Where Are You Going Where Have You Been Literary Analysis

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No matter how absurd the story may be, fiction is always bathed in fact. Without any fact or realism in a story, then there would be anything that the reader can connect to. If there is nothing to ground a story in reality, then there is nothing to make us be able to believe the unbelievable. The setting of a story can be in a fantasy world with dragons and unicorns, but if the character do not make believable choices, or do something that would not be believable, then there is no reason for the reader to want to see them succeed. Similarly a story can be a fictional tale, but be based on a factual event that actually happened. Two stories that show examples of these ideas are “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka and “Where are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates. In Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”, the main character, Gregor Samsa, wakes up one day to discover …show more content…
The simple idea of this happening is completely absurd. In reality there is zero percent chance for this to ever happen, however it this story is still a very realistic tale. What grounds this story in reality is the reactions of all of the characters. I we think about Gregor not being turned into a giant but, but being sick with some sort of debilitating sickness, the story would still play out the same way. Like Michael Rowe says in “Metamorphosis: defending the human”, this story is more about how the family reacts as caregivers to a sick family member. There is compassion, fear, anger, confusion, and other very human and reasonable reaction when a person that you were so close to is on the verge of being gone from your life forever. When a person is to sick, and there is nothing that you can do, then the only option left is to stand aside and let whatever happens happen, and to make them

Where Are You Going Where Have You Been Literary Analysis Essay

These are vulnerable years where the child can either, attach to an advanced mentality and build a life of prosperity, or, do the opposite and live a life where the child is continuingly trying to fix his or her life because of succumbing to distractions in those few years. Joyce Carol Oates, in the short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”, illustrates the horrors and temptations that teenagers face in their growth to adulthood, with her use of the literary elements of characterization…

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