What are the key plot points in the short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
This question is asking for a basic plot analysis. Often teachers will make students graph these sections out on a pyramid or triangle. The exposition in this story is the introduction to setting, Connie, and some of her family members. We learn things about Connie, such as her age, but we also learn important things, such as that Connie is very aware of her looks and image:
She was fifteen and she had a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was all right. Her mother, who noticed everything and knew everything and who hadn’t much reason any longer to look at her own face, always scolded Connie about it. “Stop gawking at yourself. Who are you? You think you’re so pretty?”
Regarding the rising action(s), sometimes it is easier to identify the story's climax first. The climax is a story's turning point. Often, it can be a very intense moment in the story. In this story, the climax occurs just before Connie tries to call the police. The rising action is everything before this moment and following the exposition. I do think that a reader could defend the phone call moment as the climax, but I think it comes before. Specifically, I think the climax is when Connie screams the following line.
“You better not! I’m going to call the police if you—if you don’t—”
This is the final time that Connie really tries to fight against Friend. He, of course, has an answer for everything, and he calmly explains that a screen door won't stop him. He also lets Connie know that the phone call will be the end of her. From this point forward, Connie's responses are "whispered." She's done fighting. The inevitability of the situation is sinking in, and she realizes that Friend is going to win the fight. The reader realizes this too, but we do continue to hope that Connie will be rescued. Friend coming in the house and having Connie hang up the phone is part of the falling action, and the conclusion is Connie mechanically leaving the house with Friend in a zombie-like trance.
What are the key plot points in the short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
You must be sure to include the idea of conflict when discussing rising action, climax, and falling action. The rising action is when the main conflict is introduced and the protagonist typically makes some attempts at solving said conflict. For instance, if the major conflict of this story is read as an inner conflict for Connie as she comes of age, the rising action must include how she initially begins to deal with this conflict, such as exploring her independence when out with her friends, or staying behind while her sister and parents go to a family party.
The climax is then when the protagonist typically makes a decision about how to definitely deal with the conflict. The falling action is the process of the character carrying out said decision.
What are the key plot points in the short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
The exposition for this story, or the background information, include the description of Connie's home life, her family, her relationship with her parents and how they view her as opposed to her sister June.
The rising action begins with Connie's realization that she is pretty and enjoys attracting boys and flirting. Connie's actions of sneaking away with Eddie, a boy she took off with when she was supposed to be with her girlfriends makes her feel very smug and successful at being able to fool her parents.
Although her mother is suspicious of what Connie is doing, she does nothing about it. She just complains about her daughter's behavior.
The climax of the story comes when the two men come to Connie's house. She is alone, her family has gone to a barbecue.
When Arnold Friend and Ellie arrive at her house, she is initially excited about the possibility that she was being sought out. She even thinks that she remembers one of the boys.
The falling action occurs as Connie struggles psychologically with the two men, not boys, and realizes that they have come to harm her. She is helpless and alone. She is manipulated by Arnold Friend, he convinces her that she must go along with them, or her whole family will be harmed.
The resolution occurs when Connie submits to Arnold Friend and leaves the house to join him in his car.
What are the key plot points in the short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
Through the summary of the story, located on eNotes through this link: http://www.enotes.com/where-are/summary, you will be able to discern what each is. In order to do so, you must understand what each of these literary terms means. Exposition is the introduction to the story in which you get background on the setting, characters, situation, etc. Rising action is the events leading up to the climax, which is the moment of highest tension in the story. Falling action is the events leading to the resolution of the story, which is its conclusion or end, when a conflict has been resolved or sometimes not resolved.
What elements move the narrative forward and raise tension in "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
In the story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been," by Joyce Carol Oates, the tension is created as both the reader and the main character, Connie, slowly together the dangerous situation she is in. For the reader, the fuzzy picture of Arnold Friend, the man who seems like a teen at first, becomes more focused only as Connie herself begins to notice that he is not a teen, but an older man with terrifying intentions.
For example, look at the way Connie first perceives Arnold Friend:
"Connie liked the way he was dressed, which was the way all of them dressed: tight faded jeans stuffed into black, scuffed boots, a belt that pulled his waist in and showed how lean he was, and a white pull-over shirt that was a little soiled and showed the hard small muscles of his arms and shoulders. He looked as if he probably did hard work, lifting and carrying things. Even his neck looked muscular."
As she continues talking to him, she starts to notice small details that don't make sense and that indicate she might have gotten herself into a bad situation:
"His smiled faded. She could see then that he wasn’t a kid,
he was much older—thirty, maybe more. At this knowledge
her heart began to pound faster."
As Connie is coming to these realizations about Arnold Friend, the reader is seeing them also, simultaneously. At first, it seemed to both the reader and Connie that Friend was a boy about her age who was maybe going to get Connie into some kind of trouble, but the tension rises as we discover that he is not a kid at all, probably followed her home after seeing her at the drive in, and is most definitely going to rape and abduct her.
All of this comes to a suspenseful climax as Connie tries to call for help but is unsuccessful:
"She began to scream into the phone, into the roaring. She cried out, she cried for her mother, she felt her breath start jerking back and forth in her lungs as if it were something Arnold Friend was stabbing her with again and again with no tenderness."
It is no coincidence that the description of Connie trying to use the phone and realizing she can't sounds as though she is being raped by Arnold Friend. This is because Connie is realizing that this is what is about to happen to her when she goes with Arnold Friend, which she does because she feels helpless and does not know what else to do.
Throughout the whole ordeal, the reader and Connie are realizing together what is really going on and what is really about to happen to Connie. By the end, this becomes a horror story. This is how Oates creates the suspense through the use of little action.
Describe three characters from "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
In the story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", Joyce Carol Oates created her story based on a real murder story. Her protagonist and antagonist clash, supplying the reader with a great deal to think about at the end of the story.
The heroine or protagonist in the story, Connie, finds her self in the summer with not much to do. She is fifteen and pretty with all the angst of a teenager. Like many teens of the 1960s, Connie listens to music, reads magazines, and daydreams about romance with the boys. That describes Connie. Self-centered, superficial, pouty, argumentative, and irritating--that is how her mother would have described Connie. She and her mother do not get along. Nor does Connie like her older sister, June.
Connie's delight is to go to the shopping plaza and hangout with the boys. When she breaks the rules, Connie pays for it by catching the eye of Arnold Friend. When she meets Friend again, Connie grows up a bit and steps up to save her family. She offers herself up as the sacrificial lamb to this devil on earth who will not let her go.
Connie's mother plays an important part in the story. Her purpose is to point up the typical qualities and faults of the typical teenager. The relationship between Connie and her mother sometimes finds closeness but more often there is a strain between the two. Connie's mother was once pretty; she knows the problems that young girls face when the boys desire them.
Connie has a level of promiscuity that her mother senses, so she nags at her in an effort to show her what can happen if a girl goes too far. Wanting to trust her but knowing that she does not always tell her the truth, the mother questions herself about to how handle this teenager. Demonstrating a stronger bond than even Connie knew they had, Connie cries for her mother at the end of the story.
Arnold Friend's name falls into the category of irony. He is far from a friend to anyone. Crude, offensive, sexual, and lethal---this is Arnold. His physicality comes across as comical. Everything about him is bizarre. Arnold is fiendish. In some respects, his talk portrays him as a killer already as he describes his killing an old woman. On this Sunday, rape and murder are on his mind. His victim smiled at the wrong person and attracted his attention. Then, he begins to watch and stalk both her and her family. He will get his way.
Perhaps the most terrifying thing about Arnold Friend is that he blends elements of romance—"I took a special interest in you, such a pretty girl"—and violence—"We ain't leaving until you come with us"—
There are almost supernatural elements about Arnold. He will not cross over the threshold of the house. He has difficulty standing up in his shoes. He knows so much about her and has never really met her. Who or what he is does not matter so much as his ability to convince Connie that she has no choice but to come with him.
Like a true heroine, Connie steps up and saves her family. Hopefully, Arnold will relent and give Connie back to her family. It is left by the author to the reader's imagination.
What moves the narrative forward and raises tension in Oates' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
The movement of Joyce Carol Oates' short story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" (originally "Death and the Maiden") is unusual.The narration is delivered slowly and precisely, and the building unease seeps into the pages like the smell of skunk on a summer night, defying closed windows and doors.
The portrait Oates paints of Connie, and Oates' choice of words "set the stage" for the story. Connie has...
...a quick nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people's faces to make sure her own was all right.
Connie is only fifteen—impressionable—looking to find proof that she is "good enough." We can see why she has more than her share of adolescent angst.
Her mother...was always after Connie.
"Why don't you keep your room clean like your sister? How've you got your hair fixed—what the hell stinks? Hair spray? You don't see your sister using that junk."
Connie is constantly compared to her sister and found "wanting": not good enough.
Connie acts much differently outside of her house.
Connie had long dark blond hair that drew anyone's eye to it...She wore a pull-over jersey blouse that looked one way at home and another way when she was away from home.
The narrator also notes, and this is very important...
Everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home...Her walk can be "childlike and bobbing," or she moves slowly and gracefully as if she is listening to something in her head. Her "smirking" mouth is "bright and pink on these evenings out." Even her laugh is "high-pitched and nervous anywhere else, like the jingling of the charms on her bracelet." Connie is walking the line between the world of childhood and adulthood, and she is inexperienced—out of the house she puts on an act, pretending to be what she wants to be. Even the bracelet attracts attention with its "jingling." She is trying to draw attention to herself: unfortunately, Arnold Friend is watching. Connie and her friends sneak to the drive-in restaurant where "the older kids hung out." The cars cruise in and out, and the diner is "fly-infested." These images foreshadow what is to come. It is here that Connie draws the attention of the "boy" in the gold car. Later, when Arnold shows up at her house—talking through the screen—once again, the flies are there, symbolic of death. His "cruising" has been like a hunter stalking its prey...or the way a snake undulates through the grass. The story progresses slowly to accentuate the way Arnold gently lures Connie: like a snake hypnotizing its victim into a sense of the inevitable. He disguises his eyes, those "windows to the soul." And he is soulless—the glasses cover his threat. Arnold slowly gives clues that Connie understands—he knows no one is around—
"[Your father] ain't coming. He's at barbecue." "How do you know that?"Still Connie doesn't lock the door. He becomes more predatory by the minute, but her threats to call for help are empty. In the end Connie goes with Arnold quietly to her death; we realize that we have been seduced slowly as she has been.
Yes, I'm your lover. You don't know what that is but you will..."There is no overt action, but there is inference and innuendo. We find ourselves mesmerized by Arnold's words—and devastated to realize someone so evil could win in the end—but then we recall Connie is only fifteen...only wishing she was older. Now she never will be.
What are three similarities in the story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
This is a story of contrasts, so finding similarities requires an attentive eye for detail as well as the ability to recognize some symbolic meanings throughout the plot.
Arnold Friend is quite similar to Lucifer, or the devil. If you remove the letter r from his first name, you are left with "an old friend." Consider his physical characteristics. His face is "familiar ... somehow." His nose is long and "hawklike." He wobbles in his boots, suggesting that he may have hooves, like those the devil is often depicted as having in artwork. When Arnold Friend bows, he nearly falls over and his feet seem oddly unable to reach the bottom of his boots:
He had to bend and adjust his boots. Evidently his feet did not go all the way down; the boots must have been stuffed with something so that he would seem taller.
Arnold Friend's hair is shaggy and shabby, looking like a wig—which he could be using to cover his devilish horns. His actions toward Connie are certainly evil, and he knows things about her and her family that are otherworldly. Connie finds that he has knowledge of what her family is doing at that very moment, and she becomes convinced that she must sacrifice herself in order to save her family. Both physically and through his eerie, evil actions, Arnold Friend presents striking similarities to Lucifer.
Connie believes that her older sister gets along with their mother better because the two of them are similar. June follows their mother's rules and still lives at home at the age of twenty-four. She is "plain and steady," just like their mother, and is often praised for the way she fits into their mother's expectations.
June saves money and helps clean the house. She cooks and is "chunky." Although their mother was pretty once, she is now just as plain and ordinary as June, according to Connie. Connie believes herself to be pretty, and she is therefore constantly in conflict with their mother, who seems to prefer a daughter more like herself.
Arnold Friend brings a companion with him when he visits: Ellie Oscar. While Ellie sits in the car and doesn't present the disturbing verbal dialogue that Arnold Friend displays, he is troubling in his own right. Arnold tells Connie that he and Ellie have jointly made the decision to come for her: "Ellie and I come out here especially for you." Arnold calls Ellie "crazy," and his actions are sinister, even if they are more quiet. In fact, Ellie's only spoken words are given to try to restrain Connie's efforts of escape:
This Ellie said, pulling the words out of the air one after another as if he were just discovering them, "You want me to pull out the phone?"
Arnold Friend is the voice of their sinister plans, but Ellie exists to present a physical presence of doom. Both men are similar through their menacing presence and through the very tangible sense of danger they present to an unsuspecting young girl.
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