Summary Of 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?'

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Mr. Oates wrote a short story titled, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, and in that story he uses binaries, to support religion and shows a socking turn of events, to enlighten new audience. Throughout the story we see Oates using elements of binaries to connect with religion, with the purpose of communicating with the reader factors of good, evil, light, and dark. In the beginning of the story we are introduced to the main character Connie, a young fifteen year old girl that cares more about her looks than anything else, as she says “she knew she was pretty and that was everything.” But she was also an outcast to her own family as her mom “picked at her” and compared her to her older sister “June did this, June did that, she saved money and helped clean the house and cooked and Connie …show more content…
Oates gives great details with every new character that comes across Connie, he allows us to define if the character is evil or good. For example when Oates describes Arnold Friend he is a character that seems to be a nice persona; at first, as he says “I wanta introduce myself, I'm Arnold Friend and that's my real name and I'm gonna be your friend, honey,” he claims just wanting to be friends with her, but as Connie continues to carry on a conversation with him ‘He placed his sunglasses on top of his head, carefully, as if he were indeed wearing a wig, and brought the stems down behind his ears,” she realizes how old he really is, and starts to get worried for her safety. For Arnold wasn’t the only one that had arrived to Connie’s Home, Arnold also brought a friend named Ellie which according to Oates had “the face of a forty-year-old baby.” Oates uses binaries to describing Arnold Friend and Ellie to show the reader the con artist they are, and what kind of intentions they have for a young, pure, fifteen year old, that doesn’t know much how much evil there is around her. Oates mentions that the
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