Robert Anderson
English 101
26 February 2010
A Literary Analysis of Joyce Carol Oates short story:
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
The prerogative; Authors have a right to suspend belief and twist reality or even
humanity to their own special purpose, we call this artistic license. It’s not a real license but one
that’s issued by mutual consent of the readers, readers who in turn are granted license by the
author to extrapolate narrative, and imagine detail in a story that was never intended. If the
author makes you stop and think, or get to the end and ask what happens next? That’s when the
author has succeeded. They’ve engaged the mind, opened the imagination, they’ve pulled you
into their world and took you for a ride, and J.C. Oates does this as well as anyone.
Upon reading the story for the first time it flows nicely, its pace and narrative are
addicting. In a few succinct pages J.C. allows us to invest our time, energy, and imagination
without feeling cheated or short changed. In fact it is so well written that only in one small
paragraph at the end of the story could the casual reader question the narrative. In a moment of
uncertainty and disbelief, I found myself doubting the authenticity of the character of Connie.
When Connie walks through the screen door at the end of the story she does it barefoot. The
character of Connie is extremely into fashion and clothing and would never leave the house
without a good pair of shoes. She changes her own appearance several times during the day to
reflect her location, mood, and circumstance. She notices what everyone is wearing, and even
fixates on the clothes worn by Arnold Friend with his crooked boots and the enigmatic Ellie. The
driveway is gravel and crunchy, the front porch of the Ranch House is made of wood and full of
slivers. Connie seems to know when she leaves, there will be walking involved. Would she or
any girl her age, leave without at least a pair of flip flops or slippers?
We can easily excuse this small discrepancy in the story, in fact we insist on it, it’s
necessary for the climax of Oates vision to end in this fashion. If the character of Connie stops to
put on a pair of shoes, that would be perfectly sensible. However it would then be too much to
believe that she would still go with Arnold. For the good of the story, we hereby grant the author
artistic license, to briefly skew the nature of humanity. This then begs the question what happens
to Connie? This is the thought the author leaves us with, does she live or die?
Oates effectively uses the image of small town America, its relaxed pace and laid back
mood of normalcy, to contrast the emotional confusion and fear that Connie is feeling. Even
before the arrival of the mysterious Arnold Friend, Connie is ill at ease with her life. Connie’s
family is all but invisible to her, they inhabit her life and she notes their faults and frailties in
conjunction with her own, but they are always on the periphery of what she views as her real life.
I can relate to how Connie feels as a teenager growing up. The hometown seems to shrink and
become suffocating as we learn about the world around us. We see parents and grand parents as
stodgy and old fashioned, its only as we grow and mature that we learn how important family
can be. Sometimes only through the death of a loved one can we start to see those around us
clearly. I’ve been with family members at the moment of death, as they happily talk with family
and friends and eerily even long dead loved ones. These people would be considered clinically
insane, with the term insane defined as ideas, thoughts, and emotions beyond the normal.
Oates character of Connie may also be insane, she defines what’s real and what isn’t only
by her limited knowledge and experience and rejects what her family views as normal, like
backyard Barbecues and weekend picnics. J.C. Oates deftly apply this type of insanity to pull
you into her story, to sweep you up in her writing and take you for a ride until you start buying
into that very same insane vision yourself?
Upon reading the Oates story for a second time, the lines of insanity and reality become
even more blurred. Feelings of weakness, confusion, and anger, are joined by uncertainty and
disbelief. We see now that J.C starts the insanity right from the first paragraph, with the imagery
of Connie, “looking right through her mother, into a shadowy vision of herself…” (Para. 1) or
when the character of Connie “wished her mother was dead and she herself was dead and it was
all over”. (Para. 3) Call it foreshadowing or a mystical prescience, but Oates seems to be
describing a condition and a character that even she the author isn’t fully aware of. A character
that can only be seen out of the corner of your eye, a fleeting glimpse of motion in shadows.
Connie encounters this character for the first time at the drive-in, he’s driving his
convertible. When Connie sees him she closes her eyes and turns to leave, but glancing back
over her shoulder she sees him again, he spoke and told her they would meet later. No one not
even her friend Eddie noticed this unique man, in his unique car speaking to Connie. When she
sees the stranger next, the world is peaceful and still, his arrival is announced by the crunching of
gravel under his tires. The imagery is subtle it evokes a foretold coming, not preceded by a
mighty fanfare of trumpets, but quietly like a leaf in late fall drifting to the ground. The character
of Arnold Friend has arrived, but he’s not what Connie or the reader expects. He may not even
be what the writer intended, but he is real, Arnold Friend is the personification of Death.
J.C. Oates makes the case for this, whether deliberately or subconsciously, as she
describes Arnold Friend. He stands in odd poses constantly bracing himself with whatever is at
hand. Clearly Death hasn’t had much practice at being human. Arnold tells Connie this is a
special day, “This is your day set aside for a ride with me and you know it.” (Para. 23) In the
writers description Arnolds skin is pale and his eyes are memorable glass mosaics. Death has
assumed human form for Connie, to ease her into the afterlife. He has no experience at being
human and doesn’t always get it right but he tries. This Death is not a skeletal creature, riding in
on a flaming horse, scythe in hand. This Death cares about Connie; he’s taken the time to learn
about her, knows everyone she knows, where they are, what they are doing, even when they are
miles away. Death shows a failure in his understanding of life however, when he asks about the
old women down the road. Connie has to inform him repeatedly that she’s passed away. He
doesn’t seem to understand the answer or perhaps he doesn’t understand the concept. He doesn’t
know the finality of death.
J.C. hints repeatedly that Connie may be dying, she’s light headed, dizzy, breathing
rapidly, and her heart is pounding. There were none of these symptoms on her date with Eddie,
these were new unexplained feelings which frightened her. In a later paragraph Arnold tells
Connie “Now put your hand on your heart, honey. Feel that? That feels solid too but we know
better.” (Para. 57) I believe at this point in the story Connie is already dead, she collapsed and
died on the kitchen floor with the telephone clutched in her hand. The noise J.C. describes as a
wailing, are the Angels mourning over the death of an innocent young girl, a life which ended
too soon. Whether from congenital heart disease or cancer from asbestos, Connie died young and
she would not live to see her sweet 16.
To a human insane with pain, their body weak and failing, Death can come as a friend.
This Death went the extra mile, he may not have completely understood humans but did the best
that he could to comfort this young girl. He kept the attention focused on him, never leaving her
time to brood or feel sorry for her self. He eased the transition of her young soul into the
afterlife, she didn’t die alone.
Many cultures have such beliefs, the Greeks believed in Kharon the Ferry Man on the
River Styx. The Hindus have Kali, The Black One, God of death. Most cultures relate to a
mythical specter that ushers the souls of the dead to their place in the afterlife. I think J.C. Oates
story befits such a tale. It’s a modern myth, one that helps us better understand and define life,
death, and the afterlife. J.C. describes this crossing over herself in a closing sentence, with a
vision of hope she writes “…so much land that Connie had never seen before and did not
recognize except to know that she was going to it.” (Last line) and Where Connie is going she
won’t need shoes.
Imagination and commentary throughout this essay added as my prerogative. Read the
story a second time, with eyes partly closed and mind open. If you sense a friend approach and
stand behind you reading over your shoulder, don’t look back, look down and check his shoes.