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Susana Valdez
Dr. Pasini
ENGL 1302-188
24 April 2015
An Ongoing War with Rape
There are people dying. They die not a physical death but rather an emotional death–a
death that wounds both the heart and mind. Joyce Carol Oates’s short story, “Where are You
Going, Where Have You Been?”, brings about the issue of this emotional death caused by rape.
In her short story, the readers are introduced to Connie, a girl that is in love with her appearance,
who is always being scolded by her mother and compared to her older sister. She values freedom
and rebels against her parents to obtain that freedom. Her father did not have much of an
interaction with her. Due to the parenting, the rebellion, and the importance on appearance,
Arnold Friend caught his eye on Connie and kidnapped her only so that she could face a new and
harsh reality. Every day there are people who are going through the same issue as Connie. In the
United States alone “One in four women are victims of attempted or completed rape” (Kim 264).
Nevertheless, it is argued whether the rapist or the so called victim is responsible for the rape.
Although there is more awareness and interaction now than there was is the (the time period the
story took place), rape is still a main problem that many teenagers like Connie face due to the
rapist rather than the victim because he or she made the final choice by following and threatening
the victim.
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It is well known that rape in abominable and that it should be stopped. The rapist follows
the victim knowing what he is going to do. Additionally, Christina’s Maesden Gillis’s article
‘“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”: Seduction, Space, and a Fictional Mode”’
highlights how Arnold Friend invaded Connie’s privacy by entering her consciousness and her
home uninvited. By stalking Connie and following her, Arnold Friend demonstrates how he was
aware of his next move while Connie was unaware of what would occur. He even told her,
“Gonna get you baby”. It was in his intention to do her wrong while she just wanted to escape
the prison of her home. A person who knows is doing wrong, and still does the action deemed
wrong anyway is at fault. In a similar, real-life, case Julia Skinner tells her story by saying, “I
was walking home from visiting a friend when a man began to follow me” (Skinner 171). A
person follows what he wants. The victim has no choice.
