Women Should Always Be Wary

Within Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Joyce Carol Oates utilizes the theme of fantasy versus reality, the use of metaphors and similes, and the utilization of imagery to portray the sexual facade that Connie - the 15-year-old protagonist - is attempting to showcase. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? focuses on Connie’s utilization of female seduction and false personas, which is why Oates chooses to detail her characters in terms of their physical attributes and the ways in which they utilize them to attract men. Oates’ story is meant to drive the lesson home that the male gaze is not always something to be desired, and women should always be wary.

The story revolves around seven characters; Connie, Arnold Friend, Ellie, June, Becky, Connie’s father, and Connie’s mother. The protagonist of the story is Connie, who rejects her position as a daughter, a sister, and a “good girl” to entertain the sexual persona she wishes to be perceived. She constantly drives the conflict within the story, repeatedly teasing and making fun of her older sister June and only being concerned with petty adolescent behavior, with her obsessions over her looks, boys, and her newfound sexual desires. But Connie takes the most pride in the fact that men of all age ranges find her attractive, deciding to cultivate particular ways of dressing, laughing, and walking to make her that much more sexually desirable to the opposite sex. However, these newly adopted mannerisms are only practiced outside of her home, behaving one way around her family and an entirely different way anywhere else. This plan she has hatched is ultimately foiled when Arnold Friend decides to show up to her house, forcing the two personalities of herself that she attempted to keep separate to ultimately drive together and clash violently. In a way, Arnold’s arrival divides the story into two entirely different narratives surrounding the same overarching themes. The first narrative is written as though it is a diary entry about Connie’s life, detailing her daily routines and thoughts on the reality end of the spectrum. While in the second narrative, the story moves away from generalizations and more towards minute details giving us this overall hazy look into what seems to be a fantasy of Connie’s minds making. The second narrative possesses real-time conversations between the characters and allows the reader to see that Connie no longer has the control she thought she had over the male attention she receives. This narrative ending abruptly as the act of trauma inflicted on her by Arnold Friend turns her whole world and viewpoint into another realm separate from reality. When she leaves her home with Arnold Friend, everything she thought she knew has become devoid of any familiarity to her. Her home and everything that surrounds her turning into an alien landscape.

Connie works tirelessly throughout the piece to prove her maturity to the reader and those in the story. However, once an older man shows interest in her - Arnold Friend - she becomes terrified. Arnold Friend’s name is meant to allude to the term “Arch Fiend,” the character himself brings up this theme of fantasy versus reality that I had touched upon previously, separating the story into two narratives. Arnold Friend is meant to come across as either demon or human, real or a figment of Connie’s imagination. Everything about Arnold’s entrance screams fantastical with his gold convertible, mirrored glasses, translucent skin, and wig-like hair. Even his appearance is described to be somehow ‘otherwordly.’ However, either a demon or a figment of Connie’s imagination, his appearance adds to the overall uneasiness of his threateningly coaxing nature towards Connie. While Connie may find the mystery behind Arnold Friend to be alluring at first, that feeling quickly dissipates into fear when he seemingly knows private things about her family and friends that no one else could know. This also invites the reader to question the reality of Arnold’s character once again. Nonetheless, the reader never indeed finds out if Arnold is real or simply a figment of Connie’s imagination, either way, he is meant to be utilized within this piece as the active catalyst that transforms Connie from an adolescent into that of a grown woman, whom shes always claimed to want to be—leaving behind her childlike fantasies for the realities of being an adult.

Similes and metaphors used throughout this piece further reiterate the female seduction and false personas that Connie is attempting to portray to be seen as a sexual woman in the eyes of the men surrounding her. This is first evident when Oates describes Connie’s laugh, “…her laugh, which was cynical and drawling at home—“Ha, ha, very funny,”—but high-pitched and nervous anywhere else, like the ringing of the charms on her bracelet.” (Oates 2). This simile that Oates uses here is meant to show the contrasts between Connie’s split personality and the differences between what she’s like at home versus the sexual persona she takes on elsewhere. This image of a charm bracelet ringing is meant to be associated with that of a young teenage girl, youthful, light, and girly. In contrast, her laugh at home is a “cynical drawling” associated with the personality she employs around her family. Another successful use of metaphors in terms of describing Connie and her personas is when Oates references Connie and her friend Becky’s version of a ‘religious outlet,’ “They went up through the maze of parked and cruising cars to the bright-lit, fly-infested restaurant, their faces pleased and expectant as if they were entering a sacred building that loomed up out of the night to give them what haven and blessing they yearned for.” (Oates 2). Here Oates uses metaphorical religious language in an attempt to describe what this building means to the two girls. To Connie and Becky, this is a “sacred building,” where they can meet up with boys and listen to music. Almost as though it is their version of a church of some kind. But instead of a church, Connie and Becky go to a fly-infested restaurant where instead of praying, they flirt with boys and listen to music. Finally, the last metaphor that stood out to me through the lens of Connie’s different personas is when Arnold Friend threatens Connie, “‘This place you are now—inside your daddy’s house—is nothing but a cardboard box I can knock down any time.’” (Oates 11). Within this metaphor, Arnold refers to the dangerous situation that Connie has found herself in, to a cardboard box. Neither her house nor her parents can protect her now. Within this story, Connie’s home represents more than just shelter and family; it represents her adolescence and her true personality that lies behind her front door. Within this metaphor, Arnold Friend is not just threatening to hurt her or her family, but he is threatening to rip away any last adolescence that resides within her and her childhood home’s walls. Allowing for her personalities to come crashing down in a sense where she no longer knows what is real and what is fake - what is fantasy versus what is reality.

As mentioned within the introduction, Oates details her characters in terms of their physical attributes and the ways in which they utilize them to attract men to showcase female seduction and false personas within this work. The imagery she uses to write following this formulaic character development helps create genuine feelings within this piece, heightening all of the reader’s senses along with Connie’s. This is especially apparent when Oates describes Arnold Friend’s physical appearance, “She recognized most things about him, the tight jeans that showed his thighs and buttocks and the greasy leather boots and the tight shirt, and even that slippery friendly smile of his, that sleepy, dreamy smile that all the boys used to get across ideas they didn’t want to put into words.” (Oates 7). The language used here is meant to represent Arnold Friend’s sexual nature, through the application of the words “thighs” and “buttocks.” Oates also uses repetition of the word “tight” to describe Arnold’s pants and shirt bringing further attention to his physique. Oates then goes on to reference Arnold’s smile as both a “slippery friendly smile” and a “sleepy dreamy smile.” The use of words that both begin with the same letters - ‘sl-’ - are meant for the reader to bridge the gap between other words alike. For example, slimy or sleazy. This is how Oates wants Arnold to be perceived. Invoking his smile to convey his dark and horrendous sexual desires, the smile speaks volumes without the need to reference his thoughts directly. These uses of imagery are seen throughout the entirety of the piece; another excellent example of Oates use of imagery to invoke emotion and further describe Connie’s split personas is when Oates describes one of the final scenes of the story, “She cried out, she cried for her mother, she felt her breath start jerking back and forth in her lungs as if it were something Arnold Friend was stabbing her with again and again with no tenderness.” (Oates 10-11). Oates’ use of imagery can say so much while at the same time saying so little. Connie’s jerking breathing is meant to be compared to that of sexual assault while also being compared to being stabbed by Arnold. This imagery allows the reader to vividly grasp the sexual assault that Arnold Friend is attempting to imply. The imagery of Arnold stabbing her is meant to represent the pain that victims of such assault feel. Throughout the work, the use of imagery allows the story to be perceived as frantic through Connie’s terrified nature, exaggerating Connie’s feelings and actions to enable the reader to feel as though they are there beside Connie, experiencing everything that she is.

Through Joyce Carol Oates’ use of the theme of fantasy versus reality, her utilization of metaphors and similes, and her employment of imagery, Oates can turn the story of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? into one that portrays a young girl’s female seduction and false personas and how, in the end, they cause her to lose her adolescence and life as she knew it. Oates chooses to detail her characters in terms of their physical attributes and how they utilize them to attract men to drive the lesson of this story home further - that the male gaze is not always something to be desired, and women should always be wary.