Is Where are you going Where have you been a tragedy
When "Where Are You Going, Where have you been?" was written in 1966, it was interpreted many different ways. Many feminist and women's rights groups saw the story as an symbol of violence against women. Others believed it was a demonstration of "pure realism" and the "grotesque." Joyce Carol Oates has never substantiated or refuted any of these claims, her only comment on the story being that Bob Dylan's song, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" was on her mind while writing it. No matter what view one takes on the purpose of the story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" has never been argued as a tragedy. Although it does seem almost tragic at the end, when Connie sacrifices herself for her family, the story is no tragedy. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" lacks all of the elements Aristotle considered necessary to be qualified as a tragedy, hamartia, catharsis, and the fall of a high person. The fall of a high person qualifies such stories as "Hamlet" for it is the Prince of Denmark that declines throughout the play and dies at the end, Paradise Lost is not only about the fall of man, but about the destruction of Lucifer, who was the Archangel of light, just about as high as you get. But Connie's fall i
At the end of "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" the reader has a sense of relief. Connie is a 15-year-old girl who lives on the outskirts of a not so big town. She has sacrificed herself to save her family, so there is no feeling of pity for Connie as the story ends. " The tragic catharsis is achieved through the emotions of pity and fear, which are stirred in the audience by the tragedy of a protagonist who suffers unjustly. This is seen in Shakespeare's "Othello. Connie's fall is a conscious decision, error as it may turn out to be. When Connie finally goes outside to Arnold Friend he tells that her family "don't know one thing about you and never did honey, you're better than them because not a one of them would have done this for you," implying that her leaving with the devil is saving the rest of her family, a sacrifice no one else in her family would make for her. This decision by Connie is puts her in a better light for the audience as the end of the story. But this last sacrifice does not lift Connie up and giver her an elevated status in life. In "Poetics" Aristotle argues that catharsis allows "a healthy release or purifying of emotion. She is taking the steps through her kitchen and it is her hand the opens the door to let her outside, not a character flaw that tricks her into giving in to Arnold Friend. " This leaves room for Arnold Friend to enter the picture and grant Connie's wish and take her away from her family and life. She is still a 15-year-old girl from a small town that nobody looks up to, keeping her corruption at the end of the story from being the fall of a high person. It may be said that Connie did not deserve to be taken away by the devil at the end of "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" but does that make the story a tragedy? Pity and fear and to be inspired in the reader by the suffering of someone who is morally typical, not overwhelmingly good or evil, but susceptible to error. Connie may not have deserved to be corrupted, but in doing so she saved her family from the same fate.
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Acceptance Essays
