Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Selected Early Stories
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Introduction
- "Where have you been, where are you going to" are the words of The Blue Cafe song by Chris Rea.
"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 three Tucson, Arizona murders committed by Charles Schmid, which were profiled in Life magazine in an article written by Don Moser on March 4, 1966. Oates said that she dedicated the story to Bob Dylan because she had been inspired to write it after listening to his song "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue."[1]
The story was loosely adapted into the 1985 film Smooth Talk, starring Laura Dern and Treat Williams.
Plot
The main character of Oates's story is Connie, a beautiful but self-absorbed 15-year-old girl, who is at odds with her mother--once a beauty herself--and with her dutiful, "steady", and homely older sister. Without her parents' knowledge, she spends most of her evenings picking up boys at a Big Boy restaurant, and one evening captures the attention of a stranger in a gold convertible covered with cryptic writing. While her parents are away at her aunt's barbecue, two men pull up in front of her house and call Connie out. She recognizes the driver, Arnold Friend, as the man from the drive-in restaurant, and is initially charmed by the smooth-talking, charismatic stranger in his fashionable tight jeans and white T-shirt. He tells Connie he is eighteen and has come to take her for a ride in his car with his sidekick Ellie. Connie slowly realizes that he is actually much older, and grows afraid. As Connie refuses to go with him, he becomes more forceful and threatening, saying that he will harm her family (while at the same time appealing to Connie's vanity, saying that she is too good for them), until Connie is compelled to leave with him and do what he demands of her. The story ends as Connie leaves her front porch; her eventual fate is left unknown.
References
- ^ Oates, J.C. & Showalter, E. (1994). "Introduction". Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been. Rutgers University Press. p. 9. ISBN 0-8135-2135-1.
External links
- Complete text on Celestial Timepiece, an authorized Joyce Carol Oates Home Page
