an english major

She isn’t a woman a woman of moral integrity, wishing to be seen as a “lady” and happy to complain about the bad in the world but unwilling to actually do good or reflect on her own actions. It is in Eric Martin’s article on “Flannery O’Connor & Strange Morality” that he states “It is a fallen world, just like the grandmother says it is. But she is wrong to think that she and Red Sammy are exceptions.” It is the grandmother’s own self righteousness in her family’s tragedy that makes her pitiable. She begs The Misfit, pleading and reasoning that she knows he is a “good man,” just as she had told Red Sammy that he was a good man. Instead of acknowledging wrongdoing and challenging herself to be better, the grandmother simply makes excuses for wrongdoings and poor behavior.

Despite this, it is still upsetting to know that through all her begging, the old woman is aware of what is becoming of her family. For all her denial, she is still human; she acknowledges that even with The Misfit’s cruel actions, he is as human and fallible as she ultimately is. Just as The Misfit did not deserve to be put away for a crime he hadn’t committed, the grandmother did not deserve to lose her family and her life even in he selfishness.

“You know that the moral of Adam and Eve is that woman gets pegged with all of human sin,” she tells her husband. Similarly, if you consider the Judaic myth of Lilth, the theme of women being the source of sin is a through line. Lilith is often considered the first wife of Adam, and his equal. But despite being his equal, she was expected to be completely subservient to him and his sexual desires. For her exertion of her own freewill and denial of Adam, she was cast out of the garden and became the mother of demons and empress of Hell.

Despite the narrator believing it unfair that women in the bible are pinned for all of human sin, it does not stop her from seemingly pinning a similar ideology on men when it comes to the tales of rape that sweep through her neighborhood. “I can even feel in my bloodstream the new venom that has entered the world, a venom that somehow acts only on men, hardening what had once been bad thoughts into new, worse actions-” as if men are the only ones capable of rape.

She is not exempt from feelings of sympathy though. When she reminisces on the ways women have been chastised and blamed for their own trauma within rape culture as well as thinking of her own experience being raped. Through her thoughts on the subject we can see how such experiences have shaped her subsequent lack of security and pessimism for the world around her. The image of a snake is fitting for the topic, Groff herself telling in an NPR interview how even seeing snakes everyday in Florida, they still fill her with fear. People hear tales of real horror through the scope of true crime every day and it spreads like a venom, filling people fear and paranoia, trying to find a reason for it.

She is fifteen, merely a child thrown into tragedy, becoming victim to Arnold Friend, who is themed as the embodiment of evil. A young girl noted even by her author as being shallow and vain, she is noted as having “a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or  checking other people's faces to make sure her own was all right.” Not only occasionally, but to the extent of having her mother take notice and tell her to stop gawking at herself and even put her down asking “Who are  you? You think you're so pretty?” This makes it come off less as pure vanity and more as an example of girls and women being put down for finding joy in their own beauty or importance in themselves rather than what others think of them.

It’s unfortunate to say that even between 1966 and 2021, even with all the talk of “girl power,” not much has changed when it comes to the common pastime of putting down the interests of women solely because it is something they enjoy.

Connie is stated as having sides to her that are for home, and sides that were for when she was not home. These sides of her that are not for home can be read as a young girl trying to discover herself, navigating through her adolescence. It is far more innocent than Arnold Friend’s different faces, as many people have sides to them that are reserved only for their private life. Whereas the face Friend wears when speaking to Connie is distinctly for the purpose of falsifying his nature. The mask he wears is meant to draw Connie in, make her think he is like her, but he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Connie, originally explained as shrewd and on the ropes with her mother and sister, is still a child who is dependent on them. Despite her wishing her other dead and telling her friends “she makes me want to throw up sometimes,” she is a moody teenager, it’s practically a rite of passage to hate your parents at some point when you’re a teenager. When she finds she is in danger, Connie wants nothing more than to call her mom for help; with Friend’s taunts and threats, Connie ultimately sacrifices herself to an unknown doom for the sake of the family she claims to hate. Friend tells her, “you're better than  them because not a one of them would have done this for you,” and she goes with him even still, even if her family wouldn’t do the same for her. There is no hope for Connie, she is a child doomed.

https://blog.pshares.org/big-picture-small-picture-context-for-joyce-carol-oates-where-are-you-going-where-have-youbeen/

https://journals.openedition.org/jsse/786?lang=en

Connie from Oates’ story. She is 15, merely a child, and viewed as extremely vain. She is targeted by an adult man who threatens to hurt her family if she doesn’t go with him and his friend. Note that this was written during the start of second-wave feminism.

The grandmother from “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” It would be easy in the 21st century to tear into her and say she doesn’t deserve sympathies because she’s a little old racist. However this story was written in 1950s Georgia, so of course the old lady is going to be racist. Her definition of a “good man” is watery at best because it changes with whatever meaning she wishes it to hold, in any way that can work for her. She has to sit and speak to the Misfit and grows to feel sympathy for him all while knowing it’s his fault her family is being murdered, it’s his fault she is about to be murdered, her pleas and prayers going unheard.

The narrator from “Snake Stories”. She and her husband discuss the story of Adam and Eve, her stating how the story pins all of human sin on Eve (and really if you think about the story of Lilith before Eve, even she is pegged as the “queen of demons” for not being subservient to Adam.) And goes on to reminisce on the ways women for their own trauma within rape culture and of her own rape, and how such experiences have shaped her subsequent pessimism and paranoia. Note the hypocrisy of the narrator also implying only men are capable of rape; “I can even feel in my bloodstream the new venom that has entered the world, a venom that somehow acts only on men, hardening what had once been bad thoughts into new, worse actions.”

While the narrator from “Eyewall” has her own traumas, her extremely spiteful nature makes her hard to sympathize with. One would think her statement “I have always felt a sisterhood with bathtubs; without someone else within us, we are smooth white cups of nothing,” I would feel a sense of pity. Pity that she finds she’s empty without other people. But really I’m just annoyed and find it obnoxious but I’m bias because despite liking many of her descriptions, I also find the way the story reads to come off as pretentious.

Besides the evidence within the stories themselves, you might consider the following for research topics:

Gender roles during the time in which the story was composed

Critical response to the stories and/or the authors’ oeuvres

Biographical information of the authors which may shed light on their work