Joyce Carol Oates Essay

Where be You Going, Where catch You Been? is a minuscule story written by ren witnessed author Joyce Carol Oates. The story was originally published in 1966 in Epoch powder clip and selected for The Best American Short Stories in 1967 and later won the The O. Henry Award in 1968. The short storys prominence prompted the creation of a movie adaptation in 1986 entitled debonnaire Talk which became the center of several feminist debates. The defining short fiction was inspi inflammation by the variegated Piper of Tucson, a teenage killer from Arizona, whom the author read approximately in Life magazine back in the 60s.Using details from the real life version of Arnold Friend the storys main embodiment of subjugation and evil Oates crafted a realistic allegory that is Hawthorian, romantic, shading into parable (Oates & Showalter, 6) that depicts ingenuousness and the consequence of its loss. Like the moniker for the real life serial killer and the actual childrens parable, Whe re Are You Going, Where Have You Been? features a account that is straggle twisted Little blood- deprivation Riding Hood and representative The Pied Piper of Hamelin adapted to the post 1950s artlessness coupled with the rude awakening of America.At the center of the modern parable is the typical all American girl of the post 50s generation 15 year old Connie who is portrayed caught up between the declining innocent sensibilities of the 50s and the rude awakening of the 60s an emerging husbandry embodied by rock and roll, random violence, crime and war. Connie is said to be the embodiment of the new pietism emerging in America (Oates & Showalter, 7) and Connie represents this transitional period by being depicted as having 2 sides to her personality one that is worn one substance when she was at home and another way when she was pop outside(a) from home (Oates, 509).Quoting Douglas Griffin Connie is clearly a girl of two minds. The first is the standard life of a bore d teen in what appears to be the traditional post 1950s home the second is as a adolescent on the cusp of attachment to music, cars and sex (1). Despite the fact that Connie is a teenager awakening in the worldly 1960s, her portrayal be quiet had hints of the innocence typical of someone who grew up done most of the 50s. This is probably why Connie was chosen as the perfect representation of the trappings of choice created by the period marked with boredom she is the tragic victim of the choice to lose ones own innocence.Despite her film as being more akin to the modern teenagers of her time, Connies inherent innocence is still though barely palpable within the context of the story. To determine the state of innocence still present in the protagonist Connie, the best probable approach would be to kindredn her to the prominent figure that mirrors her in a parable often told children Little Red Riding Hood. First it must be noted that the tosh of Little Red Riding Hood as told b y Charles Perrault is a cautionary moral tale that warns innocent children of the consequences of listening to the words of a stranger.The parable goes as far as to warn women and children of the beast in sheeps clothing that not all wolves are outwardly threatening and that those most solemn are often the tame, obliging and gentle (Perrualt). In Perraults version of the childrens fable, it was slim red ride hoods own trusting words when she first encountered the wolf that gave the wolf the open he needed to scheme and eventually eat the unsuspecting child. Like little red go hood, Connie also failed to realize the presence of the wolf in the woods she was in.She saw him, noticed him Arnold Friend, but she prick her eyes at him and turned away (Oates, 510) and paid no heed to his declaration Gonna get you, thwart (Oates, 510). Little red riding hood mistook the wolfs intentions for friendliness while Connie mistook Arnold Friends look for plain simple admiration. In this par ticular situation, it could be said that Connie drop off victim to the homogeneous innocent misgivings of a child like little red riding hood did. This similar specimen is repeated once again near the end of both tales.In the childrens parable, Little Red Riding Hood once again represented innocence in the form of childish curiosity, petition a series of innocent questions that eventually build up to the grim, climactic ending. Here, in her innocence, little red riding hood failed to recognize the wolf disguised as her grandmother, blindly believing the wolfs answers without taking notice of the signs already in front of her. In a similar vein, Connie also fell victim to the disguised Arnold Friend in the same way.In this particular part of the story, Arnold Friend blatantly presents himself as a friend, talking in a sing-song manner. However, despite being able to recognized most things about him, the tight jeans the greasy leather boots and the tight shirt, that slippery fri endly pull a face of his, that sleepy dreamy smile that all the boys used to get across ideas they didnt want to put into words the singsong way he talked, the way he tapped one fist against the other in homage to the perpetual music behind him all these things did not come together (Oates, 513).until much later. Again, like little red riding hood, the wolf was already in front of Connie and she did not immediately notice the threat he posed. deflexion from these mirroring qualities between the parable and Oates story, Connie also had independent characteristics and behavioural hints that reflect her inherent innocence. This presumed innocence somewhat has a childish quality to it, possibly making it another mirroring quality between Connie and the child in little red riding hood.For example, at the beginning of the text Connie was described as having a quick flighty giggling habit of glancing at mirrors (Oats, 509) a trait that can be said Connie might share with a newborn o r toddler who has just recently discovered his/her reflection. Her walk, described as childlike and bobbing, could be seen as another hint. In public her laugh becomes high pitched and nervous as if she were shy and uncertain. During their shadows out at the drive-in restaurant she and her friend would often sit at the counter and pass their legs at the ankles in feigned modesty.Even the way she dreams her trashy dreams has a puritanical sense to it, peppered with an ideal that is in no way carnal or corrupt 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 gentle, the way it was in movies and promised in songs (Oates, 510).These descriptions of Connie paint her to still have child-like qualities. She has an ideal she believes in, she has an honest sens e about herself and her world, and she possesses the same uncertainties a child would have if reckon into a strange world. Perhaps, in Connies case this is especially true since she is growing up in a new culture that is not like that of the previous decade. However, being an adolescent exposed to the emerging new morals of the time, Connie is often faced with instances that will challenge her moral choices.She is cast as part of a generation that has become bored, a generation that is slowly turning towards anything that would distract them even for the briefest moments. And in the years the story was based upon, the teenagers of the time has turned to rock and roll, drugs and sex as means of entertainment (Moser). Connie in the text is no different. Her fantasy world is the world of James Dean, Natalie Wood and Rebel Without a Cause (Oates & Showalter, 7). She lives in a time where pre-marital sex is romanticized, drugs is an option and teen rebellion is hyped.Her exposure to t his surround was not solely coincidental but also consensual. It was always her choice to entering a sacred twist that loomed up out of the night to give them what haven and blessing they yearned for (Oates, 510). It was always her decision to go out with boys named Eddie or some other and have their faces fall back and dissolved into a single face that was not even a face but an idea, a feeling, mixed up with the urgent insistent buffeting of the night (Oates, 510). It was her own behaviour and choices that led her to the same woods the wolf Arnold Friend stalked.Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? has always been argued as an allegory of good versus evil, of innocence and corruption (Oats & Showalter, 9). Certainly the character of Arnold Friend is the depiction of evil and of corruption and Connie saw this but turned a blind eye. Friends seduction and coercion of Connie near the end of the story is a representation of how ones choices might then invite the devil to dri ve up office into ones very own driveway. It was Connies choices that spoke to Arnold, the same way little red riding hood told the wolf, and led both the evil right onto her very own doorsteps.Ultimately, Connies journey down the path of worldliness eventually leads her to a interpose that she clearly did not intend (Griffin, 1) and this has left her hollow with what had been fear but what was now just an nothingness as she watched herself push the door slowly open moving out into the sunlight where Arnold Friend waited (Oates, 520). Connie, like little red riding hood, was consumed by the wolf. Works Cited Griffin, Douglas. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been by Joyce Carol Oates An mental test of the Trappings of Choice. Www.Bookstove. com. Stanza Ltd. 6 May 2009 http//www. bookstove. com/Drama/Where-Are-You-Going-Where-Have-You-Been-by-Joyce-Carol-Oates. 36420 Moser, Don. The Pied Piper of Tucson. Casebook. Oates, Joyce Carol Laurie Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell (editors). Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? literary productions Reading, Reacting, Writing 6th Ed. Cengage Learning, 2006. Oates, Joyce Carol and Elaine Showalter. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? 2nd Ed. Rutgers University Press, 1994. Perrault, Charles. Little Red Riding Hood. Casebook.