Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates:

“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”

NOTES

PRE-READING:

· rebels/“bad boys” throughout the generations (music, movies)

· secret desire/wish/fantasy with which you surprisingly came face-to-face.

· Teenagers: behaviors, role models, sexuality, malls…

POST-READING: (Research one of the following & relate to our story.)

Death and the Maiden motif
Persephone and Demeter myth
“Pied Piper of Hamelin” (Robert Browning)
The Golden Calf
Prince Charming, Knight in Shining Armor, …
“Bad Boys” through the generations
Eve’s Temptation by Serpent (Paradise Lost)
Satan in Garden (Book IV)
Eve’s Dream (Book V)
Eve’s Temptation (Book IX)
Wish Fulfillment (Freud)
death wish, self-destructive tendencies
Bob Dylan
Charles Starkweather (and Caril Fugate) killing spree
history
in movies:
Pulp Fiction (diner), Wild at Heart, True Romance,
Kalifornia, Natural Born Killers
Charles Schmid murders: Moser, Don. “The Pied Piper of Tucson.” Life 4 Mar. 1966: 19-24, 80c-90.
Charles Manson murders
Teenage Culture (girls): self-righteousness, identity formation, “growing pains,” testing boundaries, testing freedoms, sexuality, role models = pop stars (movies, music)
Allegory
JCO review of Smooth Talk (1986 movie version)

______

I. GENRES

a) Bildungsroman:

· coming-of-age

· rite-of-passage

B) Gothic:

· suspense, grotesque story

C) ALLEGORY:

· surreal, more than concrete

· extended metaphor

· characters = symbols, abstractions (of human virtues, vices)

· plot/actions = symbolic

· theme = concerns the human experience

· effective on literal AND symbolic/figurative levels (layers of meaning)

· Feminist allegory

· Rock-N-Roll fable

D) **KIDNAP STORY: (quasi-Stockholm Syndrome)

· unlike most, where the victim does NOT wish to be taken

· here, the “victim” secretly wishes to be taken

o she wants to leave,

o secretly wishes for a handsome prince to come and take her away

o has yet to find, in all her “dates” (hook-ups) a boy who is man enough to take her away

o she dreams of escape, of a different life

o fantasizes of a better life, promised in R&R songs

o realization:

§ the unknown looks better than the known

§ he has planned her abduction (premeditated)

§ he is likely to follow through on his threats of violence against her family

§ à self-sacrifice

E) “REALISTIC ALLEGORY”:

· JCO term

· “Hawthornean, romantic, shading into parable”

· “minutely detailed yet clearly an allegory” … of the fatal attractions of devil (or the devil)”

· realistic: details, description, based on actual event

· allegorical: symbolic, levels of meaning

------

II. LITERARY TECHNIQUES

A) SETTING:

· summer, mid-summer (July), Sunday

· suburban setting

· atmosphere =

o teenagers (hangout)

o lazy, dream-like (surreal, illusory, ethereal)

o suspense

B) STRUCTURE:

· general era

· à chronological

o midsummer night

o Sunday afternoon

C) POV:

· 3rd person, limited omniscient

· Connie’s mind, thoughts, feelings

o Connie = PROTAGONIST

o Arnold = ANTAGONIST

· non-judgmental (assessment’s = Connie’s, not narrator’s)

D) FORESHADOWING:

· attractive, liked attention (vanity)

· nagged by mother all the time

· no attention from her father (Elektra Complex)

· lies, sneaks over to drive-in (older kids)

o “Everything about her always had two sides to it, ….”

· many “dates” (sex?) Eddie

· Arnold Friend’s 1st meeting: “Gonna get you, baby.”

· Connie’s dreams

· no church on Sundays (no religion?)

E) SYMBOLISM:

· Connie

· Arnold Friend

· Mother

· mall

· drive-in restaurant

· Arnold’s car

· music

· screen door

F) MOTIFS:

· reality vs. appearances

· reality vs. fantasy

· deceptions, illusions

· self-deception

· unreality:

o lies, hints, deceptions, suspicions, threats

o reflections that fool the eyes (neon lights, mirrored glasses)

o hypnotic effect of music

o hypnotic effect of Arnold Friend’s voice

G) *THEMES:

· sexual maturity

· mother-daughter relationships

· warning against vanity (see arrogance of Joy/Hulga in “GCP”)

· masks

· control

· reality vs. fantasy

· reality vs. appearance

· Elektra Complex?

· taboo

· allegory

· coming of age (rite of passage) (Bildungsroman) (testing the limits of freedom)

· hunter becomes hunted

· self-sacrifice?

______

III. CHARACTER SKETCHES

CONNIE:

· 15

· attractive

· vain (knows she’s attractive—“…she had a quick nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was alright.”)

o typical superficiality of teenagers (ego formation, identity)

o typical rebellion of teenagers

o typical sexual experimentation, testing of boundaries

o Queenie in “A&P”

· Sibling rivalry

o older sister June, 23, is perfect, always praised

o Maggie & Dee in “Everyday Use”

· rebellious

· flirtatious

o “dates” many boys at the drive-in (makes out in their cars—no SEX)

· does not get along with her mother:

o thinks she is smarter than/better looking than mother

· lies: @ mall

· embarrassed by family (barbeque), sister (school), mother

· possible Elektra Complex with her father

· perhaps desperate for his attention à seeks it in the attention of any male figure

· JCO on Connie:

o “An innocent young girl is seduced by way of her own vanity; she mistakes death for erotic romance of a particularly American/trashy sort.”

o “Connie is shallow, vain, silly, hopeful, doomed—but capable nonetheless of an unexpected gesture of heroism at the story’s end….We don’t know the nature of her sacrifice, only that she is generous enough to make it.”

ARNOLD FRIEND:

· mirrored sunglasses

· beady eyes, white (no sun tan)

· short

o (stuffed shoes à clumsy, awkward, hard to stand/walk…absurd)

· tight black jeans

· tight white shirt

· muscles (strong à make good on threats)

· sing-songy voice, melodic, hypnotic

· hawk-like nose

· bushy hair

· car:

o spray-painted gold

o jalopy (from another time; old)

o convertible

o painted name, smiley-face-w/-glasses

· JCO on Arnold:

o “self-styled 1950s pop figure”

o “alternately absurd and winning”

o the story has no evidence that AF has kidnapped & murdered other girls or that he intends to do the same with Connie

o “smooth talking seducer”

MOTHER:

· jealous, envious of her daughter’s youth & good looks, freedom, sexuality

· was once attractive, BUT no longer

· favors the reasonable, secure, steady daughter, June

FATHER:

· distant

· workaholic

· pays little attention to his daughters, wife

· nightly routine: ate supper, read newspaper, went to bed

JUNE:

· fat

· financially secure (secretary at Connie’s high school)

· lives at home

· helps out at home (cleans, chores)

· 24

· darling of her mother

· “…she was so plain and chunky and steady that Connie had to hear her praised all the time by her mother and her mother’s sisters.”

PARENTS:

· either too much (Connie’s mother)

· or too little (Connie’s father, friend’s father)

· TITLE

______

IV. NOTES on the STORY:

"WRUG?"

for Bob Dylan

POV:

· past tense

· 3rd person

· Connie's point-of-view, colored by her thoughts:

o "Her mother, who noticed everything and knew everything and who hadn't much reason any longer to look at her own face...."

o "Her mother had been pretty once too, if you could believe those old snapshots in the album, but now her looks were gone and that was why she was always after Connie."

SIBLING RIVALRY:

· "Everyday Use": Connie & June = Dee & Maggie,

· except Maggie is younger & Connie is younger

· June is 24, still lives at home, secretary at Connie's high school, plain, chunky, steady

· June gets all the attention & praise

· *** Connie: no identity of her own, always compared in relation to June, to be more like her sister

· ** à Connie wished her mother was dead, wished she herself were dead (suicidal? foreshadowing? "just wished it was all over with"?)

MOTHER-DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIPS:

· child = embarrassed by mother

· nagging

· search for identity separate from mother/family

FATHER:

· works all the time

· distant,

· doesn't talk much, engage family much

· works, eats, newspaper

FREEDOM:

· identity, duality

· mall scene, w/girl friends

o (shopping, movies, flirting)

o shopping plaza

o driven 3 miles into town (suburbia)

o best friend's father drives

o home by 11 PM

o father never asked where they were, what they were doing (**parental indifference, ignorance, innocence*)

o dressed in shorts, ballerina slippers (CHILD), charm bracelets (CHILD), thin wrists

**TYPICAL TEENAGER:

· fight with parents, sibling rivalry, feel nagged

· mall scene

· dress

· giggle, laugh, whisper

· DUALITY: look one way at home, dress another w/friends

· rebellion, lying à "ducking fast across the busy road, to a drive-in restaurant where older kids hung out"

· (*danger, thrill, "breathless with daring")

DUALITY:

"She wore a pull over jersey blouse that looked one way when she was at home and another way when she was away from home. Everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home: her walk, which could be childlike and bobbing, or languid enough to make anyone think she was hearing MUSIC in her head; her mouth, which was pale and smirking most of the time, but bright pink on these evenings out; her laugh, which was cynical and drawling at home—"Ha, ha, very funny"—but high-pitched and nervous anywhere else, like the jingling of her charms on her bracelet."

SYMBOLISM:

· mid-summer night

o in-between stage of life

o too old for “kid stuff”

o too young for “adult stuff”

o pulled in 2 directions à DUALITY

· drive-in restaurant:

o freedom, thrill ("breathless with daring"), danger, adulthood/maturity,

o power (over high school boys their own they could ignore),

o *TABOO*

§ rebellion, test limits, push envelope

o *BLINDNESS* (don't see the reality of the place: gaudy, fly-infested),

o a pseudo-religious place for teenagers

§ “a sacred building that loomed up out of the night to give them what haven & blessing they yearned for”

§ “like music at a church service”

§ CHURCH, even w/music

§ (*Mammon*, false gods, idols [Golden Calf])

· MUSIC:

o part of the excitement

o to feel alive

· Arnold Friend:

· car:

· mirrored sunglasses: hide his eyes à eyes = windows to the soul (no soul, hide true intentions, not used to the sunlight = DEVIL, vampire); "mirrored everything in miniature" (condescension); she couldn't see what part of her he was looking at; ***she was always looking at her own reflection in mirrored surfaces à he = her vanity, dream, reflection of her true self***)

· *flies:

o fatal attraction to bright objects, self-destruction?

o death (at drive-in, barbeque, screen door), feed on flesh;

o scavengers;

o pests of summer (danger of youth?); blindness?

STILL A CHILD:

· way she dressed (ballerina shoes, charm bracelet)

· thin wrists, ankles, shoulders

· way she acted (tantrums)

· way she sat at counter (crossed ankles, not legs)

· Eddie at the drive-in (sat backwards, spun, hesitated to ask)

SELFISH: leaves her friend behind at the restaurant, who "wouldn't be alone for long" (left to fend off the wolves)

MUSIC:

· music in her walk

· music at the restaurant (like CHURCH music)

· music = the appeal of the restaurant (not Eddie, not the place itself) -- "the pure pleasure of being alive"

· music on the radio (Sunday) "to drown out the quiet" (avoidance of facing reality, truth about her feelings, loneliness, empty life)..."hard, fast, shrieking songs" and Bobby King

· music from Ellie Oscar's transistor radio

· music in Arnold's voice

ARNOLD FRIEND: 1st meeting:

· right as she felt "the pure pleasure of being alive" (IRONY)

· "Gonna get you, baby."

· grinning Big Boy, grinning Arnold Friend

· then left w/Eddie to eat, drink Coke, make-out (SEX???)...as did her girl friend

COMPARISON_CONTRAST:

· MALL vs. DRIVE-IN

· past-future; innocence-experience

· Connie looks back at 11 PM to the

· deserted, faded, "ghostly" mall parking lot AND

· then to the hive-like, busy, musical, alive drive-in

· (SYMBOLISM of youth, transition from youth to young adulthood)

DREAM:

· dreams & fantasizes about the boys she's met

· BUT ... all the boys "dissolved into a single face that was not even a face, but an idea, a feeling, mixed up with the urgent insistent pounding of the MUSIC and the humid night air of July."

o @ Arnold Friend?

o AF = amalgamation, embodiment of all her fantasies

o What is the "idea" or "feeling"? (love, danger, freedom, escape, adulthood, sex drive)

· dreams in the sun, on Sunday, of boys

ARROGANCE OF YOUTH:

· "Her mother was so simple, Connie thought, that it was maybe cruel to fool her so much...." lies to her mother about not knowing the Pettinger girl who got pregnant, to distant herself from the SAME (dangerous) behavior

o girl = pregnant, kidnapped??

o MOTHERS & DAUGHTERS

o danger of her behavior (pregnant, kidnapped)

o ELECTRA COMPLEX (rivalry, antagonism)

LIES:

· going over to the drive-in from the mall...instead of movies

· lies about the movie to June

· lies about "the Pettinger girl" (pregnant)

· lies @ “things to do” to AF BUT he laughs at her

DANGER:

· cross busy highway to get to the drive-in

· hang out with older boys

· unprotected sex, making out with total strangers (pregnancy)

· *ARNOLD FRIEND*

NO RELIGION:

· drive-in = her church, R&R = her church music (false gods, idols)

· sleep in on Sundays, no church attendance (none in the family -->lapse in morality, family bond)

BLINDNESS:

· drive-in (misses the seediness)

· Connie sees a barbeque as "running yelling kids and the flies" BUT that's the same as the drive-in

· doesn't see the risk, DANGER in drive-in, lying, flirting, sex, Arnold Friend

UNREALITY:

· dreams of boys (mixes w/Arnold Friend)