An Analysis Of Joyce Carol Oates 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been'

Writing would never be called my passion; however, if the topic of interest is thought-provoking, writing can be pleasurable. I have always been exceedingly critical of my writing, and I have a bad habit of producing your standard “five paragraph with five sentences” essay. High school was the true test of my writing skills, mainly because I had to take the ACT and SAT with writing if I wanted to get into the only Georgia school that I thought was up to par with my standards: The University of Georgia. Even though my teachers have considered me to be an acceptable writer, I have always considered myself rather subpar. This insecurity about my writing has haunted me throughout my life, and I have this feeling towards writing mainly because I …show more content…
In Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”, Oates quite obviously give the main antagonist, Arnold Friend, the symbolic role of Satan, and in his devilish ways, he intimidates, threatens, and eventually captures the main character, Connie, and takes her to Hell with him, which most likely symbolizes Connie’s death. Arnold, when first presented, only seemed like an eerie stalker of Connie; however, he finally shows his cruel and inhumane when he assaults Connie in her own home, and basically forces her to go to Hell with him with the lingering threat of harming her family if she does not comply. I included a quote in this essay by Joyce Wegs where she states, “Arnold is far more than a grotesque portrait of a psychopathic killer masquerading as a teenager; he also has all the traditional sinister traits of that arch-deceiver and source of grotesque terror, the devil”. Arnold can either be seen as the devil or a serial killer, but both are obviously sinister and malicious beings, and with that being said, I basically explained that it is hard to argue against the thought of Arnold being an inhumane …show more content…
Although the two stories’ degree of child abuse are one two different spectrums, they both exhibit the blatant disregard for the safety and livelihood of the children in the stories. “Babycakes” is possibly the best example of one of the worst acts of humanity: murdering and torturing babies. They were treated in the same manner as the animals in the poem were, which includes being used for experimentation, decoration, and consumption. The effect of this story is uncannily realistic and accurate of how some humans are vacant of empathy towards the more helpless creatures in our world and do not value the lives of others. I felt as though in the being of the poem, the adults were a bit hesitant about killing babies, but, after a while, many people became desensitized to the situation and eventually begin to moralize it. I interpreted this poem as Gaiman’s way of showcasing the inner inhumanities that humans display and