Summary Of 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?'

“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" was written by Joyce Carol Oates and the poem “First Love: A Quiz " written by A.E Stalling both have a lot in common. The poem takes the ancient Greek myth of the rape of Persephone and reconstructs it, for today’s society. The short story takes place in 1960s Middle-America. Both demonstrate allegorical figure of evil to illustrate the theme of love and the loss of innocence. The short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" inspired by the Life magazine story about a serial killer named Charles Schmid. An older man who seduced and killed adolescent’s girls. What drove Oates to write the story was not due to the serial killer, but to the abnormal actions of the teenagers who helped and gave in to him.

The poem is structured in the form of a quiz, just like the ones in teen magazines. When I first saw the title of the poem, I thought it would be the type in cliché teen magazines, questions about your first love, I was wrong. The poem wasn’t romantic virtuous love questions, however, had a dark and mysterious tone to the questions. It starts with a random everyday question later takes a turn and to a dark and sinister tone. Each stanza asks a question, and each has four choices A, B, C, and D. The first three options in the first two stanzas are innocent answers that any teenager would give when being asked the questions. The tone of the last choice D. is wicked and corrupted. The first stanza last line “d. from the ground, in a lead chariot drawn by a team of stallions black as crude oil and breathing sulfur: at his heart, he sported a tiny golden arrow.” related to Hades chasing Persephone. The last two stanza’s in the poem turns into an evil tone. The line where it reads “he was my uncle, the one who lived in the half-finished basement, and he took me by the hair” the basement in the stanza is the underworld in