Joyce Carol Oates Essay

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.…

one of the characters once mentioned, “I know what the world can do to a girl who only sees beauty in it.” Behind these lines there is real life significance. In this critical analysis, a short story, Where are you going, Where have you been? Joyce Carol Oates infuses a setting and imagery and allegory to convey her message of real life’s situation of a teenager’s loss of innocence, rape and murder. In her short story, the author took…

Going? Where Have You Been? By Joyce Carol Oates is the story of Connie, a 15 year old Texan girl, and one fateful summer day. Through characterization and symbolism the author shows that often teenagers rush into the fantasy of adulthood, never expecting how real it can get. By using the summer to represent her fall from innocence, music to show how Connie feels, and her habit of checking her reflection to prove she’s still young and insecure- despite how she may act, Oates provides an intense…

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is one of Joyce Carol Oates’s most well-known pieces of writing. It has been widely anthologized in many college English textbooks throughout all of America. This story is actually based on a true story about a serial killer named Charles Schmid based out of Arizona. He is responsible for the death of four people from the Tuscon area in 1960 and was sentenced to death for his actions. Oates creates her own version of this story using the characters…

At what point does a girl become a woman? In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, author Joyce Carol Oates tells the story of a relatable girl, named Connie, and her initiation into womanhood. While maturity, independence, and handsome boys attract Connie to the adult world, her perfect dream of adulthood is interrupted by antagonist male forces and an internal conflict between protection and self-reliance. Throughout the short story, Connie attempts to prove that she is a grown woman by…

Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” has been discussed, at length, throughout the literary and academic community since it was first published in 1966. Literary critics have discussed a variety of analogies between fairytale, or mythological, characters, and the characters in Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Oates uses subtle, and sometimes obvious, references to a variety of childhood fairytales and…

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. Connie is the typical teenage party girl, hanging out with new boys every night at the drive-in. One night, Connie has an…

need adult supervision, without it, some bad things could happen. The guidance of your parents is what makes you to be a good person. Both Donny In “Teenage Wasteland” by Anne Taylor and Connie in “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?”, by Joyce Carol Oates are somewhat troubled with the absence of their parents. These two characters have little contact with their parents and their parents have no idea what is going on with them in their social lives. Informing and talking to your parents…

(Rainn.org). Connie in Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” is a 15 year old teenager in rebellious phase who likes to hangout. On the other hand, the unidentified Grandmother in Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is an old fashion southern conservative who judges a person based on her prejudiced or preconceived opinion. In the surface, Connie and the Grandmother suggest they live in a completely different world, but an in-depth analysis of Oates’ “Where…

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and according to Joyce Carol Oates in her poem, “Love of the Parrots,” she perceives the parrots mating season as beautiful. In “Love of the Parrots,” Oates uses physical and illuminating imagery to convey her own meaning of beauty through the mating season of the Yucatan parrots while also illuminating a deeper meaning of the poem with a metaphor that ties to humans finding love.. As an illustration, Oates uses the colors of the Yucatan parrots to describe…