Joyce Carol Oates 'Short Story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been'

Arnold Friend is a character in Joyce Carol Oates’s short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”. Throughout the scenes that involve Arnold, it can be seen that Oates used sexual predation as a main point in the story. Oates’s inspiration for Arnold Friend was Bob Dylan’s song “It’s all over Now Baby Blue,” and in the story, there are references to the song describing Connie as Arnold’s “sweet little blue-eyed girl” (Oates 9). Another inspiration for Arnold was an real-life psychopathic serial killer Oates read about in a newspaper who would “seduce young girls into his car after school; he would later molest and kill them” (Mary); he was the perfect muse for Arnold because both had a violently promiscuous persona.
In the beginning of the story, Arnold “wagged a finger and laughed and said, ‘gonna get you, baby,’” (Oates 1) implying that Connie is his target. Arnold is seen again in another scene where Connie sees his car pulling up in her driveway. Arnold tries to connect with Connie by using music to try luring her closer to him. Additionally, Arnold assures Connie that “she will not have to pretend to try to escape”, (gradesaver) from him, hinting that he’ll restrain her even if she doesn’t want to be with

Again, suggesting sexual assault. At this point, Arnold could be described as an obsessed stalker “who wanted to find out everything about his potential victim” (Mary). Arnold can obviously be described as a disgusting creep, but Connie is some small part of the reason why Arnold had such an easy grasp on her. Connie’s naiveness is why she didn’t realize her fate. She was “too caught up in her own erotic, romantic world” (Mary). She’s too self-centered, and that’s “the kind of fodder that sexual predators relish”