My Analysis for who is Arnold Friend
Since the beginning of time, stories have been told about the forces of good and evil. Some say the devil is the personification of evil, the enemy of God and humankind, and the evil force that never seems to prevail. In a biblical interpretation of Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” one can see how Oates portrays one character, Arnold Friend, as the devil. The story is about a 15-year old girl, Connie, caught up in the insecurities and fantasies of puberty. After Connie sneaks to the movies with her friends one evening, the wicked eye of the devil spots her and decides to take her for his prey. Friend decides to go to Connies’ home one Sunday afternoon, when he knows her parents aren’t home, and, through the evil he is capable of, change her life for the worse. Oates demonstrates that Friend is the devil by giving him devilish characteristics such as a deceiving appearance of friendship, preying on the weak, and a persistence to do evil.

Most evil things appear to be good at first, the later deceive, for who would want to take part in something that seemed evil to begin with? Just as the devil is dressed in a deceiving way, so is Arnold Friend, something more then a mere coincidence. Sex before marriage may seem like a fantastic, satisfying experience, yet “over half of all teens that had sex at least once reported that they wish they had waited (till marriage).” People are drawn into the evil idea that sex before marriage is appropriate because it is cloaked in a transparent field of lust. Arnold Friend hides his true identity by cloaking himself with a false name, young attitude and false outward appearance. Bearing the last name Friend triggers the subconscious into associating the word with positive experiences/people. Friends’ jokiness and positive attitude, similar to that of a teenage boy whom Connie may have actually been interested in, is put into play as an attempted cover-up for his true devilish nature; by talking to Connie in a way that she would expect for a boy her age, Friend is attempting to lure her in with a deceiving appearance of friendship. Friend goes to the full extent, even dressing the part, pretending to be a teenage boy trying to take a gal out “just for a ride” on a Sunday afternoon in order for his prey, Connie, to to his trap.

At first the devils’ plan works as, “Connie liked the way he was dressed, which was the way all of them (teenage boys) dressed.” By dressing in a way that Connie would normally associate boys her age with, Friend initially tricks Connie into believing he is a boy her age. His false appearance of friendship makes him seem quite acceptable to the unsuspecting eye, yet Satan often comes in the form of a friend, just as Arnold Friend pretended to be Connie’s friend, and then deceives. In the Bible, Satan comes to Eve in the form of a serpent, befriends her, and makes her believe that it is okay to eat fruit from a tree in the center of the Garden of Eden, an area that God told her specifically not to eat from. Satan says to Eve about the tree, “You will not certainly die…For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4-5). By making Eve believe she will gain from eating the fruit, Satan makes himself appear as a friend, when he really knows that if she does, sin will be created, and it will plague humanity for many years to come.

Connie observes, “this smile come, awkward as if he were smiling from inside a mask. His whole face was a mask, she thought wildly, tanned down onto his throat but then running out as if he had plastered makeup on his face but had forgotten about his throat.”” Oates intentionally makes what Connie believes to be merely a wild thought, the truth; she is seeing Friend from behind a mask, and he has the mask plastered on his face in an attempt to hide his true identity as the devil. The devil knows that nobody would want to come to evil on their own, so he hides his true identity, and for the devil, one coming to evil out of their own will is much more a victory then being forced into it.Eve had the choice on whether or not to disobey God in the Garden of Eden, and although Satan’s trickery resulted in her disobeying, had she chosen to obey God’s command, her choice would have been much more rewarding.

Connie sees Friend “take a step toward the porch lurching. He almost fell. But, like a clever drunken man, he managed to catch his balance. He wobbled in his high boots and grabbed hold of one of the porch posts. “ He wobbled again and out of the side of his mouth cam a fast curse, an aside not meant for her to hear. But even this “Christ!” sounded forced. Friend is not a mere drunken man in this instance; he is the devil, and his wobbling is a result of hooves not fitting into boots shaped for the human foot. Friend uses the word Christ with a negative connotation because he is the enemy of God and humankind, and Jesus Christ is the savior of the most popular religion in the world, Christianity. A rule of Christian belief is to not use the Lords’ name in vain, and Friend does just that when he intentionally curses the word “”Christ”.

The devil likes to prey on the weak, as that is his easiest prey. In the Bible, the devil preys on Eve, for he knows she is the weaker of the two. Just as the devil preyed on the weak in the book of Genesis, he preys on the weak in Oates’ story. Connie “was fifteen and she had a quick nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking people’s faces to make sure her own was all right.” Oates portrays Connie as having grown up a mostly sheltered life, not having to go through any life-changing experiences that may have made her strong. Friend comes to Connie’s home when he knows she will be home alone, knowing that he could easily overpower her innocence and weakness. If Friend were a human, he could easily overpower Connie physically, but since he is the devil, he makes Connie choose one of two options, both of which would have negative outcomes. He leaves Connie no other morally correct choice but to go with him, as he gradually cracks her will and spirit.

Just as the devil is persistent, Friend’s persistence to do evil proves the he is the devil. When the devil was tempting Eve in the Garden of Eden, he was persistent, as he did not stop trying to persuade Eve to eat fruit from the forbidden tree even after she said God would not allow it. When Connie tells Friend to leave, he replies, “We ain’t leaving until you come with us.” If Friend was not so relentless, and had left when Connie told him to, Connie would not have been forced into his trap, and her Sunday afternoon would have been okay. The devils persistence is the reason evil exists in the world to this day, for if he were not persistent and relentless in his attempts to destroy all things beautiful and good, evil wouldn’t exist.

Oates portrays Arnold Friend as the devil. She creates the devil in human form through Friend by coating him with characteristics such as a deceiving appearance of friendship, preying on the weak, and a persistence to do evil.