Literary critics have offered competing explanations of the significance of Connie’s ultimately getting into Arnold’s car at the end of Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”
Write an essay of 750-1000 words (except in the case of the Creative Adaptation assignment) in response to one of the topics below. (If you would like to create a topic of your own or write on a story not listed below, check with the instructor first.) Your essay should have a clearly stated thesis and should refer to specific passages from the story as evidence to support your claims. Consider you audience for the paper to be other students in the class; in other words, people who have read the story but may not have thought about it as carefully as you have.
Because your reader has recently read the story, you don’t need to summarize the basic plot in your paper. Where necessary, you should quote passages, but try to keep your quotations as brief as possible, quoting only those words necessary to your argument. You should use quotes only when the exact wording is important to your argument or to remind the reader of a detail he/she might not remember.
Option 1: Literary critics have offered competing explanations of the significance of Connie’s ultimately getting into Arnold’s car at the end of Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” For instance, Stephen Slimp argues that, in this decision, Connie sacrifices herself for her family to reveal a “growth of her spiritual nature” (179)*; other critics attribute her action to culturally engendered vulnerability, arguing that Connie is conditioned by an aspect of her culture—patriarchal culture or the values of popular culture—to acquiesce to her predator. We might think of other textually supportable readings of the significance of Connie’s action as well. Use your skills of literary analysis, including at least three of the fiction
key terms we discussed in Week One, to develop and support an argument that you will share with other members of the class about the significance of Connie’s actions at the end of the story. Since you’re participating in a conversation with other intelligent readers who have recently read the story and may disagree with you, consider and even incorporate counterpositions as you present evidence from the story and try to persuade other students in the class
that the most compelling evidence surrounding this ambiguous aspect of the story supports your
argument. In the conclusion of your essay, explain how your explanation of Connie’s action
affects the broader meaning or significance of the story.
*Slimp, Stephen. “Oates’s Where are You Going, Where have You been?” The Explicator, vol. 57,
no. 3, 1999, pp. 179-181, ProQuest Central, https://nuls.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://searchproquest-com.nuls.idm.oclc.org/docview/216775591?accountid=25320.
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