Where Are You Going Where Have You Been Analysis

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Short Story: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
The short story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? was published in 1966 by Joyce Carol Oates. It tells a story of a 15-year-old girl named Connie who leaves for a car ride with an older man named Arnold. Although Oates short story can be understood as a crime drama based on the criminal activities of Charles Schmid or a cautionary tale against the permissive “sex, drugs, and rock n roll” culture, in this essay I will argue that this short story is a modern retelling of Death and the Maiden because of the parallels of Arnold to the mythological figure of Death, Connie’s reference to the Maiden and the mythological setting. Edmund V. White a close friend of Oates described her as an “accomplished poet [who] reads poetry with a close eye- her introduction to The Essential Dickinson …show more content…
have been understood in many different ways but in this essay, I argued it's best seen as a modern retelling of Death and the Maiden because of the parallels of Arnold to the mythological figure of Death, Connie’s reference to the Maiden and the mythological setting. Arnold fit the description as the mythological figure of Death because of his physical features, religious incantations. The parallel of Connie to the Maiden was noticeable because of her vulnerability, naivety, and inexperience. The mythological setting was also noticeable because of the cliché of masculinity, broken communication, and mythical landscape. Dickinson’s poem Because I could not stop for Death was influential in Oates short story as seen by the similarities between the two. In Dickinson’s poem, the girl was accompanied by Immortality and death in the carriage as they “passed the setting sun” (l.12). The latter scene is paralleled to the short story when Arnold the mythological figure of Death rides in his golden jalopy with his Maiden Connie into “vast sunlit reaches of land”
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