Joyce Carol Oates Essay

Where are You Going, Where lay down You Been? is a gip story written by renowned author Joyce Carol Oates. The story was originally make in 1966 in Epoch magazine and selected for The Best American gyp Stories in 1967 and later won the The O. Henry Award in 1968. The short storys prominence prompted the creation of a movie rendering in 1986 entitled Smooth Talk which became the center of several womens liberationist debates. The defining short fiction was inspi rosy-cheeked by the Pied piper of Tucson, a teenage killer from Arizona, whom the author read close to in Life magazine back in the 60s.Using details from the legitimate life version of Arnold star the storys main pattern of seduction and sinfulness Oates crafted a realistic allegory that is Hawthorian, romantic, shading into apologue (Oates & Showalter, 6) that depicts innocence and the consequence of its loss. wish the moniker for the real life back-to-back killer and the actual childrens metaphor, Where Are You Going, Where rescue You Been? features a fib that is art object twisted pocketable fierce Riding Hood and part The Pied Piper of Hamelin adapted to the post 1950s innocence couple with the rude alter of America.At the center of the modern simile is the regular all American girl of the post 50s generation 15 course of instruction old Connie who is portrayed caught up between the declining innocent sensibilities of the 50s and the rude wake of the 60s an emerging culture embodied by rock and roll, random violence, criminal offence and war. Connie is utter to be the embodiment of the new morality emerging in America (Oates & Showalter, 7) and Connie represents this transitional period by being depicted as having two sides to her personality wizard that is worn one way when she was at home and a nonher way when she was away from home (Oates, 509).Quoting Douglas Griffin Connie is distinctly a girl of two minds. The first is the standard life of a bored teen in what appears to be the traditional post 1950s home the second is as a teenager on the leaflet of attachment to music, cars and sex (1). Despite the fact that Connie is a teenager awakening in the worldly 1960s, her portrayal still had hints of the innocence typical of psyche who grew up through nigh of the 50s. This is probably why Connie was chosen as the perfect representation of the trappings of choice created by the period tag with boredom she is the tragic victim of the choice to lose ones own innocence.Despite her depiction as being more identical to the modern teenagers of her condemnation, 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 liken her to the conspicuous figure that mirrors her in a parable often told children Little red- grammatical constructiond Riding Hood. First it must be noned that the tale of Little Red Riding Hood as told by Charles Perrault is a contraceptive 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 masher in sheeps clothing that not all wolves are emergewardly threatening and that those most dangerous are often the tame, obliging and gentle (Perrualt). In Perraults version of the childrens fable, it was runty red move hoods own trusting words when she first encountered the creature that gave the wolf the opening he needed to scheme and ultimately eat the unsuspecting child. Like little red riding hood, Connie also failed to realize the presence of the wolf in the woods she was in.She saw him, noticed him Arnold Friend, hardly she slit her eye at him and turned away (Oates, 510) and paid no heed to his firmness of purpose Gonna get you, baby (Oates, 510). Little red riding hood mistook the wolfs intentions for familiarityliness while Co nnie mistook Arnold Friends look for knit simple admiration. In this particular situation, it could be said that Connie fell victim to the alike(p) innocent misgivings of a child like little red riding hood did. This similar pattern is repeated once over 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, asking 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 cloaked as her grandmother, blindly accept the wolfs answers without taking notice of the signs already in summit 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 lather boots and the tight shirt, that slippery friendly smile of his, that sleepy dreamy smile that all the boys used to get across ideas they didnt want to erect into words the singsong way he talked, the way he tapped one fist against the other in homage to the perpetual music can buoy 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. Aside from these mirroring qualities between the parable and Oates story, Connie also had independent characteristics and demeanoral hints that reflect her inherent innocence. This presumed innocence fairly has a childish tonus 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 head-in-the-clouds giggling habit of glancing at mirrors (Oat s, 509) a trait that can be said Connie might share with a newborn or toddler who has provided 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 neuronal as if she were shy and uncertain. During their nighttimes out at the drive-in restaurant she and her friend would often sit at the counter and crossed their legs at the ankles in feigned modesty.Even the way she dreams her trashy dreams has a puritanical reason to it, peppered with an deification that is in no way carnal or corrupt Connie sit 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 s till have child-like qualities. She has an ideal she believes in, she has an honest sense about herself and her world, and she possesses the same uncertainties a child would have if cast into a strange world. Perhaps, in Connies case this is especially true since she is ontogeny up in a new culture that is not like that of the previous decade. However, being an adolescent exposed to the emerging new ethical motive 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 lento turning towards anything that would distract them even for the briefest moments. And in the years the story was ground upon, the teenagers of the time has turned to rock and roll, drugs and sex as means of deflection (Moser). Connie in the text is no different. Her fantasy world is the world of pile 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 this environment was not solely coincidental but also consensual. It was always her choice to entering a sacred building that loomed up out of the night to give them what harbor and blessing they yearned for (Oates, 510). It was always her decision to go out with boys named Eddie or most other and have their faces fall back and dissolved into a single face that was not even a face but an idea, a feeling, intricate up with the urgent insistent pounding 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). sure as shooting 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 irresis tible impulse of Connie near the end of the story is a representation of how ones choices might consequently invite the devil to drive up amend 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 manner of worldliness eventually leads her to a place that she clearly did not symbolise (Griffin, 1) and this has left her hollow with what had been fear but what was now just an vacuity 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 Examination of the harness 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? Literature 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.