Joyce Carol Oates was born in 1938 in Lockport, New York. She started writing very young and that the age of fifteen she submitted her first novel, but it was rejected for being "too dark". This style of writing is common on many of her works including "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" Oates graduated from Syracuse University and then went on to get her master's degree from the University of Wisconsin. Oates "turned much often in her writing to everyday characters, which she often placed in situations that were both psychologically and socially terrifying." (Short Stories For Students 258) Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? is based on a killer in the southwest names Charles "Smitty" Schmid was charged of rape and murder of three young girls in the fall of 1965 in Tucson, Arizona. "Oates wrote the story after hearing Dylan's song "Its All Over Now, Baby Blue" Oates also has dedicated the story to Dylan which has brought about a fair amount of mystery and speculation. (Joyce Carol Oates, Raines)

Connie, a fifteen year old girl who likes to go off and have fun with her friends, meet and dream about boys and the idea of a perfect life and relationship is the ma

Now, minus the "R" in Arnold and the "R" in Friend he takes on a new, possibly truer identity:

in target of a clever malicious stalker, a man who intends to kidnap, rape and murder her. "She (Connie) is caught between her roles as a daughter, friend, sister, and object of sexual desire uncertain of which one represents the real her." (Short Stories For Students 259) Creighton writes "Oates captures so well the viciousness, cheapness and narcissism of life for Connie and her friends who have nothing better to do than to stroll up and down a shopping center plaza looking for excitement." Connie is blind to the real world which surrounds her and ironically enough, it leads to her death. She opens up herself too much to life and believes nothing will ever hurt her. The music and movies she enjoys are her ideals of how her life will be for her in the future.

Although the story has a very dark ending, it also sets in a sence of reality. Joyce Carol Oates has defiantly gotten a pint across with this story. The fact that anywhere, anytime, danger can come around. We all have sympathy for Connie in the fact that she cannot see what is going to happen to her, and Arnold Friend takes on the roll of a person we have all learned to hate. We can now see the greater meaning of "it can happen to anyone".

Creighton, Joanne V. Contemporary Literary Criticism Volume 19. Pgs. 348-51. Gale Research Company. Detroit, Michigan. 1981.

The most talked about and most often analyzed part of the story is the numbers 33, 19, 17 that are written on the side of Arnold's car. The most common interpretation is that added all together the numbers equal 69, a common sexual expression. Mark Robson states there is an "illusion to Judges 19:17-the number 33 referring to the fact that Judges is the thirty-third book from the end of the Old Testament." (Piwinski 196) Although "more ironic than convincing" Piwinski agrees that there should be a simpler meaning.

Publishing.

By the time Arnold asks her "what else is there for a girl like you but to be sweet and pretty and give in?" Connie feels like she can do nothing but comply, trusting her "incomplete identity" to the end, she is lead to ruin. (Short Stories For Students 262)

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Approximate Word count = 1609
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)