Where are you going?

“Where are you going, where have you been?” is a short story written by Joyce Carols Oates, which describes a strange man named Arnold Friend who is obsessed over a young teenager named Connie. Arnold Friend is much older than Connie and cannot be said to be like a child, yet he lures Connie out by using imagery from childhood. He talks to her partly like a lover and a person of authority, he fakes …

…she could’ve easily used pronouns. Thus she underlines the overwhelming presence of Arnold Friend, as a symbolic figure of a devil. Oates also constructs Arnold Friend as Connie’s only hope; her universe, her only escape and he alienate her from her house and surrounding. And like a puppet master he controls her strings, pushes her into doing something she would never do consciously, only a devil could do such a thing like this.