Watching the Parents? A Brace of Short Thesis

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Watching the Parents?

A brace of short stories by two of the most skilled American short story writers of the 20th century cast the family in an eerie and distressing light. For the families in these two stories are not the comforting supportive group gathered around the homely hearth giving succor to each other in bad times and sharing the joy of good times. These are families in which battle lines have been drawn and in which there is the potential for terrible harm to be done. These are families whose deadliness is most likely to be turned on each other.

In Joyce Carol Oates's story "Where are you going, Where have you been?," one of the daughters of a family is recognized by both herself and others as The Beauty. Connie -- not in any way a constant girl -- is 15 and is the beauty that her mother once was. Because of this the two are at dagger-points with each other, unlike the relationship that the mother has with Connie's dull, steady, and unattractive sister. In the constant friction of this family, Connie is wooed by a pair of strangers who appear in a golden car covered with hieroglyphs. Connie is at first intrigued by the attention that she receives from these strangers but then frightened.

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At the end of the story, Connie may be assaulted -- or raped, or murdered -- by one of the strangers. What exactly happens to her is unclear. All the author tells us is that Connie thinks of her mother, wants to be protected by her mother, but it is all too late. Whatever might have been between the two of them has been squandered long before. In many ways, the story can be read as a commentary on the times when it was written: 1966, a year in the middle of a decade in which so many things were torn apart.

Most parents -- perhaps even all parents -- have had the fear at least once during their children's lives that some force outside of their control is far more important to their progeny than are they. That force might be a peer group, a coach, a boyfriend, a religious cult. For the parents in Ray Bradbury's short story "The Veldt," the parents are afraid of their own house. And these parents are not in fact crazy: They have every reason to be afraid of the role that technology is claiming in their children's lives.

What is most striking about this story, in fact, is that exactly a half-century ago Bradbury was so….....

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