Tuesday, May 23, 2017

May 23 D -Test "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates

"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates

Test and Presentation
Directions: 
  1. Read the story.
  2. Discuss each question with a partner or with in a small group.  Take notes on the conversations you have with your partner or group.  (Notes will be collected at the end)
  3. You with your partner or group will be called on to present your analysis to the rest of the class.  
  4. Your presentation must include a selection from the story that service as evidence for your analysis.

1. Why does Oates use religious imagery in the story?  In what sense does this girl, whose family doesn't go to church anymore, use the drive-in as a kind of church?

2. Arnold Friend works well in this story because he's more than a bully, a tough guy.  Ellie is in the story to act as his foil, that is, Ellie seems to be just a sick, ugly, hostile man.  But Arnold is really spooky; he seems almost a super-natural being.  What makes him strange and powerful in the story?  What makes Arnold and the story terrifying?

3. What is Connie hungry for?  Look carefully at images of eating.  Her parents and sister to to a barbecue.  She does not.  The drive-in restaurant is a temple.  Arnold seems to know what she is hungry for.  Is it sex?  Why is she so hostile and dissatisfied?

4. What is the story's attitude toward Connie's notions of romantic love?

5. Arnold gets beneath the surface, takes Connie into the unspeakable, literally, "People don't talk that way."  How does the story concern the border between what spoken and what is done, what is not spoken, and what is not done?

6. What do you will expect will happen?  Why doesn't Oates tell us?


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