{These questions are due on Thursday, 9/29/16)
Directions: While reading the story, please answer the following questions. We will be discussing the story, in tomorrow's class. Please finish what we do not cover in today's class.
1. Think about the question posed by the title. Where has Connie been (in her life)?
Where is she going now? What makes this story a good example of "The Initiation" story model?
2. Do you detect any irony in the name of our antagonist? After all, Arnold Friend is anything but a friend.
3. Do you see Friend as being a symbolic character? The Devil? The violent side of American male identity? Death personified ("Death and The Maiden")? Is he a projection of Connie's repressed desires for fast cars, loose morals, rock and roll, cruising, sexual liberation?
4. Why does Connie submit to Arnold Friend?
5. Does she have any choice in the matter? Is Oates making a thematic point here, as in, Connie must enter the world adulthood, sexual maturity, even the threatening world of male dominated society, no matter what?
6. Discuss how Connie leaving might be seen as a sacrifice.
7. How might Oates be hinting that Connie's act is a selfless act to protect her family from certain death?
8. Is Connie seduced by her own vanity?
9. While you are your reading "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", you should be asking yourself some key questions about how these characters line up with differing archetypal definitions/descriptions. More importantly, where does the story structure fall in that spectrum?
This story was chosen because it has a narrative that lends itself to many differing story types. This benefits you as writer because you are able to see the way a good story has the ability to present itself with many different shades of emotional color.
This is to say, the story does not present itself as all one thing or another. The reader has room for interpretation and emotional engagement in a number of storytelling styles.
