Passage Sixteen About the authorJoyce Carol Oatesb. 1938 One of Oatess inspirations for this story was a Life magazine feature on the Pied Piper of Tucson, a serial killer who seduced and murdered teenaged girls. What attracted Oates to the story was that a group of teenagers knew about the man, but the killers inexplicable charm prevented them from telling anyone. She described her first draft of the storywhich she called “Death and the Maiden”as “realistic allegory.” In revision, Oates eliminated any suggestion that Arnold Friend has seduced and murdered other young girls, or even that he necessarily intends to murder Connie. Also gone was her original attraction to the story: a group of teenagers who knew what Friend was up to. What is left is a “shallow, vain, silly, hopeful, doomed” young girl who is capable, nonetheless, of an unexpected gesture of heroism at the storys end. . . . We dont know the nature of her sacrifice, Oates says, “only that she is generous enough to make it.”Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?for Bob Dylan Folk and rock singer and songwriter (1941-). Oates has said that the idea for this story came to her after listening to his song Its All Over Now, Baby Blue.1. Her name was Connie. She was fifteen and she had a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other peoples faces to make sure her own was all right. Her mother, who noticed everything and knew everything and who hadnt much reason any longer to look at her own face, always scolded Connie about it. Stop gawking at yourself. Who are you? You think youre so pretty? she would say. Connie would raise her eyebrows at these familiar old complaints and look right through her mother, into a shadowy vision of herself as she was right at that moment: she knew she was pretty and that was everything. Her mother had been pretty once too, if you could believe those old snapshots in the album, but now her looks were gone and that was why she was always after Connie.2. Why dont you keep your room clean like your sister? Howve you got your hair fixedwhat the hell stinks? Hair spray? You dont see your sister using that junk.3. Her sister June was twenty-four and still lived at home. She was a secretary in the high school Connie attended, and if that wasnt bad enoughwith her in the same buildingshe was so plain and chunky and steady that Connie had to hear her praised all the time by her mother and her mothers sisters. June did this, June did that, she saved money and helped clean the house and cooked and Connie couldnt do a thing, her mind was all filled with trashy day-dreams. Their father was away at work most of the time and when he came home he wanted supper and he read the newspaper at supper and after supper he went to bed. He didnt bother talking much to them, but around his bent head Connies mother kept picking at her until Connie wished her mother was dead and she herself was dead and it was all over. She makes me want to throw up sometimes, she complained to her friends. She had a high, breathless, amused voice that made everything she said sound at little forced, whether it was sincere or not.4. There was one good thing: June went places with girl friends of hers, girls who were just as plain and steady as she, and so when Connie wanted to do that her mother had no objections. The father of Connies best girl friend drove the girls the three miles to town and left them at a shopping plaza so they could walk through the stores or go to a movie, and when he came to pick them up again at eleven he never bothered to ask what they had done.5. They must have been familiar sights, walking around the shopping plaza in their shorts and flat ballerina slippers that always scuffed the sidewalk, with charm bracelets jingling on their thin wrists; they would lean together to whisper and laugh secretly if someone passed who amused or interested them. Connie had long dark blond hair that drew anyones eye to it, and she wore part of it pulled up on her head and puffed out and the rest of it she let fall down her back. She wore a pull-over jersey blouse that looked one way when she was at home and another way when she was away from home. Everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home: her walk, which could be childlike and bobbing, or languid enough to make anyone think she was hearing music in her head; her mouth, which was pale and smirking most of the time, but bright and pink on these evenings out; her laugh, which was cynical and drawling at home Ha, ha, very funny,but high-pitched and nervous anywhere else, like the jingling of the charms on her bracelet.6. Sometimes they did go shopping or to a movie, but sometimes they went across the highway, ducking fast across the busy road, to a drive-in restaurant where older kids hung out. The restaurant was shaped like a big bott