Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

Use these links to supplement and complement students’ reading of the work and to increase their overall enjoyment of literature. Challenge them to discern parallel themes, engage through visual and aural stimuli, and delve deeper into the thematic possibilities presented by the title.

Recommended Texts for Pairing

“A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor

• Flannery O’Connor’s story is another masterpiece of negotiation between a ruthless killer and his victim.
• explores similar themes of The Uncanny Quality of Suburban Spaces but looks at rural spaces as well
• “A Good Man is Hard to Find” on SuperSummary

“Victory Lap” by George Saunders

• This story from Tenth of December provides a modern take on Oates’s story and suggests an alternate possibility rooted in Saunders’s theme of empathy.
• Tenth of December on SuperSummary

Ghosts of You by Cathy Ulrich

• This modern take on our understanding of women and victimhood is a clever deconstruction of the ways society puts meaning on murdered women or women who have experienced sexual violence.
• The juxtaposition between the internal lives of the murdered women in Ulrich’s collection and the external meaning that is put on them offers a compelling argument about the legacy stories like “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” have in American culture.