STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF THE STORY
“WHERE ARE YOU GOING, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” BY JOYCE
CAROL OATES
I'd like to analyse the story
"Where are you going, Where have you been?" by Joyce Carol Oates. She is an American author. She was
born in Lockport, New York in 1938 and grew up in the working-class farming
community in the family of tool and die designer and a housewife. Her favourite
writers were Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Ernest
Hemingway.
Oates published her first book in 1963
and has since published over 40 novels, as well as a number of plays and
novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. She has
won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award. The most
famous novels are: "Black Water "(1992), "What I
Lived For" (1994), "Blonde" (2000), and short story collections
"The Wheel of Love and Other Stories" (1970) and "Lovely, Dark,
Deep: Stories" (2014). She created
"Where Are You
Going, Where Have You Been?" is a frequently anthologized short story
written by Joyce Carol Oates. The story first appeared in the Fall 1966 edition
of Epoch Magazine. It was inspired by four Tucson, Arizona murders committed by
Charles Schmid, which were profiled in Life magazine in an article written by
Don Moser on March 4, 1966.
I think that her words
characterise her style the best: “My belief is that art should not be
comforting; for comfort, we have mass entertainment and one another. Art should
provoke, disturb, arouse our emotions, expand our sympathies in directions we
may not anticipate and may not even wish.”
The title of the story is thought-provoking
and misleading. Before
reading I tried to predict events. I thought that it would be about love, a
meeting of two people who hadn’t seen for a long time. However my expectations
were not true. The story was about the
transition of the teenager to the adult life.
The main
theme of the short story is the life of American teenagers in 1960s and
their desire to be free from restrictions. There is one more theme - the theme of family
relations. All people need to be loved and respected by their family. The lack
of these factors can lead to bad results.
The events in the analysed text happen in
American suburbs in 1960s.This time was unique because of work of the
Beatles,the hippie movement, feminist movement and what not. The music create the feeling of
freedom and women wore clothes of bright colors and unbelievably
short skirts to drew attention of man. Such background create an absolute
permissive atmosphere of the story. We will see that Conny will
become a victim because of the such revolutionary mood of that years.
The story introduces us a
teenager, Connie. She is a main character who has a conflict with her family because
of such difficult age. She walks with her friend a lot, dressing candidly. She
behaves at the public and at home in different ways.
One summer night , she has
dinner with her friend. Arnold notices
Conny and her Eddie. She doesn’t pay attention to him but once his car
appeares in front of her home when she is alone. Arnold talks with girl and
wants that she rode with him. She is frightened. Realising that she doesn’t
want to ride, he threatenes her. Konnie joines Arnold in order to save her family.
She transitiones from the childhood to the adult life.
I think that the story is written in 3rd person omniscient point of view. It is a method of storytelling
in which the narrator knows the thoughts and feelings of all the main
character.
There are 6 characters of the story but
among them two main characters-Connie and Arnold Friend. I would like to tell about all of
them paying much attention, of course, to the main characters.
Connie is the
protagonist of the story as she comes into conflict with an opposing major
character. Arnold Friend is antagonist. Connie is fifteen-year-old teenager who
shows all difficulties of this age and tries to experience the adult life. She
wants to be attractive and wear short skirts. She is a beautiful and
self-confident girl: “...she knew she was pretty and that was everything”. She
is romantic because of the songs which she enjoys listening. She wants to
attract attention of everybody: "She was fifteen and she had a quick,
nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors". She is
a good girl at home but when she walks with her friends she behaves candidly.
Speaking about Arnold
one can notice that he also wants to be in the high light but only to Connie. He
has an unusual appearance:"...had a fair, hairless face, cheeks reddened
slightly as if the veins grew too close to the surface of his skin, the face of
a forty-year-old baby".He thinks that a fashion sunglasses, the car and
music will attract and she go with him. At first, she is flattered by his
coming but than she realises his real intention. He doesn't force her
physically to ride with him, but his words are very forceful. He is a violent
person.
Connie's mother
doesn't love her daughter because of her beauty :""Stop gawking at
yourself. Who are you? You think you're so pretty?" she would say." ;
"Her mother had been pretty once too, if you could believe those old
snapshots in the album, but now her looks were gone and that was why she was
always after Connie." However she calls her mother when Arnold persuade
her to go with him. This is a great example when the lack of her mother's love
can send a person into someone's bad arms.
We dont know about June,
Connie's sister a lot of information, only that their mother always
compares them.Mother loves June more than Conny: "she was so plain and
chunky and steady that Connie had to hear her praised all the time by her
mother and her mother's sisters. June did this, June did that, she saved money
and helped clean the house and cooked and Connie couldn't do a thing, her mind
was all filled with trashy daydreams."
Betty is Connie's best friend,
Her father often drives them out to the plaza.There is one
interesting fact: Arnold
brings up her name. It
means that she could be not a good friend and give him information about
Connie.
Ellie is an Arnold's
friend. He spends time in the car listening to a radio. He's older
than Arnold,maybe he is in his 40s.
The plot of the story is unpredictable and dynamic.
There are introduction,
development of the story, climax, anticlimax and no conclusion. I think that
expositions consists of the first paragraphs. The author introduces the main
character Connie and her family
relations.
Development of the story is when Connie and
her friend has a walk and Arnold
notices Conny. The man appears
at the door of her house and tries to persuade her to ride with him .
Climax starts when Connie is really
frightened because Arnold hintі at sexual relations. “…you'll give in to me and you'll
love me”.
Anticlimax is when Arnold intimidates Connie to harm her family
and she decides to ride with him.
Speaking about expressive means and
stylistic devices, one can notice that the story is easy to read. I think that the main reason of it,
is a journalistic style. There are also: colloquial, dialect words and
slang. Slang words "dope", "nut", "goddamn" and
dialect words: "wanta", "don'tcha", can'tcha" are used
to create the autmosphere of teenager's speech, level and education . There
are many similes while speaking about the description of Arnold :
"...the nose long and hawklike, sniffing as if she were a treat he was going to gobble up... " The author uses metaphors while describing Connie.
Lexical devices:
v Epithets: “…a high, breathless,
amused voice…”(The author shows that Connie don’t love her mother and she is
even annoyed of her voice.)
v Metaphor: “But all the boys
fell back and dissolved into a single face that was not even a face but an idea
and a feeling…” (Connie wants to express her sexuality, but she is reduced.) She felt her pounding heart, a pounding,
living thing inside this body that wasn't really hers either”( The
difficultness of the Connie’s decision is expressed in this sentence.);
v Irony: “…complained over the
telephone to one sister about the other, then the other called up and the two
of them complained about the third one” (Mother’s gossips don’t appeal to
her daughter.);
v Oxymoron: “Ellie turned for the
first time and Connie saw with shock that he wasn't a kid either—he had a fair,
hairless face, cheeks reddened slightly as if the veins grew too close to the
surface of his skin, the face of a forty-year-old baby.” ( It is strange to
imagine a man of forty years who has a
face of baby.)
v Simile: “ …some vexation that
was like a fly buzzing suddenly around their heads” (The author shows annoyance
of Connie and her mother of a fly in such way.)
Syntactical devices.
v Repetitions: “…he wanted supper and
he read the newspaper at supper and after supper he went to bed.”(The
family doesn’t pay attention to their father, don’t treat them respectively.
They only notice him when it is supper. It creates an atmosphere of loneliness
and neglecting of all members of family )
v Ellipses: That dope; Sure (
Ellipses are used to show a rapid speech)
In conclusion I’d like to say
that the story is worth reading as it a
has a great message for teenagers. Thought-provoking stories are useful for such age. Joyce
Carol Coates created very intriguing story and all used syntactic and lexical
devices help to reveal the main character’s nature and create a true-to-life
atmosphere of the events depicted.
