likes when boys notice her beauty. Realizing that she becomes elder she tries to experience new and new emotions and situations, to explore a world of an adult life.

     Arnold Friend turns out to be an absolute opposition to Connie, a man from another world. With his appearance Connie's life changes absolutely. He is described like a man about 30, well-dressed, wearing fashion sunglasses. His appearance and his car attract girl for the first time but when she speaks with him further she noticing that he is not the man he tries to be or to seem. He is like a bad side of Connie's soul which wants to experience something forbidden and inappropriate.

The Plot of The Story 

     The events of this story run in very intriguing and unpredictable way.  The main character is Connie, she is 15 and she lives with her parents and her sister. The actions take place in summer and that's why the girl spends a lot of time with her best friend visiting different cinemas and meeting with boys. 

     One night when she had a dinner with her friend Eddie, a strange man noticed Connie and nodded to her but she didn't pay much attention to it until one Sunday she saw that stranger appeared at her doorstep accompanied by a friend in a gold car.

     The man introduced himself Arnold Friend and he was trying to invite Connie for a little ride in his cool car. The girl wanted to get rid of a gate-crasher but at the same time he started threatening her in making some harm to her family is she would refuse. Making an attempt to call a police without any results, Connie resigned and went out.

   

The Setting of The Story.

       The story is set in America in 1960s which is very interesting period in the history of American culture which influenced particularly all the world in the second half of the XX century. It was the time when America started to rethink its mental positions of throughout optimism. Rock music and its icon band the Beatles became extremely popular, the counterculture of hippie appeared. Moreover, women started to think about their role and their rights in the society and actually in this historical period the movement of feminism appeared.

      In such historical background the story takes place. The main character Connie lives in the suburbs of a little American town. As she is only a teenager she lives with her parents in a house. Her friend and she visit movie theaters, shopping malls and drive-in restaurants. The time in which the main character lives and everything which surrounds her influence her mode of life and decisions she makes.

Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938)

     Born in Lockport, New York, a famous American writer Joyce Oates started to write her novels and short stories in high school using a typewriter - a present from her grandmother. Her works were firstly published under the pseudonym Rosamond Smith.

     Oates published about fifty novels, thirty collections of short stories, eight books of poetry, eight books of plays, a lot of essays and critical articles. Three novels made Joyce Oates the finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. They are: "Black Water" (1992), "What I Lived For" (1994) and "Blonde" (2000). For her productive literary work she also received the Malamud Award for a lifetime of literary achievement in 1996.

     The short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" was first published in the journal "Epoch" in 1966 and was included in the short-story collection "The Wheel of Love". It is one of the famous Oates' works and some critics consider it a real classic. As the writer said, the prototype of the main hero is a serial killer Charles Schmid who was chasing for teenager girls in 1960s. In the story a female character Connie struggles from the violence and prosecution of Arnold Friend. 

    In 1988 the story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" was adopted into a popular film "Smooth Talk".

     Finally I've read the story              

"Where are you going, Where have you been?" by Joyce Carol Oates. This story is one of the most famous author's work and was firstly published in the literary journal "Epoch" in 1966 and in 1970 it was included in the collection of short stories "The Wheel of Love".     My first emotions created by this story are quite contradictory because I didn't expect that the plot of this story has such a development which resembles some criminal rather than a simple story about teenager's life as it was expected from first several paragraphs of the text. The development of the events is very intriguing and it reads on one breath.     In general, this story, which starts with describing an ordinary life of an ordinary teenager, turns out to be a breathtaking story full of actions, emotions and feelings. "Where are you going, Where have you been?" by Joyce Carol Oates. This story is one of the most famous author's work and was firstly published in the literary journal "Epoch" in 1966 and in 1970 it was included in the collection of short stories "The Wheel of Love".