Arnold Friend Symbolism

Imagine being in a situation where you are constricted, with no means of getting out. Would you want to escape into a world of fantasy and leave the dreadfulness of reality? “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates is a story that explores this idea through the beautiful teenage girl Connie. Arnold Friend, an older man, wishes to take her out on a “date”, but things quickly become out of hand. As Gillis states in “Connie’s Tambourine Man: A New Reading of Arnold Friend”, Arnold presumably “leads his victim… to a quick and violent sexual assault” (Tierce and Crafton 219). Again in “Connie’s Tambourine Man”, it is stated that “Arnold must symbolize Satan and Connie must be raped and murdered” (Tierce and Crafton 219).

She intensely daydreams about boys throughout the story as she gets with various guys, and towards the end of the story she has sexual desires that she wishes to explore. As Connie says to herself right before Arnold shows up to the house, “all the boys fell back and dissolved into a single face that was not even a face but an idea, a feeling, mixed up with the urgent insistent pounding of the music and the humid night air of July” (Oates n.p.). Because Connie fantasizes about boys, she feels At home, even in a non-sexual way, she is surrounded by women as her father is tired after work. When Connie is out with boys, though, she is able to socialize and be appreciated by the boys for her beauty. This makes Connie feel excited because it is attention that she does not receive at home. Connie is ready to take things beyond just the romantic level with boys, and this desire is transformed into the being that is Arnold Friend. Connie states in her description of Arnold that “she liked the way he was dressed… a belt that pulled in his waist 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” (Oates n.p.). By Connie stating this, she reveals that she does find Arnold physically attractive, perhaps even on a sexual level. Arnold represents her interest in boys and he allows her to enter into the world of fantasy. When he breaks into the house, however, Connie’s own fantasies begin to betray her because this is what she pictures it to be like if she were forced into a sexual situation. Connie is unable to contact authorities about Arnold’s presence because, unfortunately, “something roared in her ear, a tiny roaring, and she was so sick with fear that she could do nothing but listen to it” (Oates n.p.). Connie’s mindset at this point in time is delusional and she no longer has any sense of reality.