Joyce Carol Oates Themes

Linda was born on May 27, 1932 in Bronx, New York. She enjoyed writing, but stopped after marrying Ira Pastan on June 14, 1953. She wanted to focus on her schooling and marriage. Pastan received many degrees, including a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Radcliffe, a Master of Library Science degree from Simmons College, and a Master of Arts degree in English from Brandeis. With Ira, Linda raised three children: Stephen, Peter, and Rachel. After an extended intermission, in 1971, Linda Pastan began writing again (Decker npag). In the same year, she published her first book, A Perfect Circle of Sun (“Linda Pastan” npag). Later on, after publishing many other books, Linda Pastan published the poem “You Are Odysseus” within a collection called Carnival Evening: New and Selected Poem: 1968-1998 in 1998 (Pastan npag). Linda Pastan has written seventeen collections of poetry. She is best known for writing poems about major themes, such as “relationships, family, parenting, identity, loss, and death” (Decker npag). Pastan has won many awards. For example, she won the Dylan Thomas award in 1955, the Swallow Press New Poetry Series award in 1972, and the National Endowment for the Arts grant in 1972 (Paul 921). Linda Pastan is still alive and continues to write today (Decker

I have seen many a strange things since our editor sent me to join Ajax’s, son of Telamon, unit at the beginning of this war. But nothing compares to the events of the past seventy-two hours. It all began with a long battle between Ajax and Odysseus over who would inherit Achilles’ panoply. Odysseus was declared the winner after giving an incredible speech. Just in the neck of time too, as we were supposed to leave for home the next day.

In an excerpt from her novel We Were the Mulvaneys, Joyce Carol Oates uses disorganized syntax, detailed imagery, and repetition to characterize the speaker, Judd Mulvaney, as a young, curious boy, coming-of-age and suddenly aware of his maturity and of the realities of life.

The short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates can be interpreted in a multitude of ways due to its ambiguity. A psychological lens, however, provides the most accurate viewpoint for analyzing the story as it clarifies certain obscure scenes and actions of Connie.

In John Updike’s “A&P” and Joyce Oates’s “Where are you going, where have you been” there are multiple intriguing similarities and differences between both protagonists. Both stories involve an adolescent 's main character who goes through a type of struggle, however, the severity of their struggles differ greatly. “A&P” includes a young man named Sammy who loses his job grows an attachment to a small group of girls that are regular customers at the shop he works at. The situation in “Where are you going, where have you been?” is much more grim for the protagonist, a young teenage girl, Connie. She is put into a set of circumstances that put her life in danger. As Connie is home alone, a car pulls up into here driveway. She hardly recognizes

“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” is about a teenager named Connie who is trying to come to terms with her transformation from childhood to adulthood. Through this process, Connie attempts to act older than she is an tries to gain the attention of boys. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” Joyce Oates portrays Connie as obsessed with men to symbolize how one’s obsession and narcissistic attitude can cause danger to seem surreal.

In Joyce Carole Oates short story,” Where Are You Going, Where Have you Been”, the battle of perception and reality comes into play when Connie ,a young teenage girl tries to portray herself as an adult by using her appearance as well as attitude in order to attract the attentions of older men. This fantasy world of Connie’s is eventually overthrown by Arnold Friend, causing her to snap back into the realization that her sexual fantasies will soon be a reality. This overall theme of sexual reality is reinforced by the different uses of music and character symbolisms of Connie and Arnold

Author Joyce Carol Oates ' discovery of the stories of Edgar Allen Poe and Ann Radcliff “sparked her interest in Gothic fiction”. These Gothic elements typically include gruesome or violent incidents, characters in psychological or physical torment, and strong language full of dangerous meanings. Oates herself is citied as saying that "Horror is a fact of life. As a writer, I’m fascinated by all facets of life". “Where is Here?" This story is sort of eerie and tells the tale of a grown-up man who goes back to visit his childhood home. While visiting he displays several strange characteristics where he appears to regress into a child. This story examines a world in which normal life is electrified by the potential for sudden change. Domestic

In her short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", Joyce Carol Oates utilizes a variety of literary devices to strengthen the story in its entirety. This short story is essentially about a 16-year-old girl named Connie and the conflict between her desire to be mature and her desire to remain an adolescent. Throughout the story, the audience sees this conflict through her words in addition to through her behavior. The audience is also introduced to Arnold Friend, a rather peculiar man, who essentially kidnaps her. This short story by Joyce Carol Oates functions and is additionally meaningful because of her usage of literary devices.

In Joyce Carol Oates’s short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” the main protagonist finds herself in a very hostile situation. With an all most fateful encounter with a man known as Arnold Friend. Forcing her to choose whether to run off with him or taking her by force. This man known as Arnold Friend to the reader comes off as almost a demon. A person who uses many temptations, word play, and threats to take advantage of the young protagonist Connie. Oates’s biography explained her fiction writing as a mixture violence and sexual obsession. The writing style definitely fits the plot point of this story with both of her literary ingredients being present in not only Arnold Friend but in Connie as well.

Nature is easily projected onto, as it allows for a sense of peacefulness and escapism. Due to its ability to evoke an emotional reaction from the masses, many writers have glorified it through various methods, including describing its endless beauty and utilizing it as a symbol for spirituality. Along with authors, artists also show great respect and admiration for nature through paintings of grandiose landscapes. These tributes disseminate a fixed interpretation of the natural world, one full of meaning and other worldly connections. In “Against Nature,” Joyce Carol Oates strips away this guise given to the environment and replaces it with a harsher reality. To her, it is superficial and only has overlying positive associations because humans

As the wise philosopher Albert Camus once said: “The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding” ("Albert Camus."). In the captivating short story Where Are You Going, Where Are you Been? Joyce Carol Oates is trying to show the readers that beauty and vanity can be sometimes harmful. Bored and tired of being ordinary, and still being treated as a child, the main character engaged in a rebellion that think will make her look older, more like an adult. The author also shows the readers how Connie’s obsession with her beauty, her dreaminess and carelessness of the world made her more ignorant and lack awareness. That also made her become more vulnerable to the real dangers and the evilness that exists in the world. That danger was represented by an old man who pretends to be an eighteen year old boy that seduced and kidnaped Connie. The end of the story Joyce Carol Oates leaves it open to the readers, because that way it makes the reader think of what might have happened, whether she got raped or whether she is killed, after the main character leaves with the antagonist of the story. Oates shows that ignorance, narcissism and the lack of

I’m sure we’ve all heard about young and beautiful attention seeking girls who eventually end up in sticky situations. There are times where they may not ever get out of the situation but, if they do, they attempt to change their ways. In Joyce Carol Oates’ short story “ Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” , a character named Connie fits right in that category. Connie is very vain and loves attention. Connie’s attention seeking ways lands her in a predicament that she rather not be in. She managed to grasp attention; but is this the kind of attention she wanted? Maybe she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. In this essay, I am going to explain why Connie looking for attention in all the wrong places landed her in such a sticky situation.

How are id, ego and superego represented in “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?” By Joyce Carol Oates?

Through characterization and vilification, Joyce Carol Oates emphasizes both the wickedness and vulnerability of her female characters. Although Oates’s writing is predominantly seen as feministic or through a feminist lens, Oates says she is "very sympathetic with most of the aims of feminism, but cannot write feminist literature because it is too narrow, too limited” (Chell). While Oates may not directly say she writes feministic literature, the topics she writes about include the recognition of the difficulties specific to a female writer according to Chell. In many of her novels, her writing can actually be seen as both feminist and antifeminist due to her use of diction and characterization.