Study questions: Where Are You Going, Where Have you Been?

  Discuss the title of the story.   What is the significance of the questions?  Who might ask these types of questions.  Read the Bible verse Judges 19:17.  It's been argued that this is Oates' inspiration for the title, but I have not read where she has acknowledged this.   Do you see a correlation? 

  Discuss the references to popular teenage music in the story.  Look at the instances in the story where music is mentioned.  How does it influence the theme of the story?  Speculate as to why the author dedicated the story to Bob Dylan.   Oates has claimed that she was influenced by Bob Dylan's song "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue."                             Here's a copy of the lyrics.

  Write about Arnold Friend's car.   What does a car typically symbolize to teenagers?  What do you make of Friend's funky jalopy?  What do you suppose the numbers painted on the side represent? What do you suppose will be the NEXT number in the series?  

  Discuss the character of Connie.   She is impatience to assert her independence, and Arnold Friend is more than willing to help her.  How is she vain?  How is she a typical middle-class teenager?  Do you see any symbolism in her name?  Is she to be pitied, scorned, applauded or what?  Why is Arnold Friend so strangely attractive to her? 

  Discuss the very complicated character of Arnold Friend.  Is he simply a bad guy, or is he evil personified?   Can Arnold Friend  be compared to infamous murderers in real life?  Oates has admitted that she was inspired to write this story by a murder and rapist known as "The Red Piper of Tucson," whose case was profiled in the March 4, 1966 edition of Life magazine.  How do the physical descriptions of him paint a picture of death-like qualities?  Or on the lighter side, do you think he may be a caricature of Bob Dylan?  What was Dylan's role in the pop-music culture?  Do you believe that Arnold Friend is as omniscient as he claims?  Do you see any biblical allusions in Arnold Friend's physical description?  Do you see any symbolism in his name? (Hint: play around with the letters.  What do you get when you remove the two R's from his name?)

  What do you make of Ellie Oscar?   Do you see any symbolism in his name?  Any ideas on what he is meant to represent? 

  Can you form an argument that pop music is a type of religion for Connie?  Offer specific evidence from the story to support this theory.

  Discuss the irony in the story.   How is Connie's reaction different from what you would expect of a typical victim of abduction?  Connie goes almost willingly, as some sort of bizarre heroic gesture.   Do you believe that she goes with Arnold Friend to save her family?  Do you believe that Arnold Friend has any real power over her family?  Is this a story about reality or about deception? 

  Some of the topics of this story are youthful rebellion, sexual maturity, quest for independence, experience (which calls each of us), the vulnerability of youth and the treachery of evil.  Can you take one of these topics (or another of your own topic ideas), and phrase it into a statement of theme?                                   

  And finally, one word of advice about the ending:  We don't really know what happens to Connie, but we know it isn't good.  Don't form an argument, however, that Connie is necessarily a victim of rape or murder.  As literary analysts, we don't get to write the next page of the story.