Arnold Friend In Where Are You Going Where Have You Been

In Joyce Carol Oates’s, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, a teen girl named Connie is more worried about her appearance than her mother’s reprimands. Connie’s mother, who is given no name in the story, is trying to convince her to be more like her older sister, June. June goes out with her girlfriends, so their mother allows Connie to go out as well, with her best friend. Once night Connie goes out with a guy named Eddie; they eat at a restaurant together. In the parking lot Connie comes across a man in a gold convertible that say he is going to get her (146). Eddie does not notice the man. One Sunday Connie’s family was going to a family barbeque at her aunt’s house. Connie was not interested, so she stayed home alone. A car came

It is first seen in the story after Connie realizes that Arnold isn’t the age he claims to be when Oates states, “Then he began to smile again. She watched this smile come, awkward as if he were smiling from inside a mask. His whole face was a mask, she thought wildly, tanned down onto his throat but then running out as if he plastered makeup on his face but had forgotten about his throat.” (151). Perhaps Arnold is the devil disguised as a human; he is wearing a human mask. Moreover, in an article, titled “Existential Allegory: Joyce Carol Oates’s ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’” by Marie Mitchell Olesen Urbanski, the author mentions the figure of Arnold Friend wanting nothing but to trick Connie into domination. “In the seduction which Friend engineers, Connie is merely the personification of the female he wishes to dominate, to be taller than, to despoil”. Likewise, Urbanski continues by mentioning his awkward position of his boots. “His feet resembled the devil’s cloven hooves: ‘One of his boots was at a strange angle, as if his foot wasn’t in it.’” (202). Both are indications of characteristics of the devil himself in Arnold