Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

       Joyce Carol Oates' short story, Where are you Going, Where Have you Been? is possibly the strangest thing I have ever read. At the beginning, Connie seems like any other rebellious teenager. Then on one of these nights a guy just like tells her that she's his and she pretty much blows it off. Then later in the story her parents leave to go to a family cookout and the same creepy guy shows up at her house. As if it is not weird enough that he knows where she lives without ever really speaking to him, he knows literally everything about her. He says he got all of his information from sources like her friends, which is pretty disturbing too. And it must have been a long time since she saw him originally because she has to think back hard before she even remembers him. Plus she doesn't even know his name. He shows up with his friend randomly and asks her to come with them. He is flirting with her in extreme excess. He basically begs her to come and then tries to force her and threaten her. He has like a fancy car and acts all super cool at first, but then she realizes that he's super old and she starts to get weirded out. She tries to run inside her house and threatens to call the police and he threatens her that he wont come into her house unless she calls. 

        Personally, I think if Arthur is real, he has serious issues and might be a pedophile. If he's a figment of her imagination I think she's crazy and even if Arthur is real i still think she's nuts because she goes out to him and goes with him. If he's a person she just created in her mind, she probably has serious issues, like conflicting traits in her personality or maybe she has schizophrenia. This story was disturbing in multiple ways, but I think its even more so for three reasons. The reader never finds out if Arthur is real or not, there is evidence for both sides and none of it confirms anything, and if he is a hallucination, the reader is left wondering why Connie would ever imagine something as extravagant and deranged as this. Then she decides to go... and it is already odd that she can literally picture herself walking over to him. Which confirms my opinion that if he's fake she's insane and if he's real and she still went with this creepy dude who she doesn't know, is much older, and was willing to threaten her to get her to come with him; then she is still obviously a lunatic.