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.