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Analysis Of Joyce Oates 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been'

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Joyce Oates carefully crafted the short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” using parallelism, allegories, symbolism, and the theme of vulnerability.
Joyce lived a modest life with her parents and two siblings in Lockport New York. According to an article on Biography.com entitled “Joyce Carol Oates,” she always loved reading, and even before she could write, she would tell stories through the use of pictures. Her secondary schooling began after securing a scholarship from Syracuse University because of an article she had written for her school newspaper. She went on to obtain a master's degree, in a single year, from the University of Wisconsin in 1961. 1961 also marked the year she wed her first, now late husband, Raymond Oates. …show more content…

Arnold Friend serves as a parallel to Charles Schmid, the murderer in Arizona. They each attempted to make themselves look younger, and less out of place at popular hangouts. Charles Schmid aged “twenty three years old when he was arrested for the murders” (Quirk 414). He, like Arnold Friend, ran in circles with students instead of people his age. Arnold’s “whole face was a mask,” (Oates 201) which gave him the appearance of youth. Charles Schmid “often wore pancake makeup” (Quirk 414) to achieve youthfulness; Friend used makeup to achieve the same end goal. According to Quirk and Oates, both men would dye their hair raven black, stuff their boots, and use the modern slang, in order to make their victims feel more comfortable. While each of these men owned a gold colored car, Arnold’s appears to be older than Charles’, however Arnold has a fresh coat of paint and Charles did not. The parallels between the Pied Piper of Tucson and “Where Are You Going” cannot be ignored. Oates, took the story of the Pied Piper of Tucson and transformed it into a work of fiction. Arnold Friend, Connie, appearances, and even the presumed murder scene all appear almost identical to the original story. The few differences between the two stories do not amount to enough to rule out the

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