Daryen Rubin | Week 13

In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, there is use of commonplace objects being described in a way that makes them quite impactful. There are two quotes from the story that stood out to me in this way, the first being “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.” The use of “charm bracelets” combined with the visual image of them in a shopping plaza, their outfits, and the way they are behaving, transports me back to my younger years and I connect with it greatly. Identifying the noises that the charm bracelets are making is incredibly additive to the experience as a reader. The second quote that stands out to me is “Everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home… her laugh, which was cynical and drawling at home—”Ha, ha, very funny,”—but highpitched and nervous anywhere else, like the jingling of the charms on her bracelet.” The use of the sound of the charm bracelet to connect to the character’s laugh is very auditorily descriptive. Comparing the two quotes that both mention the charm bracelet, the first paints a picture of a time and place, and the second paints a picture of an energy

coming from the character.