Arnold Friend, Essay Example

Courtyard sets the scene for the article by describing Arnold Friend as an impish, devilish person (Coulthard 236). This sets the tone of the article where he details that Arnold Friend asked Connie to join him and his friend Ellie with the intent of murder. This was not detailed in the story. He infers that many of the aspects of the story which had been written by Oates were replicated from the actual events of the Rowe murder which was allegedly committed by Schmid. He establishes a connection between Schnmid and Arnold Friend in the beginning of the essay.

Connie is an adolescent who seeks to escape reality by daydreaming. She fantasizes about the date which she enjoyed the previous evening at the restaurant. Coulthard implies that Connie was aware that harm was going to befall her.  Coulthard details this in his perception of Connie’s thoughts (Coulthard 237). Coulthard implies that Arnold Friend may be a serial murderer by the numbers which are inscribed upon his automobile. Coulthard states that the numbers represented the last three girls that Schmid murdered prior to murdering Aileen Rowe, the last girl being seventeen years of age, the second girl  being nineteen years of age and the most recent murder being a young woman of thirty three years of age (Coulthard 238).

Conclusion

The article which is written by A.R. Coulthard attempts to connect the Rowe murder of the autumn of 1965 by Charles Schmid with the story by Joyce Carol Oates (Coulthard 236). The inferences of Coulthard’s article are a little farfetched. However, we must maintain that sensationalism is a motivation for journalists to publish their literary works. In the article, A. R. Coulthard attempts to connect Aileen Rowe with the character of Connie and Charles Schmid with the character of Arnold Friend from the Oates  novel titled: “Where are you going, Where have you been? (Oates 1). The connections in the aticle to the characters which had been created by Joyce Carol Oates demonstrate Coulthard’s imagination and capacity for forming conjecture.

Works Cited

Coulthard, A. R. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates” Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed.  Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 134. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. 222- 255. Literature Criticism Online. Gale. Los Angeles Valley College. 2 April 2014 http://library.lavc.edu/2009/servlet/LitCrit/lavc_main/FJ3538600006

Oates, Joyce Carol. “Where are you going, were have you been? University of San Francisco, n.d. Web. 31 March 2014 http://www.usfca.edu/jco/whereareyougoing/