Transformation Depicted In Joyce Carol Oates Where Is Here

Improved Essays
Joyce Carol Oates “Where Is Here” uses transformation to inflict fear upon the reader by showing scare people because it shows how a n ordinary household normal house can change in an instant and make the reader uncomfortable. This is effective because it goes to show how ordinary scenarios can transform into unordinary scenarios at any given time. In contrast, “The patterned wallpaper seemed drained of color” (76). This is unordinary because it goes to show how before the stranger visited the family, their lives and the house were completely normal, and after the stranger left the house seemed “out of place.” The house was realistic before the stranger since it was colorful, however when the stranger left, so did the color. This is supernatural

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    With the use of figurative language, the author attempts to change the reader’s beliefs and show a new perspective.…

    • 927 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    What does the devil look like and how does he sound? Is he just a cloven beast with horns and a roaring voice? Or is he a little more inconspicuous? In her short story, “Where are you going, Where have you been?”, Joyce Carol Oates shows readers exactly who the devil is. The story takes place in the sixties, and revolves around two main characters, Connie and Arnold Friend.…

    • 826 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” written by Joyce Carol Oates is an unsettling and incredibly formidable story of a young woman’s loss of innocence during a time of social change, unrest and turbulence.…

    • 1410 Words
    • 6 Pages
    • 6 Works Cited
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Why do people feel horror when experiencing sudden change in a story? Transformation can be witnessed in the three stories, House Taken Over, Where Is Here, and Sleep Paralysis. In these stories transformation makes the readers feel fear, alarm, and panic. In the story, House Taken Over, there was sudden change in the middle of the story, because of an anonymous intruder.…

    • 1010 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Author Joyce Carol Oates is known as the modern master of Gothic horror and has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She is well-known for writing tales of terror that are really scary. She has written over 100 books. To get an idea of her writing you can begin with her story collection “Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque”.…

    • 139 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    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…

    • 1051 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    After all she was only a little girl alone in the middle of nowhere. Jeanette was put into another threatening situation due to her parents lack of paying attention and lack of protection. They Walls family was currently staying in the city Phoenix because Rosemary’s mother passed down the house. The problem with the house was there were countless perverts around. Jeanette describes it as, “The neighbourhood also had its share of perverts” (Walls 65).…

    • 2034 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Caleb Brewer English 3 “Where is Here” Mr. Yoder In Where is Here by Joyce Carol Oats, there are many different ideas that are all uniquely different, but perhaps none more unique than the idea of “infinity” that Oats displays within the story. There are three main figures in the story that are used to express infinity. The house, the family, and the drawing that the stranger drew for the son. Oats utilize these items to express an interesting idea to the reader such as to enable them to draw their own conclusions about what they could mean, and how they shape a very peculiar answer to what actually happens within the house.…

    • 724 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Pied Piper Arnold Friend, diversely known as Charles Schmid or “The Pied Piper of Tuscon,” in the story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” is a serial killer who has a name for himself. Throughout his life, Charles Schmid manages to kill three teenage girls from 1964 to 1965 by beguiling them to him by altering his appearance and intriguing his victims by his persuasive choice of words . In 1966, Joyce Carol Oates found inspiration to write ,“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” in a Life Magazine starring Schmid’s manslaughter case in one of the pages. The inspiration Oates found was that a man was preying on adolescent teenagers and she knew then that this could be turned into a story. Katherine Ramsland states, “Charles…

    • 958 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Furthermore, the protagonist personifies the houses by calling them “brown imperturbable faces.” His detached, uninhabited house is excluded from the other calm, normal houses causing him to feel…

    • 1859 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Transformation is often used used in stories used in stories meant to scare us. In our own lives we are often scared of change whether it's for the good or bad. In scary stories transformation occurs mostly in objects, settings, and humans or living creatures. Transformation is very much often used in scary stories to elicit fear. Its often very scary when settings or objects or living beings transform to something bad or ugly because it's weird to think that something was transformed to something bad that was good.…

    • 916 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The setting of a story is the place, time, or language that describes where the primary events take place. The setting of a story essentially sets of the basis of the story. It creates limits for the events of the story based off of where they take place, in the aspect of both time and date. Throughout the years, in not only America, but around the world certain types of pieces become very popular for short periods of time. Some of these will come to be known as eras, others just phases in literature.…

    • 1401 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Relationships, changes and appearances can be caused by multiple events and situations dealing with human beings. They can then alter from time to time off what another person has said or what they have done to affect them in their lives. The novel “6” written by Karen Tayleur and the picture book “Piggy Book” by Anthony Browne both go to show the relationships, appearances and how individuals change in their own perception. The novel and picture book not only shows us the issues and problems that people go through but goes on to identify what a person can become and how their relationship has changed once some of these issues and problems arise. Throughout the novel and picture book composers used a variety of language and narrative techniques…

    • 1442 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Has there ever been a person who hasn’t woken up from a horrible nightmare or imagined the worse? Imagination can turn into fear because, when you have a dream, it can turn into a nightmare because your imagination overcomes reason and reality. Imagination is like a fantasy, something made up in your mind, it could be fear or it could be the opposite. Imagination can take over reason, because your mind goes into its state of its own, and believes whatever they are imagining, like if it was real. In the story “Where is here” by Joyce Carol Oates, shows and explains, how imagination takes over all reason.…

    • 518 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Have you ever done anything selfish, stupid, and change yourself? Well, Connie has done all of the above Connie changes herself around certain social groups. She’s selfish because she only cares about herself and her image towards people. And she hangs out with the older kids, who are a bad influence. In Joyce Carrol Oates’ Where are you going, Where have you been, Connie’s naivetea leads to her rape and brutal murder.…

    • 600 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays