In “Where Is Here” by Joyce Carol Oates, a man comes up to a family's house and when asked to leave, things change and get scary. The mother in the story was one of the tortured characters. One of the dark elements in the story was when the strange man came up and knocked on the family's front door asking to walk around and in their house because this was his old house. Even though the people did not know the man, they still let him look around their property and house leading in him turning evil. In the beginning of the story, a family was shocked to hear their doorbell ring one evening. As the father went to answer it, there was a man standing there apologizing if he bothered the family in any way. He continued to tell the father that this …show more content…
He first went into the kitchen and said that it had been “so modernized, he almost didn't recognize it” (Oates). He said this because so much had changed it almost didn't look like his old house. The next room he entered was the dining room, “the ceiling was twice as high, and was cavernous like” (Oates). Once again another room had changed and he vaguely remembers what the dining room looked like. “Dark by day, dark by night. The mother turned the lights of the little brass chandelier to their fullest; and shadows were like ragged ghosts shining from the fruit bowl” (Oates). The house was always dark from what he remembers and when his mother would turn out the lights of the chandelier, little ghost-like figures would appear on the …show more content…
Readers can infer that the stranger was scared of his father and the only place he felt safe was in the window seat where he could daydream, stare out the window for hours, and just relax. The stranger said that his mother use to tell him riddles and tell him stories. The mother asked him if his mother was still living and the stranger said “Oh, no. Not at all… We’ve all been dead-they’ve been dead-a long time” (Oates). After the stranger said that, he quickly tried to forget and change the subject. He then asked if he could see the bedroom’s upstairs, but only wanted to see the little boys room. As the stranger entered the room, he sat on the boys bed and then asked if the boy liked riddles. The boy said he loved them; so the stranger showed the boy a mathematical riddle and said he could surprise his teacher tomorrow