The Major Use of Motifs and Symbolism in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been

In the short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” there is are an extensive use of symbolism and motifs. The story is significant with topical criticalness and symbolism. In her article “Existential Allegory: Joyce Carol Oates ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Marie Mitchell Olesen Urbanski argues, “few have acknowledged the allegorical nature of her work. Veiling the intent of “Where Are You Going …” in realistic detail, Oates sets up the framework of a religious allegory- the seduction of Eve—and with it renders a contemporary existential initiation theme that of a young person coming to grips with externally determined fate.

All the diverse images and themes appeared over the range of the story display how certain things sway Connie and forecast the dark finish which can be interpreted in an extensive variety of ways. In her article “The shadow of a satyr in Oate’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Joan Easterly states, “Oates emphasizes the major themes of deception and identity by ironically contrasting Connie’s adolescent perception of intriguing hints concerning Arnold Friend with the discerning reader’s more sophisticated recognition of who or what he is.

The theme of deception first occurs in the names”. This story uses deception, irony, and symbolism as a common medium.

There are a couple of symbols utilized all through the story. One motif that is commonly used through the story is music. According to Urbanski, Oates utilizes musical illustration in her depiction of Friend.

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“He talked in a straightforward lilting voice, precisely as though he were discussing the words to a tune.” … Natural for Friend’s capacity is the way that he himself is a record. While sitting tight for Connie to acknowledge his ride offer, “he started to stamp time with the music from Ellie’s radio.” … Indeed, even their union is augured by the sexually pointed perception of Connie tuning in “to the music from her radio and the kid’s mix together” (4).

Musicality acts as Connie’s scaffold from this present reality to her dreamland. She accumulates her musings about Romance dialect basically from tunes on the radio. The joy she reveals with young men is established in the passionate dreams she has instead of in the young men themselves. Music is a strong symbol in the short story. Easterly claims, “Another argument for satyr symbolism is the function of music in the story, for it always accompanies Friend as a leitmotif to his almost supernatural ability to dominate Connie. Noting that satyrs were feared in ancient myths for their power to seduce unwary women through music”.

Music loosens up Connie, for example, she feels “a slow- pulsed joy that seemed to rise mysteriously out of the music itself” (Oates 311). Connie and Arnold are listening to the same tune cuts down her sentinel for one minute. Connie has assembled her impression of assumption from her most cherished music, and her brush with Arnold uncovers that the sentiment in her music is considerably more engaging than the realness of adult sexuality and enchantment.

Arnold abuses the mood of the mainstream music, with its reiteration of appealing verses and basic tunes. Since it’s all over, music can present various characteristic subjects, including the impacts of mainstream culture, the nature of sexual longing, and the progress of mental control. Music is also a very important piece of Friend’s disguise, for he talks “in a simple song-like voice, exactly as if he were saying the words to a song”. At a certain point verses serve as a chant to attract her as Connie perceives in Friend’s words “the echo of a song from last year about a girl rushing into her boy friend’s arms”.

Unavoidably she understands that “the boring and annoying way” he talks and the way he taps “one fist against another in respectful and honor-filled message to the constant music behind him are just a part of of his teen appearance, yet she detects something very unusual about Friend, in a puzzling way, connected with the music.

Another motif used throughout the story is dizziness. The narrator states, “Connie stared at him, another wave of dizziness and fear rising in her so that for a moment he wasn’t even in focus but was just a blur” (Oates 316). Dizziness overpowers Connie when she understands Arnold can and will overwhelm her. Arnold’s closeness causes Connie to feel anxious. In any case, as the condition propels, fear overpowers her. As soon as Arnold deluded Connie about his age, her heart begins to pound, and when she sees that Ellie is similarly a created man, she feels a surge of wooziness rise.

Dizziness overpowers her again when Arnold gets to be eager with her resistance. She realizes that she is in a tight spot, and the acknowledgment makes her more powerless. She understands that he is deceiving her, and his goals are not inexorably great, but rather she can’t make a move. Unsteadiness is her fallback response and permits Arnold to pick up a considerably more grounded hang on her. Oates utilizes these spells of tipsiness to impart Connie’s perplexity and dread as an apparently unadulterated circumstance spirals into something a great deal viler.

Along with some of the motifs, there are also multiple symbols in the short story as well. For example, the flies that show up around Connie. The narrator claims, “She pretended to fidget, chasing flies away from the door” (Oates 312). The flies show up when Connie is in a gathering or when she nervous. Flies have been used throughout history as a piece of religious craftsmanship as representatives of the fallen holy messenger, of the mischievous sins he torments us with and as signs of our mortality.

She was swatting at flies that weren’t there, which, concerning the run of the mill significance, would express that she was unendingly pushing the possibility that she was mortal or could be associated with the lowlife herself. It is, furthermore, run of the mill because the flies show up when Arnold Friend does, the envision flies taking after his envision spread as the ordinary youthful child to cover that he is truly a pernicious, old man.

One noteworthy image is the character Arnold Friend. He could, without much of a stretch, be contrasted with an otherworldly or more established predator like figure. For a large portion of this short story, he’s attempting to control Connie and persuade her to leave with him in his gold convertible, which additionally is an exceptionally noticeable image. Connie’s inclination become concrete, at a few focuses her emotions develop for reasons unknown. He might have an excess of control over her. It seems as though Oates needed Arnold to appear such as a terrible individual who wore a veil covering his actual character.

Another image in the short literary work is Arnold Friend’s car. Arnold Friend’s ostentatious golden automobile, amongst its obsolete expressions composed of the borders, is an expansion of Arnold himself: great and not by any means right. The car gives Connie her first insinuations that suggest that there may be a significant issue with Arnold and something feels unsafe about him. Connie whines that the shade of the car is bright to the point that it troubles her eyeballs.

Her unsteady feeling about the car fortifies Connie’s feeling that there is something not exactly authentic about Arnold; he pretends to be the same age as she may be, yet he is not by any stretch of the imagination persuading. Not just that the car itself rather distasteful, yet Arnold presents it as the vehicle that will transport Connie to her new-sprung existence. When Arnold’s actual, savage manner gets out, the auto turns into an image of all that is dull and inauspicious about his character.

In conclusion, Oates utilizes imagery to show the anticipation of Connie’s last choices which is ambiguous and to some degree unknown. Urbanski claims, “The recurring use of a twentieth-century symbol of irony-the false smile-further veils the existential meaning in realistic narrative”. Oates’ images clarify and exhibit the topic and offer the reader some assistance with understanding the characters and their intentions.