Reaction to the Grotesque in "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been"

            Joyce M. Wegs explains the appearance and significance of the grotesque in Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”  Wegs describes grotesque as a “familiar world suddenly appearing alien… and [suggests] a transcendent reality which reaches beyond surface realism to evoke the simultaneous mystery and reality of the contradictions of the human heart,” (Wegs 99).  I found this use of grotesque similar to the way Oates gives two different descriptions of Connie throughout the short story.  Her one personality at home contradicts her personality away from home which gives the story different levels.

            I found it interesting how Wegs makes the connection with religion in the short story.  She explains how Oates “employs a debased religious imagery to suggest the gods which modern society has substituted for conventional religion,” (Wegs 100).  Connie takes superficial things and makes them into the things she praises and lives by.  The music she listens to, the places she goes, and the things she wants in life (boys) are the things that run her life.  The drive-in restaurant that Connie loves to go to is like a church or “sacred building that loomed up out of the night to give them what haven and blessing they yearned for,” (Oates 27).  Wegs sees how Connie and her friends believe that the restaurant is wonderful and nothing can ever go wrong when they’re there.  The music that plays in the background at the restaurant makes the place seem lighter and more significant, because Connie is obsessed with music.  She always plays music in her room and I believe the music is part of the connection she feels to Arnold Friend because he was playing the same music she was listening to when he came to her house. 

            Going along with religion, Wegs makes the comparison between Arnold Friend and Satan.  I liked her explanation of how Arnold imitated the devil in drawing Connie in and then eventually taking her to hell.  Arnold, like Satan, “is in disguise; the distortions in his appearance and behavior suggest not only that his identity is faked but also hint at his real self,” (Wegs 102).  Arnold wears a wig, make up, and even draws on a fake mole to add to his costume.  He also stuffs cans and paper into his boots to make him seem taller which shows how much of his appearance is a disguise.  Wegs goes on to show how Arnold Friend’s initials could stand for Arch Fiend which I thought was very interesting.  Also, Arnold says to Connie how he can see what is happening at the barbeque at that moment and describes to her who all is there.  His vision can connect to Satan’s supernatural all-knowingness, along with how Arnold knew everything about Connie and her family.  The grotesque mixing of reality and the subconscious is apparent when Connie gives up trying to fight Arnold and instead walks outside to go with him.  Connie’s unconscious, the boy crazy immature side, is attracted towards Arnold.  Wegs makes it clear when she says “in a sense, [Connie’s] body with its puzzling desires ‘decides’ to go with Arnold although her rational self is terrified of him,” (Wegs 105).  Connie’s confusion between her rational and irrational selves contribute to the grotesque terror in the short story. 

            Wegs’s critical paper on “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” is very insightful to me.  I liked the points she makes about the religion in the story and Arnold portraying Satan.  Also, the mixing of reality and Connie’s subconscious is an interesting way to analyze how she acts at the end of the story, when she stops trying to fight Arnold and actually goes with him. 

Works Cited

Oates, Joyce Carol. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Print.

Wegs, Joyce M.  “’Don’t You Know Who I Am?’: The Grotesque in Oates’s ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’” Journal of Narrative Technique 5, 1995. Print.