Arnold Friend: the Devil in Disguise

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When people want something badly, they will do anything to get it. The Devil will give them an apparent easy way to obtain their goals, but the way they expect it to happen does not always turn out so. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates, when Connie wanted to get away from her parents, and be the sexually mature person she appears to be; the devil appeared as the answer to all her problems in the form of the deceptive and omnipotent Arnold Friend. Arnold is introduced in the beginning of the story taunting Connie “Gonna get you, baby.” The devil is known to taunt people. After Judas betrayed Jesus and received his silver, he was taunted by the devil until he killed himself. The way Arnold taunts Connie is foreshadowing to the tormenting that Arnold will put her through later in the story. He is tempting her to get in the car throughout the whole story, the way the Devil tempted Jesus for 40 days. The appearance of Arnold Friend shows that he is concealing his identity and wearing a disguise. She states that “he had shaggy, shabby black hair that looked crazy as a wig”, and he wears glasses that “were metallic and mirror everything in miniature,” they hide his eyes and where he is looking at. At one point in the story, “he placed his sunglasses on top of his head, carefully as if he indeed wearing a wig.” The wig he is wearing is to cover his horns that he has on the top of his head. He attempts to act and look like he is young like Connie but in reality looks thirty years old. When he grins, he squint his eyes and Connie can see a “black tarlike material,” trying to change his appearance to look more appealing to Connie. He shuffles in his boots as if he has hooves. When he smiles awkwardly it looks “as if he were smiling from inside a mask. His whole face was a mask, she thought wildly, tanned down to his throat but then

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