Joyce Carrol Oates

“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” Analysis Research Summary In C. Harold Hurley’s “Cracking The Secret Code In Oates’s Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” Hurley kicks off by throwing the numbers 33, 19, and 17 and how Mark Robson misinterpreted them. He tells of how his biblical reference to Judges and Genesis is incorrect. His sole purpose in writing his essay is to explain how Robson screwed up. He uses quotes from Oates short story “Where are you going, Where have you been?” to support his thesis statement. Some of the points he makes are how the numbers 33, 19, and, 17 add up to be 69, which in French is ‘six- a – neuf’ and is used as a common sex symbol rather than scripture as Robson reported. While he is telling of Robson’s failure to understand this “secret code”, he decides to back up his thesis with a foolproof idea: add another critic. He decides to use Tom Quirk, an author who states the cases between Oates’s short story and a previous encounter with a real rapist Charles “Smitty” Schmid. This man is described exactly how Arnold Friend is described in Oates’s story: tall, muscular, and long hair. Another point Hurley makes is that the reason Connie decides to walk through the door is because she hasn’t been asked the question that any concerned parent would ask before a child left, and when they came back “Where are you going, Where have you been?” Hurley then concludes that the numbers 33, 19, and 17 make perfect sense when interpreted, not as biblical references, but as a sexual expression that is consistent with Arnold’s sexually deviant personality.