“A Good Man Is Hard To Find” by Flannery O’Connor and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates are two short stories with tragic endings. These stories can be considered murder mysteries. However, they are not the average “who killed this person?” stories, they are more mysterious due to the killers themselves. The killer in “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” is named The Misfit and the creepier abductor and assumed murderer in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Arnold Friend, are not all that they seem to be. At a first, quick read the two men seem to be, in The Misfit’s case, just a looney redneck and in Arnold Friend’s incident a stereotypical child predator. However, looking thoroughly through the dialogue the
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“An old friend”, is a direct reference to the Devil who was the first to befriend Adam and Eve according to religious texts. The list of evidence continues with his unnatural features, “…She saw how pale the skin around his eyes was, like holes that were not in shadow but instead in light. His eyes were like chips of broken glass that catch the light in an amiable way.”(Oates) This implies he has almost luminescent eyes with a source of light coming from behind the hole in his eyes. The next devilish characteristic is his feet/legs, the way Arnold Friend stands and how his boots look gives the reader the idea there is something more to it. Perhaps Joyce Carol Oates wanted the reader to understand it could be hooves that Arnold Friend is hiding in his boots. The quote, “One of his boots was at a strange angle, as if his foot wasn’t in it. It pointed to the left, bent at the ankle,”(Oates) and the following, “He was standing in a strange way, leaning back against the car as if he were balancing himself,”(Oates) is contextual evidence that Arnold Friend has something to hide and there is something severely wrong with his feet. The list continues with much smaller yet relevant signs such as: the way he gets to Connie by temptation not force, Connie feeling hot and a heat in the room, Arnold Friend not coming into the house without invitation, Connie’s dead neighbors, and most applicable because it was something the author did intentionally was use a bible verse in her story. It is fair to say that Arnold Friend is confirmed the
“An old friend”, is a direct reference to the Devil who was the first to befriend Adam and Eve according to religious texts. The list of evidence continues with his unnatural features, “…She saw how pale the skin around his eyes was, like holes that were not in shadow but instead in light. His eyes were like chips of broken glass that catch the light in an amiable way.”(Oates) This implies he has almost luminescent eyes with a source of light coming from behind the hole in his eyes. The next devilish characteristic is his feet/legs, the way Arnold Friend stands and how his boots look gives the reader the idea there is something more to it. Perhaps Joyce Carol Oates wanted the reader to understand it could be hooves that Arnold Friend is hiding in his boots. The quote, “One of his boots was at a strange angle, as if his foot wasn’t in it. It pointed to the left, bent at the ankle,”(Oates) and the following, “He was standing in a strange way, leaning back against the car as if he were balancing himself,”(Oates) is contextual evidence that Arnold Friend has something to hide and there is something severely wrong with his feet. The list continues with much smaller yet relevant signs such as: the way he gets to Connie by temptation not force, Connie feeling hot and a heat in the room, Arnold Friend not coming into the house without invitation, Connie’s dead neighbors, and most applicable because it was something the author did intentionally was use a bible verse in her story. It is fair to say that Arnold Friend is confirmed the