A few weeks ago I stole time away from the flurry of essays, readings, and other out-of-nowhere assignments that tend to pile up during this time of the semester for college students to do something I'd been meaning to do for some time: Just read. As many others can relate, I tend to get so lost in the current happenings of my life, whether it be schoolwork, work-work, or crazy/beautiful life in general that activities I treasure (i.e. leisurely reading) are pushed to the outer perimeter. Being an English major I read a lot, of course, but a few weeks ago I was at a point where I wanted to "get away": From being an English major, a pizza-maker, a twenty-something college student who wants to go everywhere but at times feels he will go nowhere. Reading has always been one of the first activities I turn to when time and money constrain me from physically getting away, and I knew I needed to do some reading outside what was required for my studies. Because getting back into old habits sometimes requires baby-steps, I thought a short story would do, and Joyce Carol Oates' haunting classic "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" was my immediate first choice.
I'd heard of this anthology favorite many times before, but didn't think to read it until picking my own anthology of short stories for my Introduction to Fiction Writing class this semester. It was one we weren't required to read, yet I found myself flipping past it countless times in my pursuit for other stories, stopping for a brief moment to consider its unique title and dedication ("For Bob Dylan") before moving on. And while I eventually took the time to read it at my leisure, the literary analyst in me couldn't simply read it; I found so many elements to discuss and, surprisingly, found bits of myself whilst on my literary treasure hunt.
I won't dwell too much on plot (the story's been out nearly 50 years, just go read it!), but "Going, Been" focuses on a young girl named Connie who is an average girl living in 20th century America. Well, Connie's not exactly "average": She's an all-American girl, a jewel wedged in wooden Middle America. She loves music, going to the shopping plaza with her girlfriends, and seems to resent the plain life and appearance of her family, particularly that of her mother and older sister, June. One hot day, Connie is home alone when the familiar stranger Arnold Friend appears outside her screen door, and so begins what I believe to be one of the most chilling sequences in literary history*. Most of you reading this know what goes down at this point of the story, so let me instead focus on one of my favorite elements of "Going, Been": the character of Connie, and how I found myself connecting with her by the final page.
First of all, I get that some people may not like Connie. I get how she can be read as superficial; she thinks of her family as grossly plain compared to her beauty, and one of the first things she observes about Arnold Friend when he comes uninvited to her house is how he wouldn't be much taller than her were they at eye level. But it's this superficiality and at times frustrating naivety that makes her such an interesting, relatable character. Let's face it: every teenager, whether they're an American beauty like Connie or an average Joe on the debate team, is a bit superficial or ego-centric. If Connie had everything figured out, her story wouldn't be interesting, so it is these moments of shallowness and gullibility that make her a real teenager that readers of any generation can look at and think, "I know someone like her," or "I've been her." From this perspective, Connie is the one thing she resents at the beginning of the story, the one thing she desperately wants to reclaim by its end: Normal.
It is these normal shortcomings that Arnold Friend uses to his advantage when trying to lure Connie out of her house. We get the gist that Friend has targeted young girls like Connie before, and he knows exactly where to play his cards: He sweet-talks her while claiming her as his own, touches on her love of music so as to mask his sinister intentions. Finally, in perhaps the most haunting uses of reverse psychology I've read, Friend taps into Connie's (and really, any typical teenager's) desire, however fleeting, to distance herself from her family and the achingly "normal" life she's been forced to live. He's the brooding stranger offering the girl a chance at a new life, only the brooding barely hides his unhinged personality, and the so-called "new life" promised will be brief if he has his way.
But then, something extraordinary happens: Connie rejects what she once believed she wanted and tries to retreat into the normal, wanting nothing more than her mother. She wants the spotlight off her in a moment of terror she can't possibly shake, just as she begins to accept that this moment of extraordinary terror is now her life, and she won't be able to return to what's normal.
This is where I find myself within this story. No, I've never been cornered in my own home by a possible serial killer, but like Connie--like all of us, I'm sure--I've seen the unknown. Stared at it and contemplated it and ran from it. It's a scary thing, an imaginary Arnold Friend that is intriguing and overwhelming all at once. I think of how Connie reacts to Friend--the unknown--, how she tries to hide from it before numbly accepting it, going off with Friend because she knows there is no other choice. But isn't there? Can she risk calling the cops, putting her family in harm's way if it means that she gets to live on as she is? When the heat has cooled and Friend is long gone, would she regret her decision to retreat into the wings of the familiar and spend the rest of her life thinking, What if? I've thought a lot about how Connie could've acted differently and how she could've saved herself in the end, bringing it back to my own reactions in an unfamiliar situation. If faced with a surprising, unexpected path down the road, would I be willing to take it? Even if I had no idea where I'd end up, would I take the risk anyway? Or would I go down the safer path, the one in which I know where it ends? I've never been great with directions (I know places by landmarks, not street names, and directions on MapQuest might as well be Japanese), but I'd like to think I'd go with the former.
And yet: Would I? I think it's one of those questions that can be answered only when, like Connie, you're in the pulsing heat of the moment, staring at fate head-on and wondering if there's any way around it, or if it's easier to go straight into all the uncertainty.
That's why I connect with Connie so much: She chose a path that, while she isn't completely sure of its destination, she has some idea that it'll end with her death, but she takes it anyway. Of course there is that instinct to protect her family and that is likely the reason she goes with Friend in the end, but that sacrifice is the very thing that makes her extraordinary, not the beauty or hair or all-American smile.
There are so many other elements of this story that I love. There's the tension of the screen door, a fragile piece of wood and wire being the only thing that separates Connie and Friend during their chilling encounter. It's touched and pushed upon so much that I was waiting for it to fly off its hinges in Friend's pursuit of Connie, but loved that such an easy access stayed firmly intact. Then there's the idea of the title itself and how it ties into the feelings of misdirection in the story, first with Connie (as explained above), and that of Arnold Friend. He sways Connie with his words, cloaking him in uncertainty. We may not know exactly where Arnold Friend came from, but we know he's been to places where he's preyed on young women like Connie before. So many things I could discuss and dissect and likely connect back to myself, all of which I'll do when I come back to this story. Because "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" isn't a story you read once. It demands many revisits, if not to uncover more about Connie and Arnold, where they've been and where they're going, but maybe to find out more about yourself.
I may not always know where I'm going, and that's honestly more terrifying than Arnold Friend himself. But having finally read this story, knowing that I can return to it whenever I need a break from all the dead ends and forks in the road, is enough to keep me moving forward.
--Dustin
@DustinVann
*I'm not as well-read as some of you are, so feel free to disagree with me on that one. :)
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