Transition in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been Essay -- Where

Transition in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been Each of us experiences transitions in our lives. Some of these changes are small, like moving from one school semester to the next. Other times these changes are major, like the transition amid youth and adulthood. In Joyce chirp Oates Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?, the author dramatizes a real life crime story to examine the decisive moment people face when at the critical point between the illusions and innocence of youth and the uncertain future. Joyce Carol Oates message of life and transitions is best understood when the reader brings his or her interpretation to meet with the authors intention at a middle ground. This type of literary analysis is known as Reader Response. In Reader-Response, the emphasis is placed on the idea that various readers serve in various ways, and therefore the readers as well as authors create meaning (Barnet, et. al. 1997). In this story of life passages and crucial events, i t is imperative that the reader has a straightforward response to Oates efforts in order to fully comprehend the message. Literature is a combined meeting between the intentions of the author and the reaction of the reader. The author begins her message with the name of her work, which conveys the idea of passages of time in life. The phrase where are you going suggests a time in the future, and the phrase where have you been evokes the past. Oates message continues through the plot and characters. The primary elements of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? are rooted in a true story of a 1965 crime. Occurring just a year before Oates 1966 story was published, the parallels between th... ...et al. tonic York Longman 1997. * * Reaske, Christopher R. and John Knott, Jr. Interview With Joyce Carol Oates. Mirrors An Introduction to Literature. 2nd ed. Eds. John Knott, Jr. and Christopher Reaske. San Francisco Canfield Press 1975. * * Tierce, Mike and John Michael Craft on. Connies Tambourine Man A New Reading of Arnold Friend. Literature Thinking, Reading, and Writing Critically. 2nd ed. Eds. Sylvan Barnet, et al. New York Longman 1997. * * Wegs, Joyce M. Dont You Know Who I Am? The Grotesque in Oates Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Critical Essays on Joyce Carol Oates. Ed. Linda W. Wagner. Boston G. K. Hall 1979. * * Winslow, Joan D. The Stranger Within Two Stories by Oates and Hawthorne. Ed. Thomas Votteler. Vol. 6 of Short Story Criticism. New York Gale Research 1990.