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

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. Together with her husband, Oates opened a small publishing house and started a literary magazine “Ontario Review” in Canada. Later in America the author started working in the position of Professor of Humanities at Princeton University...

    

The main theme of the short story is the life of an ordinary teenager in America of 1960s and dangers which may wait for a young unexperienced person...  

The message of the story is unpreparedness of a young person to make serious decisions and resist against different temptations...  

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....  

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.

From the point of view of presentation the text is the 3^d person narrative which makes the story sound more objective, with the author rather distant from the events depicted in the text.

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.

   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.

The plot of the story is very intriguing and dynamic. It runs as follows:

1)                Exposition (the first three paragraphs). The main character Connie and her family are introduced. Also the author tells about the relations in the family which are further reflects on Connie’s behavior and actions.

2)                Development of the events: Connie goes for a walk with her friend; she meets some stranger in the drive-in restaurant; one Sunday morning Connie sees this stranger at the door of her house; Arnold Friend proposes Connie to go for a ride with him on his golden car; Connie wants to get rid of the stranger.

3)                Climax: Connie is afraid and she is going to call the police (“If I call the police they'll get you, they'll arrest you—…”).

4)                Anticlimax: Arnold frightens Connie that e may do harm to all her family if she’ll call a police and Connie decides to give up.

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. In some respect the reader may treat the story like an article in some popular magazine because the events seem to be very realistic and the author like retells the story heard from the main its participants. Most expressive means are used in describing the main characters of the story and mostly there are lexical stylistic devices – metaphor, simile and epithets. It helps to reveal the characters’ personalities fully within a few lines in the story and to see their soul from inside. So the main stylistic devices used in the story are:

Lexical stylistic devices.

From the very first lines of the story we may notice the epithet “…nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors…” which is used to convey the habit of the main character Connie to check her appearance in the mirror all the possible time. This habit characterizes the girl like a typical American teenager who pays a lot of attention to her appearance and wants to look attractive for other people who surround her.

In describing Connie’s mother the 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. Connie is much more beautiful than her mother because of the difference in their age and because of it mother doesn’t like her daughter and doesn’t support her in difficult situations, Connie doesn’t receive the necessary in her age mother’s support and pieces of advice. The epithet “She had a high, breathless, amused voice…” characterizes this woman 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.

  

  Syntactical stylistic devices.

The case of 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.” the author managed in one sentence to describe the personality of Connie’s father who is aside from the family’s life and his existence nobody actually notices because it is purposeful.

The usage of 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.” conveys the main thoughs of a teenager Connie who doesn’t have any close friend to share with her thoughts at that is why she is forced to be leaved with her thoughts and her music one by one.

I consider the ending of the story to be opened because it is described in a very uncertain manner what happened with the main character Connie at the end of the story. Does her submission with the destiny was a well-considered decision or she was just afraid for her relatives? What did Arnold Friend do with her in the last paragraphs because it is unclear if he came in to the house or he was all the time outside?

To sum up I’d like to say that I’m very glad that I’ve read this story as it acquainted me with such a talented American writer Joyce Oates. I’m fascinated with her style of writing – clear and at the same time thought-provoking – and this story inspired me for reading some other her famous short stories. As for the short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, I think it is worth reading for everybody who is not ignorant to the members of his or her family.