Paul Gauguin, Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?

Paul Gauguin, Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? , 1897–98, oil on canvas, 139.1 x 374.6 cm (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; photo: Steven Zucker , CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 )

Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? is a huge, brilliantly colored but enigmatic work painted on rough, heavy sackcloth. It contains numerous human, animal, and symbolic figures arranged across an island landscape. The sea and Tahiti’s volcanic mountains are visible in the background. It is Paul Gauguin ’s largest painting, and he understood it to be his finest work.

Where are we going? represents the artist’s painted manifesto created while he was living on the island of Tahiti. The French artist  transitioned from being a “Sunday painter” (someone who paints for his or her own enjoyment) to becoming a professional after his career as a stockbroker failed in the early 1880s. He visited the Pacific island Tahiti in French Polynesia staying from 1891 to 1893. He then returned to Polynesia in 1895, painted this massive canvas there in 1897, and eventually died in 1903, on Hiva Oa in the Marquesas islands.

Detail, Paul Gauguin, Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?, 1897–98, oil on canvas, 139.1 x 374.6 cm (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; photo: Steven Zucker , CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 )

Gauguin wrote to his friend Daniel de Monfried, who managed Gauguin’s career in Paris while the artist remained in the South Pacific,

I believe that this canvas not only surpasses all my preceding ones, but [also] that I shall never do anything better, or even like it.

Paul Gauguin

Gauguin completed Where are we going? at a feverish rate, allegedly within one month’s time, and even claimed to de Monfried that he went into the mountains to attempt suicide after the work was finished. Gauguin—ever the master of self-promotion and highly conscious of his image as a vanguard artist—may or may not have actually poisoned himself with arsenic as he alleged, but this legend was quite pointedly in line with the painting’s themes of life, death, poetry, and symbolic meaning.

Detail, Paul Gauguin, Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? , 1897–98, oil on canvas, 139.1 x 374.6 cm (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; photo: Steven Zucker , CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 )

Gauguin himself provided a telling description of the painting’s esoteric imagery in the same letter to de Monfried, written in February 1898:

It is a canvas four meters fifty in width, by one meter seventy in height. The two upper corners are chrome yellow, with an inscription on the left and my name on the right, like a fresco whose corners are spoiled with age, and which is appliquéd upon a golden wall. To the right at the lower end, a sleeping child and three crouching women. Two figures dressed in purple confide their thoughts to one another. An enormous crouching figure, out of all proportion and intentionally so, raises its arms and stares in astonishment upon these two, who dare to think of their destiny. A figure in the center is picking fruit. Two cats near a child. A white goat. An idol, its arms mysteriously raised in a sort of rhythm, seems to indicate the Beyond. Then lastly, an old woman nearing death appears to accept everything, to resign herself to her thoughts. She completes the story! At her feet a strange white bird, holding a lizard in its claws, represents the futility of words…. So I have finished a philosophical work on a theme comparable to that of the Gospel. “The Wisdom of Paul Gauguin—Artist,” International Studio , volume 73, number 291, p. 69

Not only does Gauguin’s text clarify some of the painting’s abstruse, idiosyncratic iconography, it also invites us to “read” the image. Gauguin suggests that the figures have mysterious symbolic meanings and that they might answer the questions posed by the work’s title. And, in the manner of a sacred scroll written in an ancient language, the painting is to be read from right to left: from the sleeping infant—where we come from—to the standing figure in the middle—what we are—and ending at the left with the crouching old woman—where we are going.

Stylistically, the composition is designed and painted to recall frescoes or icons painted on a gold ground. The upper corners have been painted with a bright yellow to contribute to this effect, and the figures appear out of proportion to one another—“deliberately so” as Gauguin wrote—as if they were floating in space rather than resting firmly upon the earth.

These stylistic features, along with Gauguin’s enigmatic subject, contribute to the painting’s “philosophical” quality. And as is common with other Symbolist works of this period, precise, complete interpretations of Where do we come from? remain out of reach. The painting is a deliberate mixture of universal meaning—the questions asked in the title are fundamental ones that address the very root of human existence—and esoteric mystery. Although Where do we come from? is painted on a large scale similar to the decorative public panels created by the French artist Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (an artist Gauguin admired), Where do we come from? is essentially a private work whose meaning was likely known only to Gauguin himself.

A few months after completing the painting, Gauguin sent it to Paris along with several other works of art, intending that they should be exhibited together in a gallery or an artist’s studio. He sent de Monfried careful instructions about how Where do we come from? should be framed (“a plain strip of wood, 10 centimeters wide, and white-washed to resemble a mural”) and who should be invited to the exhibition (“in this way, instead of crowds one can have whom one wants, and thus gain connections that cannot harm you.”) The concern Gauguin reveals in the details indicates his continued awareness of the Parisian art market, which remained a central focus even as he exiled himself on a small tropical island on the other side of the globe.

In November and December 1898, the group of Tahitian paintings was displayed at the gallery of Ambroise Vollard, a former law student turned art dealer who specialized in vanguard artists. Vollard seems to have had difficulty selling the “large picture,” as Gauguin called it. Efforts by the artist’s Parisian friends to collectively acquire the painting and donate it to the French state were never realized. Where do we come from? shuttled between galleries and private collections in France and Norway until the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, purchased it in 1936.

Bibliography

This work at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Symbolism on The Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.

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AP®︎/College Art History

Course: ap®︎/college art history   >   unit 6.

  • Courbet, The Stonebreakers
  • Early Photography: Niépce, Talbot and Muybridge
  • Manet, Olympia
  • Painting modern life: Monet's Gare Saint-Lazare
  • Monet, The Gare Saint-Lazare
  • Velasco, The Valley of Mexico
  • Rodin, The Burghers of Calais
  • Van Gogh, The Starry Night
  • Mary Cassatt, The Coiffure
  • Munch, The Scream

Gauguin, Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?

  • Sullivan, Carson, Pirie, Scott Building
  • Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire
  • Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
  • The first modern photograph? Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage
  • Stieglitz, The Steerage
  • Gustav Klimt, The Kiss
  • Constantin Brancusi, The Kiss
  • Analytic Cubism
  • Matisse, Goldfish
  • Kandinsky, Improvisation 28 (second version), 1912
  • Kirchner, Self-Portrait As a Soldier
  • Käthe Kollwitz, In Memoriam Karl Liebknecht
  • Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye
  • Mondrian, Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow
  • Stepanova, The Results of the First Five-Year Plan
  • Meret Oppenheim, Object (Fur-covered cup, saucer, and spoon)
  • Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater
  • Kahlo, The Two Fridas (Las dos Fridas)
  • Jacob Lawrence, The Migration Series (*short version*)
  • Jacob Lawrence, The Migration Series (*long version*)
  • Duchamp, Fountain
  • Lam, The Jungle
  • Mexican Muralism: Los Tres Grandes David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Rivera, and José Clemente Orozco
  • Rivera, Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Central Park
  • de Kooning, Woman I
  • Mies van der Rohe, Seagram Building
  • Warhol, Marilyn Diptych
  • Yayoi Kusama, Narcissus Garden
  • Helen Frankenthaler, The Bay
  • Claes Oldenburg, Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks
  • Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty
  • Robert Venturi, House in New Castle County, Delaware
  • Jean-Michel Basquiat, Horn Players

where are we going essay

"I believe that this canvas not only surpasses all my preceding ones, but [also] that I shall never do anything better, or even like it." Paul Gauguin
"It is a canvas four meters fifty in width, by one meter seventy in height. The two upper corners are chrome yellow, with an inscription on the left and my name on the right, like a fresco whose corners are spoiled with age, and which is appliquéd upon a golden wall. To the right at the lower end, a sleeping child and three crouching women. Two figures dressed in purple confide their thoughts to one another. An enormous crouching figure, out of all proportion and intentionally so, raises its arms and stares in astonishment upon these two, who dare to think of their destiny. A figure in the center is picking fruit. Two cats near a child. A white goat. An idol, its arms mysteriously raised in a sort of rhythm, seems to indicate the Beyond. Then lastly, an old woman nearing death appears to accept everything, to resign herself to her thoughts. She completes the story! At her feet a strange white bird, holding a lizard in its claws, represents the futility of words…. So I have finished a philosophical work on a theme comparable to that of the Gospel." “The Wisdom of Paul Gauguin—Artist,” International Studio, volume 73, number 291, p. 69

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We Are Going

By oodgeroo noonuccal, we are going summary and analysis of summary and analysis of.

" We Are Going ," written by Aboriginal Australian poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal , was first published in her collection of the same name in 1964. The poem begins by describing a small band of Aboriginal Australians, "All that remained of their tribe" (Line 3). They are quiet, subdued, and partially clothed as they come into a little town. The fourth line reveals that the town was built on top of and around the tribe's old sacred grounds known as bora. Now, many white men hurry about like ants as they go about their modern lives, unaware of the violent history beneath their feet.

A sign that half-covers the bora ground reads, "Rubbish May Be Tipped Here" (Line 6). The speaker switches from "they" to "we" as the speaker declares that though the tribe has been made to feel like strangers to the land, it is really the white tribe who are the strangers. The declaration of belonging continues as the speaker expands upon and specifies what it means for the tribe to "belong here" and be "of the old ways" (Line 9). The speaker states, "We are...the corroboree and the bora ground...the old ceremonies...the laws of the elders" (Lines 10-11). This continues as the tribe is declared to embody "the wonder tales of Dream Time, the tribal legends told...the past, the hunts and the laughing games, the wandering camp fires..." (Lines 12-13). The Aboriginal people are identified with various aspects of nature, including the lightning bolt, the Thunderer, and the quiet daybreak paling the dark lagoon. Though they "nature and the past," "all the old ways [are] / Gone now and scattered" (Lines 19-20).

Various elements that previously composed the landscape have left. These include the scrubs, the eagle, the emu, the kangaroo, and the bora ring. As a result, Aboriginal culture and livelihood have also disappeared: their hunting, laughter, and corroborees. The end of the poem (which gives it its title) reads, "And we are going" (Line 25).

Oodgeroo of the Noonuccal people of Minjerribah (also known as North Stradbroke Island in Australia) was a celebrated poet, writer, artist, environmentalist, educator, and indigenous rights activist whose work focuses on the history of settler colonialism in Australia, the ongoing effects of colonization, her heritage and experience as an indigenous person, and the relationship between humans and the earth. "We Are Going" is a twenty-five-line, single-stanza, free-verse poem that works to provide a voice for Aboriginal people.

The poem begins with the speaker using the pronoun "they" to describe "all that [remains]" of an Aboriginal tribe (Line 3). They are "a semi-naked band subdued and silent" as they make their way into a little town (Lines 1-2). To be subdued is to be quiet, inhibited, repressed, or controlled; the tribal members' voices have been stolen from them as a result of colonization. "Semi-naked" expresses an awareness of clothing and shame, which is a European perspective. In the context of entering a town, to be "semi-naked" also demonstrates the band's vulnerability. They are not "half-clothed," but rather partially naked: exposed to the natural elements (whose connection they've been severed from) and to the white gaze.

The tribe makes their way to their old bora ground (the site where they once held ceremonies and gatherings). The fact that it is their "old" bora ground signals the way they were forcibly displaced from the land, thus rupturing their cultural connections and practices. The assonance of the "ow" sound in the words "town" and "ground" signifies the way in which the landscape was altered by colonization. Where before it was a place whose inhabitants engaged in mutual care and respect for each other and the land, now the land is used and disrespected in the name of progress. This is further seen in the description of the white men hurrying about like ants. That they "hurry about like ants" references the capitalist market economy in Australia, a system that is very different from the community and land-based cultures that were there prior to European settlement.

The "many" white men contrast the "[remaining]" tribal members, whose numbers were greatly reduced and continue to be disadvantaged by higher unemployment rates, poverty, isolation, trauma, discrimination, exposure to violence, trouble with the law, and alcohol and substance abuse (Lines 5 and 3). The impacts of colonization persist. For this reason, Noonuccal's poems must be considered as political because she is advocating for recognition, respect, and change.

Half-covering the traces of the old bora ring is a notice from the estate agent. This detail alone demonstrates the opposing ways that Europeans and Indigenous peoples view land. For Europeans, land is a blank slate to be owned and developed. Beginning with the arrival of the British in 1788, invaders claimed Australian land based on the premise of terra nullius , meaning that the land was legally deemed to be unoccupied and uninhabited. This legal structure has profoundly shaped the history of the land. An "estate agent" is a person whose job involves selling and renting out land, and the sign reads, "Rubbish May Be Tipped Here" (Line 6). The disrespect for the land, turning a sacred ground into a dumpsite, equates to contempt for indigenous culture. The bora ground is the site where the corroboree (Aboriginal dance ceremony and gathering) occurred, but the site has been desecrated.

This line about the tipping of rubbish on Aboriginal sacred ground proves to be a tipping point in the poem; after, the perspective shifts from using the pronoun "they" to "we." Though the tribe has been made to feel as strangers on their own ancestral lands, really "the white tribe are the strangers" (Line 8). The use of the term "tribe" to describe white society is ironic in that it unifies a group of people whose culture tends more towards individualism. The speaker goes on to say, "We belong here, we are of the old ways," speaking in plural from here on out (Line 9). Not only does the use of pronouns shift, but the tense goes from past to present. However, time is not defined as strictly linear in the poem. Different chronologies surface as being simultaneously accessible; the past is a living and generative force in the present.

The speaker identifies the tribe as being "the corroboree and the bora ground," thus further reflecting the connection between Aboriginal culture and land (Line 10). This physical and spiritual embodiment continues as the speaker says, "We are the old ceremonies, the laws of the elders" (Line 11). In another work by Noonuccal, she writes, "I know / This little now, this accidental present / Is not the all of me, whose long making / Is so much of the past" ("The Past" Lines 3-6). This shows an awareness of and appreciation for all the cultural traditions that held (and hold) the tribe together. These aspects of Aboriginal identity are further expressed in "We Are Going" as the speaker identifies the collective "we" with "the past, the hunts and the laughing games, the wandering camp fires" (Line 13).

The mention of Dream Time is particularly relevant in composing and layering the poem's chronology. The term "Dream Time" is not a fully adequate translation of the Aboriginal concept; other words used to describe the concept in English include Everywhen , eternal beginning, and the uncreated. Warlpiri teacher and artist Jeannie Herbert Nungarrayi (whose people refer to the concept as the Jukurrpa) has defined the Jukurrpa as "an all-embracing concept that provides rules for living, a moral code, as well as rules for interacting with the natural environment...a lived daily reality" (Nicholls). This complex unfurling of time that occurs in the poem is further shown when the speaker says, "We are...the tribal legends told" (Line 12). The legends (told in the past by ancestors) have in essence been alchemized into the very existence of the tribe's living descendants. To be (in the present) what once was turns the past into a living force. This, too, is part of the epistemology of Dream Time, and contributes to Noonuccal's poem being a healing work in the present for Aboriginal people.

The speaker metaphorically identifies the tribe with nature: "We are the lightening bolt over Gaphembah Hill / Quick and terrible" (Lines 14-15). In making a specific allusion to a landmark, the poet shows the relationship between the tribe and their ancestral lands. In Noonuccal's short story "Dugong Coming!" Gaphembah Hill is referred to as "the sharing-out place," a place of gathering (Zeller 251).

The line "Quick and terrible" is the first to break the anaphora of "We," which begins the preceding eight lines. Like a lightning bolt itself, these three words interject an honest appraisal of and respect for nature. All aspects of nature, regardless of whether they can be used as resources, are considered sacred. What follows the lightning bolt is the thunder, personified as "Thunderer...that loud fellow" (Line 16). After evoking these loud and striking images, Noonuccal widens the spectrum of identifying with nature as the speaker states, "We are the quiet daybreak paling the dark lagoon" (Line 17). Just as the length of the poem's lines vary, the range of imagery and identity is shown to be diverse.

The soundscape of the poem stays quiet with the line that follows the daybreak paling the dark lagoon: "We are the shadow-ghosts creeping back as the camp fires burn low" (Line 18). This creates a continuum with the earlier line about "the hunts and the laughing games, the wandering camp fires" (Line 12). From thunder to shadow-ghosts, laws of the elders to quiet daybreak, the identities of this specific tribe (and of all the diverse Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island peoples) are not abased or cheapened in Noonuccal's writing. This is another reason why her work is inherently political: she does not depict a monoculture.

Reflecting the quieting of the poem's ambiance, the tone shifts as Noonuccal depicts various kinds of absences. The speaker states, "We are nature and the past, all the old ways / Gone now and scattered" (Lines 19-20). Just as the anaphora "We are" was used earlier, here the poet repeats the word "gone." Gone are the scrubs, the eagle, the emu, the kangaroo, and the bora ring (Lines 21-23). As a result, the hunting and the laughter and the corroboree are also gone (Lines 21 and 24). Throughout the poem, Noonuccal weaves Aboriginal identity with nature, but that connection was severely impacted by colonization. The poem serves as a kind of warning: if things continue on their current course, then everything beautiful and sacred in this land will disappear.

The final line of the poem gives it its title. The speaker says, "And we are going" after listing all the flora and fauna that have gone from this place (Line 25). There are multiple meanings to this line, the first being the genocide that occurred alongside colonization and that continues to impact Aboriginal descendants. The United Nations defines genocide as any of the following acts: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. All of these apply to First Nations people in Australia.

However, there is another possible meaning. Professor and researcher Francesca Di Blasio writes that the final line "may...refer to the progressive ending of a culture and of a community...but it may also refer to the sense of a movement onwards: 'we are moving further, we keep on moving towards the future against all odds.'" In any case, Noonuccal offers an opportunity for Aboriginal healing with her poetry by depicting the truth of what happened (and continues to happen) to the community, aligning the collective identity with nature and the old ways, and weaving different temporalities to offer possibilities for the future.

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We Are Going Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for We Are Going is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Study Guide for We Are Going

We Are Going study guide contains a biography of Oodgeroo Noonuccal, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

  • About We Are Going
  • We Are Going Summary
  • Character List

Essays for We Are Going

We Are Going essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of We Are Going by Oodgeroo Noonuccal.

  • The Theme of Belonging Across Formats: The ten canoes + We are Going + Journey to belonging

where are we going essay

Oates’ “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?” Essay

  • To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
  • As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
  • As a template for you assignment

Disagreeing with reason

The focal point of the paper is to present an analysis and evaluation of the short story by Joyce Carol Oates named Where Are You Going Where Have You Been ? This story was first published in the Fall issue of Epoch magazine in 1966. It was highly acclaimed in its time and was a part of The Best American Short Stories in 1967 and the O Henry Award Winners in 1968. The story was written for Bob Dylan and this makes the story even more captivating. Here we find Connie, as commented by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is on the verge of womanhood from a teenager when she met Arnold. A relationship starts between them and it affected Connie’s life more like the woman in her short story The Yellow Wallpaper, who was confined in her bedroom by her husband (Gilman, 113). This perception of Gilman is true to the core of the story as explained in this paper.

Arnold’s approach to Connie was planned but he placed like an artistic jest with fallacies of philosophy. “ Now, put your hand on your heart, honey. Feel that? That feels solid too but we know better. Be nice to me, be sweet like you can because what else is there for a girl like you but to be sweet and pretty and give in?—and get away before her people come back? ” (Oates, 388-9) or for that matter lines like “ I’ll have my arms tight around you so you won’t need to try to get away and I’ll show you what love is like, what it does. The hell with this house! It looks solid all right ”. (Oates, 388) It is evident from these words that the actual intention was to emulate the philosophical concept of the time but the situation and the intention was completely materialistic in nature.

No matter how much Arnold poses as a carefree beat and a nihilist by uttering unconventional and anti-establishment ideas like “ The place where you came from ain’t there any more, and where you had in mind to go is cancelled out. This place you are now—inside your daddy’s house—is nothing but a cardboard box I can knock down any time ” (Oates, 387) it is all but evident that he was only taking advantage of the situation and the philosophy of the era.

The doubts, dilemmas, and confusions were gradually, quite slowly indeed, giving way to a new and unique cultural revolution. It was happening all across the Western world. People suddenly seemed to realize that there was enough political warfare to disgrace humanity. The prevailing standards suddenly seemed to be meaningless, and the insurgent youths wanted something different to happen. This something took place in the form of nihilism and beat movement and the story depicts exactly this mood when an opportunist like Arnold took full advantage of the situation of Connie. He tried to justify his acts by yielding bizarre psyche and philosophies that were so relevant at the time among the mass culture.

However, Gilman is mistaken at a point. She mentioned that Connie’s life was affected by Arnold or he was a bad influence. But it should be noted that this story represents the idea and philosophy of the beat culture along with its attempt to change and ignore all traditional concepts. However, what comes out of the story is the lust of Arnold and the opportunity to blend the nihilist ideology of the era into personal satisfaction. In this context, it would be relevant to mention that the generation was not finding their existence worthwhile, or in other words, they wanted more out of their life for they hardly knew what to believe. They were not able to keep complete faith in religion and neither could they abandon it completely. It was also a regeneration time. Ideological conflicts and military interests were shaking civilization right up to its foundations. Thus, it is logical to believe that Connie herself was looking to get involved with Arnold and taste the salt of her era.

In conclusion, it is important to state that at every revolution or time of renaissance there exist some elements who despite being a complete alien to the philosophy of culture of the time tends to gain substantial or marginal advantage out of the turmoil in the social, cultural and political scenario. These people are by no means a part of the developing culture and the only interest they have lies in the comparative benefit they can yield out of the given situation. Arnold is no different and his character is well depicted in the story where his ability is low and he seeks a benefit of low interest and he is satisfied with his gains. It can well be stated that are always some negative points in the time of change and people like Arnold are the individuals who are instrumental in incorporating those negative for their momentary and intangible benefits.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. Collected Short Stories . NY: Dover Publications, 1999.

Lamb, Davis. Edited. Oates, Joyce C. Where Are You Going Where Have You Been. Selected Short Stories of the 20 th Century. Vol. VI . 1960-1969. Plymouth: HBT & Brooks Ltd. 2005.

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  • Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates: Story Analysis
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  • Rosco Blunt’s Foot Soldier: Odyssey of a Soldier
  • Jan Morris and her Memoirs "Conundrum"
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  • "Living Like Weasels” by Annie Dillard
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  • Chicago (A-D)
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IvyPanda. (2021, December 11). Oates' “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?”. https://ivypanda.com/essays/oates-where-are-you-going-where-have-you-been-essay/

"Oates' “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?”." IvyPanda , 11 Dec. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/oates-where-are-you-going-where-have-you-been-essay/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'Oates' “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?”'. 11 December.

IvyPanda . 2021. "Oates' “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?”." December 11, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/oates-where-are-you-going-where-have-you-been-essay/.

1. IvyPanda . "Oates' “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?”." December 11, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/oates-where-are-you-going-where-have-you-been-essay/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Oates' “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?”." December 11, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/oates-where-are-you-going-where-have-you-been-essay/.

Self-care research: Where are we now? Where are we going?

Affiliations.

  • 1 School of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania, 418 Curie Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA 19104-4217, USA; Mary McKillop Institute for Health Research, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 2 School of Nursing, Emory University, USA. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 3 Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 4 Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, USA. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 5 School of Nursing, Boston College, USA. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 6 Nursing Research Institute, St Vincent's Health Australia & Australian Catholic University, Australia. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 7 Department of Medical and Health Sciences and Department of Cardiology, Linkoping University, Sweden. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 8 University of Rome "Tor Vergata", Italy. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 9 International Self-Care Foundation, UK. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 10 Julius Center, University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands; Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Linkoping University, Sweden. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • PMID: 31630807
  • PMCID: PMC7035984
  • DOI: 10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2019.103402

Background and objective: The beneficial effects of self-care include improved well-being and lower morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs. In this article we address the current state of self-care research and propose an agenda for future research based on the inaugural conference of the International Center for Self-Care Research held in Rome, Italy in June 2019. The vision of this Center is a world where self-care is prioritized by individuals, families, and communities and is the first line of approach in every health care encounter. The mission of the Center is to lead the self-care research endeavor, improving conceptual clarity and promoting interdisciplinary work informed by a shared vision addressing knowledge gaps. A focused research agenda can deepen our theoretical understanding of self-care and the mechanisms underlying self-care, which can contribute to the development of effective interventions that improve outcomes.

Methods: During conference discussions, we identified seven major reasons why self-care is challenging, which can be grouped into the general categories of behavior change and illness related factors. We identified six specific knowledge gaps that, if addressed, may help to address these challenges: the influence of habit formation on behavior change, resilience in the face of stressful life events that interfere with self-care, the influence of culture on self-care behavioral choices, the difficulty performing self-care with multiple chronic conditions, self-care in persons with severe mental illness, and the influence of others (care partners, family, peer supporters, and healthcare professionals) on self-care.

Plans to achieve results: To achieve the vision and mission of the Center, we will lead a collaborative program of research that addresses self-care knowledge gaps and improves outcomes, create a supportive international network for knowledge transfer and support of innovations in self-care research, and support and train others in self-care research. Beyond these specific short-term goals, important policy implications of this work are discussed.

Keywords: Behavior change; Caregivers; Choice behavior; Goals; Habits; Health care costs; Mental illness; Multiple chronic conditions; Self-care; Social support.

Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

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Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

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A monomyth, or hero’s journey, is an ancient storytelling trope analyzed by Joseph Campbell which charts the protagonist’s coming of age or search for glory, illustrating an important lesson over the course of an epic quest. If “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is Connie’s hero’s journey, was it a successful one? Does Connie gain any insight in her confrontation with Arnold? Support your answer with textual evidence.

Many scholars have written extensively about the implications of Arnold Friend in the narrative . Is Arnold a mortal serial killer hunting girls or is he a magical entity who comes to collect Connie for nefarious purposes? Are his intentions evil, pure, or some indifferent mix of both? Support your answer with concrete details from the narrative.

In folklore traditions, dreams hold important sway over the daily lives of characters. How do dreams disrupt Connie’s life in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Do Connie’s dreams ever “overtake” the narrative or blur the boundary line with concrete reality?

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Where Are We Going?

By: Tasha   •  Essay  •  279 Words  •  May 13, 2010  •  961 Views

As we are into 21st century, one commonplace question comes up; where are we heading, as a individual, family, neighborhood, city, or as a country?

It is rather broad question, which we can individually try to answer, or we can share our thoughts and come with a more general broad based response.

Very first issue that comes to my mind is the factor of time, or lack of it. We find ourselves, more and more busy, with less and less time to do just about anything meaningful, personally, or as a part of a family,or lager group. It is becoming an imperative that we manage our lives as per demand of our work by which we earn our living,which is rather important factor in our lives. But, I believe, it takes such a toll on our lives that our basic living functions are functions of our work, that is time we are required to spend working.

I personally can say that if I have to spend so much

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Home › Literature › Analysis of Joyce Carol Oates’s Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

Analysis of Joyce Carol Oates’s Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on April 26, 2022

Probably the most gifted—and certainly the most prolific—literary talent of the second half of the 20th century, Joyce Carol Oates continues to be prolific into the 21st century. She has published more than 50 books; won the National Book Award for Them, her novel published in 1969; received countless O. Henry Memorial Award citations; and has been nominated frequently for the Nobel Prize. Her most widely anthologized short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is a chilling modern fable that uncovers the bleakness and emptiness of contemporary life and values. The story has become an American classic.

Oates’s grimly realistic portrayal of Connie, her adolescent protagonist, reveals the falsity of the Cinderella myth and the romantic stories on which young girls are raised. Connie, the rebellious teenager, is bored with and alienated from her middle-class family, preferring instead to spend her spare time trying on makeup, listening to rock and roll, and cruising through the shopping mall with her friends. At the mall she meets a sinister character named Arnold Friend.. Oates uses Magic Realism to suggest that Arnold is not all he appears to be; indeed, her third-person narrator suggests that he is not only obscene and slightly out of place but everywhere, knowing everything; in fact, he may be the devil himself, an identity many critics see inherent in his stumbling walk and his inability to balance in his boots: Cloven hooves may be the source of his difficulties.

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When Arnold visits Connie at her house, he knows that her family is away and threatens to cause harm to them if she does not accompany him. Like the devil’s, his goal is to have Connie go to him of her own free will. Oates’s memorable building of suspense and horror is evident in the insubstantial screen door that separates Connie from Arnold and the insistently ringing phone, which Connie is powerless to answer or, later, to use to call the police. Volitionless, Connie moves toward Arnold as in a nightmare, and the final wording of the story suggests he will not only rape her in this world but take her with him to hell, whether biblical or earthly. In the pessimistic ending, the reader understands that Connie is gone forever and that her culture never prepared her to resist evil.

The title is from a line of a Bob Dylan song, and the story positions Connie in both the new world of rock and roll—presided over by the disk jockey Bobby King, a replacement for an earlier spiritual “king”— and the ancient world of the demon lover who spirits away his unresisting victim. The frightening contemporary parable that Oates has created resonates with the reader in deeply disturbing ways. The story was filmed in 1986 with the title Smooth Talk.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bastian, Katherine. Oates’s Short Stories: Between Tradition and Innovation. Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Peter Lang, 1983. Friedman, Ellen G. Joyce Carol Oates. New York: Ungar, 1980. Norman, Torberg. Isolation and Contact: A Study of Character Relationships in Oates’s Short Stories, 1963–1980. G teborg, Sweden: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1984. Oates, Joyce Carol. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Stories of Young America. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett, 1974. Wagner-Martin, Linda. Critical Essays on Joyce Carol Oates. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1979.

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Yet the history continued and so did war. I now see that as human civilizations develop, we built more destructive weapons and wars have become more violent and vicious so much so that it has began to threaten even the life of this planet. The Wikkipeddia defines war as "a conflict, between relatively large groups of people, which involves physical force inflicted by the use of weapons ? War may cause from a dispute between two tribes that come to blow over a plot of land, to a world war." War is as old as human society. When we open a world history book, we see a lot of wars in all the periods of human history, but the ways they were fought and their impact is different...

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Cicada map 2024: See where to find Broods XIII and XIX; latest info on emergence

where are we going essay

If you haven't seen them yet, you may have heard them: the periodical cicadas that are out in full force in nearly 20 U.S. states across the Southeast and Midwest.

These 17 states, which range from Oklahoma to Wisconsin to North Carolina and more, are seeing the trillions of cicadas emerging this year in a rare, double brood event.

The two broods this year, the 13-year Brood XIX located mainly in the Southeast and the 17-year Brood XIII in the Midwest, have not emerged together in 221 years and are not expected to do so again until 2245.

Thanks to warm soil temperatures and ideal conditions, cicadas from both broods have already made their way above ground and the emergence is already in full swing.

Here's where you can find cicadas above ground this year.

What do cicadas eat? Lifecycle, diet and biting habits explained

2024 cicada map: Check out where Broods XIII, XIX are projected to emerge

The two cicada broods were projected to emerge in a combined 17 states across the South and Midwest. They emerge once the soil eight inches underground reaches 64 degrees, beginning in many states in April and May and lasting through late June.

The two broods  last emerged together in 1803 , when Thomas Jefferson was president.

Where are the cicadas already out in 2024?

Adult periodical cicadas from Brood XIX are now completing its emergence as the brood is out in full force in states across the Midwest and Southeast, according to  Cicada Safari , a cicada tracking app developed by Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, Ohio.

They have been spotted on the app in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

Brood XIII has started to emerge in Wisconsin, Iowa and Indiana and throughout the Chicago area and around central and northern Illinois around Peoria and Champaign, according to the tracking service.

What is a brood?

According to the  University of Connecticut , broods are classified as "all periodical cicadas of the same life cycle type that emerge in a given year."

A brood of cicadas is made up of different species of the insect that have separate evolutionary histories. These species may have joined the brood at different times or from different sources. These different species are lumped together under the brood because they are in the same region and emerge on a common schedule.

How long will the cicadas be above ground?

How long cicadas live depends on their brood and if they are an annual or periodical species.

The two periodical broods this summer are Brood XIX, which have a 13-year life cycle, and Brood XIII, which have a 17-year life cycle.

Once male and female periodical cicadas have mated and the latter has laid its eggs, the insects will die after spending only a few weeks above ground − anywhere from three to six weeks after first emerging.

That means many of this year's periodical cicadas are set to die in June, though some could die off in late May or July, depending on when they emerged.

The nymphs of annual cicadas remain underground for  two to five years , according to the Missouri Department of Conservation. These cicadas are called " annual " because some members of the species emerge as adults each year.

Why do cicadas make so much noise?

You'll have to thank the male cicadas for all that screeching. Male cicadas synchronize their calls and produce congregational songs, according to  Britannica , which establish territory and attract females. There is also a courting call that they make before mating.

The periodical 13-year and 17-year brood cicadas  are the loudest , partially because of the sheer number of them that emerge at once.

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I’m 48 and my husband is 29. That won’t stop us from having a baby

Caroline Stanbury

Philanthropist and entrepreneur Caroline Stanbury currently stars on Bravo's reality series “ The Real Housewives of Dubai .” Stanbury also hosts the podcast “ Uncut & Uncensored , ” has a wellness brand, “ Bust The Label , ” and is building a real estate venture in Bali called “ Samsara Nest . ” She is married to Real Madrid soccer star Sergio Carrallo and has spoken about their plans to have a child together on the reality show. In a personal essay for TODAY, she shares more about their desire to grow their family, and why they are considering surrogacy.

Having a biological child with my husband, Sergio, was something I always knew would come up between us, honestly.

Sergio doesn't have any children. He's 29 and I just turned 48. From the moment we got involved, I realized that he'd probably want his own family.

I have three children from my first marriage: one 18-year-old girl, Yasmine, and two 14-year-old boys, Zack and Aaron. Sergio is very, very good as a stepfather. It’s a lot of work to blend into an already grown-up family. Of course, the kids love him.

Everyone kept asking if we were having a baby after our wedding two years ago. They're rooting for a Sergio-and-Caroline baby. I think they just want to see me waddling around or watch how first-time dad Sergio copes with sleepless nights. But it’s a lot of pressure to have the whole world know our reproductive issues.

Sergio Carrallo and Caroline Stanbury on the red carpet

Maybe I never should have mentioned it in front of the cameras. Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut.

We've already done two rounds of in vitro fertilization . Even though we got 15 eggs the first round and another 15 or 20 the second round, we only ended up with one viable embryo.

So we have a little baby boy on ice, waiting for us.

Knowing that there's one embryo is exciting, but it's also worrisome for Sergio. He's thinking he'd like to do another round of IVF in January next year and try for another embryo or two.

I suggested using someone else's eggs if we don't get another embryo with mine — which is a great option that works for many people — but that isn't something Sergio would consider. He wants our baby to biologically belong to both of us.

Unfortunately I probably can't carry another child myself. I had preeclampsia with all my children, and I got very sick with the twins. My children are against me carrying a baby because of the health risks for me. But right now, I'm undecided. My doctor thinks that I may be able to carry one more child, however, and I also feel the healthiest I've ever been. So never say never.

In the meantime, we're looking for a surrogate .

I never thought I’d be in a position where I’m reading how to find another woman to carry my baby, and I'm trying to figure out what that would look like. What if she wants to live in another country? What if Sergio wants to rub her belly? There are a million questions that don’t have answers to right now.

Surrogacy was illegal here in Dubai until just a few months ago. After surrogacy was legalized, I called the IVF clinic and they gave me two names of surrogacy agencies. I'm due to have a consultation, which I put off until after summer.

Moving forward with having another baby is a difficult decision at my age. It’s definitely something we go back and forth about a lot.

Sometimes, we think about the fact that we’ve already got three children. I’m older. I’ve already raised kids. We’ve got a life where we travel a lot and we work a lot. We have a really nice lifestyle. My children have grown up, and they’re leaving home.

Having a baby now would mean that while Yasmine is going to university, I’m about to go and look at nappies again. 

But I think that Sergio will be a great dad, and he deserves to be a father. And it could be fun! Maybe I'm better prepared to go back into the trenches now. I know exactly what to expect, so I won't be so overwhelmed by it all.

When you have a baby at a younger age, you're in shock because everyone's telling you what you can and can't do with your own child, and you're scared. But now that I've had three kids, I know that babies are resilient. It's not as hard as people like to make out.

Having three children under the age of 5 was quite hard, but I think having just one might be a walk in the park for me.

I've got more patience now than I had when I was a younger mom. I was running a much bigger company then and was dealing with more pressures at the time. Now, I've softened. So maybe when I have Sergio's baby, I'll be all gaga over it. A baby may turn me into a completely different human.

In talking to women on my podcast, " Uncut & Uncensored ," I've realized that the one thing Sergio and I have given everybody is hope. I'm showing women that they can go on and start a whole new life — perhaps literally — at 48.

At the same time, I know that it's tough for a lot of couples who want to have children and can't. I think the most important thing is that your partner supports you wholeheartedly. You can have a wonderful relationship with children or without, and it makes such a difference when you have a partner who reassures you that they will be by your side no matter what.

And Sergio has done just that. Which, ironically, is one of the many reasons I know he would be a great dad.

“The Real Housewives of Dubai” airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo. 

Caroline Stanbury is a star on Bravo's "Real Housewives of Dubai." Rosie Colosi is a parenting reporter for TODAY. 

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College essays and diversity in the post-affirmative action era, sonja starr’s latest research adds data, legal analysis to discussion about race in college admissions essays.

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Editor’s Note: This story is part of an occasional series on research projects currently in the works at the Law School.

The Supreme Court’s decision in June 2023 to bar the use of affirmative action in college admissions raised many questions. One of the most significant is whether universities should consider applicants’ discussion of race in essays. The Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard did not require entirely race-blind admissions. Rather, the Court explicitly stated that admissions offices may weigh what students say about how race affected their lives. Yet the Court also warned that this practice may not be used to circumvent the bar on affirmative action.

Many university leaders made statements after SFFA suggesting that they take this passage seriously, and that it potentially points to a strategy for preserving diversity. But it’s not obvious how lower courts will distinguish between consideration of “race-related experience” and consideration of “race qua race.” Sonja Starr, Julius Kreeger Professor of Law & Criminology at the Law School, was intrigued by the implication of that question, calling the key passage of the Court’s opinion the “essay carveout.”

“Where is the line?” she wrote in a forthcoming article, the first of its kind to discuss this issue in depth in the post- SFFA era. “And what other potential legal pitfalls could universities encounter in evaluating essays about race?”

To inform her paper’s legal analysis, Starr conducted empirical analyses of how universities and students have included race in essays, both before and after the Court’s decision. She concluded that large numbers of applicants wrote about race, and that college essay prompts encouraged them to do so, even before SFFA .

Some thought the essay carveout made no sense. Justice Sonia Sotomayor called it “an attempt to put lipstick on a pig” in her dissent. Starr, however, disagrees. She argues that universities are on sound legal footing relying on the essay carveout, so long as they consider race-related experience in an individualized way. In her article, Starr points out reasons the essay carveout makes sense in the context of the Court’s other arguments. However, she points to the potential for future challenges—on both equal protection and First Amendment grounds—and discusses how colleges can survive them.

What the Empirical Research Showed

After SFFA , media outlets suggested that universities would add questions about race or identity in their admissions essays and that students would increasingly focus on that topic. Starr decided to investigate this speculation. She commissioned a professional survey group to recruit a nationally representative sample of recent college applicants. The firm queried 881 people about their essay content, about half of whom applied in 2022-23, before SFFA , and half of whom submitted in 2023-24.

The survey found that more than 60 percent of students in non-white groups wrote about race in at least some of their essays, as did about half of white applicants. But contrary to what the media suggested, there were no substantial changes between the pre-and post- SFFA application cycles.

Starr also reviewed essay prompts that 65 top schools have used over the last four years. She found that diversity and identity questions—as well as questions about overcoming adversity, which, for example, provide opportunities for students to discuss discrimination that they have faced—are common and have increased in frequency both before and after SFFA.

A Personally Inspired Interest

Although Starr has long written about equal protection issues, until about two years ago, she would have characterized educational admissions as a bit outside her wheelhouse. Her research has mostly focused on the criminal justice system, though race is often at the heart of it. In the past, for example, she has assessed the role of race in sentencing, the constitutionality of algorithmic risk assessment instruments in criminal justice, as well as policies to expand employment options for people with criminal records.

But a legal battle around admissions policies at Fairfax County’s Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology—the high school that Starr attended—caught her attention. Starr followed the case closely and predicted that “litigation may soon be an ever-present threat for race-conscious policymaking” in a 2024 Stanford Law Review article on that and other magnet school cases.

“I got really interested in that case partly because of the personal connection,” she said. “But I ended up writing about it as an academic matter, and that got me entrenched in this world of educational admissions questions and their related implications for other areas of equal protection law.”

Implications in Education and Beyond

Starr’s forthcoming paper argues that the essay carveout provides a way for colleges to maintain diversity and stay on the right side of the Court’s decision.

“I believe there’s quite a bit of space that’s open for colleges to pursue in this area without crossing that line,” she said. “I lay out the arguments that colleges can put forth.”

Nevertheless, Starr expects future litigation targeting the essay carveout.

“I think we could see cases filed as soon as this year when the admissions numbers come out,” she said, pointing out that conservative legal organizations, such as the Pacific Legal Foundation, have warned that they’re going to be keeping a close eye on admissions numbers and looking for ways that schools are circumventing SFFA .

Starr envisions her paper being used as a resource for schools that want to obey the law while also maintaining diversity. “The preservation of diversity is not a red flag that something unconstitutional is happening,” she said. “There are lots of perfectly permissible ways that we can expect diversity to be maintained in this post- affirmative action era.”

Starr’s article, “Admissions Essays after SFFA ,” is slated to be published in Indiana Law Journal in early 2025.

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Mitch McConnell: We Cannot Repeat the Mistakes of the 1930s

A photo of soldiers coming ashore to a beach in Normandy on D-Day.

By Mitch McConnell

Mr. McConnell is the Senate minority leader.

On this day in 1944, the liberation of Western Europe began with immense sacrifice. In a tribute delivered 40 years later from a Normandy cliff, President Ronald Reagan reminded us that “the boys of Pointe du Hoc” were “heroes who helped end a war.” That last detail is worth some reflection because we are in danger of forgetting why it matters.

American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines joined allies and took the fight to the Axis powers not as a first instinct, but as a last resort. They ended a war that the free world’s inaction had left them no choice but to fight.

Generations have taken pride in the triumph of the West’s wartime bravery and ingenuity, from the assembly lines to the front lines. We reflect less often on the fact that the world was plunged into war, and millions of innocents died, because European powers and the United States met the rise of a militant authoritarian with appeasement or naïve neglect in the first place.

We forget how influential isolationists persuaded millions of Americans that the fate of allies and partners mattered little to our own security and prosperity. We gloss over the powerful political forces that downplayed growing danger, resisted providing assistance to allies and partners, and tried to limit America’s ability to defend its national interests.

Of course, Americans heard much less from our disgraced isolationists after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Today, America and our allies face some of the gravest threats to our security since Axis forces marched across Europe and the Pacific. And as these threats grow, some of the same forces that hampered our response in the 1930s have re-emerged.

Germany is now a close ally and trading partner. But it was caught flat-footed by the rise of a new axis of authoritarians made up of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. So, too, were the advanced European powers who once united to defeat the Nazis.

Like the United States, they responded to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine in 2014 with wishful thinking. The disrepair of their militaries and defense industrial bases, and their overreliance on foreign energy and technology, were further exposed by Russia’s dramatic escalation in 2022.

By contrast, Japan needed fewer reminders about threats from aggressive neighbors or about the growing links between Russia and China. Increasingly, America’s allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific are taking seriously the urgent requirements of self-defense. Fortunately, in the past two years, some of our European allies have taken overdue steps in the same direction.

Here at home, we face problems of our own. Some vocal corners of the American right are trying to resurrect the discredited brand of prewar isolationism and deny the basic value of the alliance system that has kept the postwar peace. This dangerous proposition rivals the American left’s longstanding allergy to military spending in its potential to make America less safe.

It should not take another catastrophic attack like Pearl Harbor to wake today’s isolationists from the delusion that regional conflicts have no consequences for the world’s most powerful and prosperous nation. With global power comes global interests and global responsibilities.

Nor should President Biden or congressional Democrats require another major conflict to start investing seriously in American hard power.

The president began this year’s State of the Union with a reference to President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1941 effort to prepare the nation to meet the Axis threat. But until the commander in chief is willing to meaningfully invest in America’s deterrent power, this talk carries little weight.

In 1941, President Roosevelt justified a belated increase in military spending to 5.5 percent of gross domestic product. On the road to victory, that figure would reach 37 percent. Deterring conflict today costs less than fighting it tomorrow.

I was encouraged by the plan laid out last week by my friend, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Roger Wicker , which detailed specific actions the president and colleagues in Congress should take to prepare America for long-term strategic competition.

I hope my colleague’s work prompts overdue action to address shortcomings in shipbuilding and the production of long-range munitions and missile defenses. Rebuilding the arsenal of democracy would demonstrate to America’s allies and adversaries alike that our commitment to the stable order of international peace and prosperity is rock-solid.

Nothing else will suffice. Not a desperate pursuit of nuclear diplomacy with Iran, the world’s most active state sponsor of terrorism. Not cabinet junkets to Beijing in pursuit of common ground on climate policy. The way to prove that America means what it says is to show what we’re willing to fight for.

Eighty years ago, America and our allies fought because we had to. The forces assembled on the English Channel on June 6, 1944, represented the fruits of many months of feverish planning. And once victory was secure, the United States led the formation of the alliances that have underpinned Western peace and security ever since.

Today, the better part of valor is to build credible defenses before they are necessary and demonstrate American leadership before it is doubted any further.

Mr. McConnell, a Republican senator from Kentucky, is the Senate minority leader.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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Interesting Literature

A Summary and Analysis of Joyce Carol Oates’ ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’ is a 1966 short story by the American writer Joyce Carol Oates. It is regarded by many critics as Oates’ best story, and is widely studied and praised for its treatment of some of the darker aspects of early 1960s America.

First published in the literary journal Epoch in 1966, ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’ was inspired by a series of real-life murders and dedicated to Bob Dylan, whose song ‘ It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue ’ was another inspiration on the story.

Plot summary

The story is about a rather rebellious fifteen-year-old girl named Connie, whose mother constantly berates her for obsessing over her appearance and not being more sensible like her older sister, the rather plain-looking June. Connie often goes and hangs out at a drive-in restaurant with her friend Betty, and one evening she is befriended by an older guy, named Eddie, who has a car.

After she spends a few hours with him he takes her back to her friend and then she goes home. To keep her mother from suspecting about such behaviour, Connie tries to present a different self at home, pretending to be more ‘steady’ and sensible than she actually is.

The next day is a hot July day, a Sunday, and the rest of the family go to Connie’s aunt’s for a barbecue, but Connie declines to go and so is left home on her own. While she is sitting in the sun outside the house, a car drives up and two older men, who call themselves Arnold Friend and Ellie Oscar, try to persuade her to come for a drive with them.

Although Connie doesn’t know them, there is something familiar about the appearance of Arnold, and he knows her name. Then she remembers she had seen him at the restaurant the night before.

Connie is reluctant to go for a drive with them, and is suspicious when Arnold reveals how much he knows about her life and friends. He claims to be the same age as her, but when she expresses incredulity, he claims to be a little older: eighteen. When she catches a glimpse of Ellie, who is listening to music inside the car, she realises that he is also much older, and has the face of an immature forty-year-old man.

Arnold becomes more persistent and intense in his desire for her, but that only makes Connie more nervous and suspicious, until she threatens to call the police.

Arnold agrees not to come into the house, where Connie has retreated while she talks to him. However, he threatens her, suggesting that something will happen to her ‘people’ if she doesn’t come with him. He repeatedly encourages her to come with him so he can show her what ‘love’ really is.

Although she goes to phone somebody, Connie is talked out of doing so and eventually agrees to come out of the house and go with Arnold and Ellie in the car. The story ends with her glimpsing at the sunlit land behind Arnold which stretches out like an unknown new land, a land she is heading towards.

Joyce Carol Oates was inspired to write this story after she read an account in Life magazine of a young man who had managed to entice and then kill several young girls in Tucson, Arizona in the early 1960s.

However, the ultimate fate of fifteen-year-old Connie is left open for interpretation at the end of ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’, and thus the story becomes almost a modern myth about the rite of passage of adolescence, crossing from the safety (and oppressiveness) of childhood towards the broad, ‘sunlit’ (but also dangerous and unnerving) lands of adulthood.

In this connection, the story’s title points up the threshold on which Connie stands, looking back to where she has been (childhood) and where she is going (adulthood). Oates reinforces this liminal status of Connie by having her literally spend most of the story on or near an actual threshold: the door of her parents’ house.

The ‘two sides’ to Connie’s identity which the third-person narrator of the story mentions early on are also significant here: she is caught between being daughter at home and free-spirited woman (or woman-in-waiting) outside of the family home. Once again, the boundary or threshold between ‘home’ and ‘not home’ (to use the narrator’s words) is marked with significance.

The meaning of that title, ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’, is hinted at again towards the end of the story, when Arnold Friend tells Connie that the place she came from doesn’t exist any longer, and where she had intended to go is also no longer an option. Her father’s house is something he can easily destroy (an allusion to the Big Bad Wolf from the famous children’s tale about the three little pigs).

But it is not clear what he means by stating to her that where she ‘meant to go’ is no longer an option for her. Arnold – whose very surname signals his (supposed) identity as her friend rather than her foe, but in a way that perhaps underscores too heavily, and suspiciously, his so-called ‘friendly’ nature – paints himself as someone who has arrived in her life in order to help her across this threshold towards a new land she could not find alone, or that she would be unwilling to embrace without encouragement.

It is important that the decision to cross the threshold at least be made to  look  like her own, even if it is only the result of extensive coercion.

The mysterious origins of Arnold and Ellie, and the extent of Arnold’s knowledge of Connie and her family – he even claims to be able to ‘see’ what is going on at the family barbecue across town – suggest that the two men are almost supernatural visitants who possess more symbolic and mythic force than they do existence as real people.

It is as if Arnold is a variation on the incubus , the male demon supposed to visit sleeping women and have sex with them, but a modern-day incarnation of this figure, in tight jeans and sunglasses. Alternatively, we might even regard Arnold Friend as a devil in disguise: F riend  is only one letter away from Fiend .

All of this is not to suggest that ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’ is literally a tale of the supernatural. It is a realist story with dialogue and characterisation which reinforce the authenticity of the characters, who operate in a world familiar to us as our own.

But the symbolism of Arnold Friend is nevertheless of a mythic kind: he seems to represent all young men who are viewed by teenage girls as their induction into the world of adult relationships, including the realities of sexual intercourse and the dangers that can pose (not least to teenage girls in the 1960s).

Connie’s age is also significant: at fifteen she is legally still very much a child, although her body is obviously changing and maturing, her hormones giving her mixed signals about what she wants. Early in the story, Oates’ narrator implies that Connie is more in love with the idea of having a boyfriend than anything else: all the boys she has met, we are told, ‘dissolved’ into a single face that was more an idea than a real person.

And in this regard, Connie’s encounter with Eddie the evening before the arrival of Arnold and Ellie (whose name even echoes Eddie’s) acts as a symbolic foreshadowing of the events that follow on the Sunday: it is as if Connie is now ‘ready’ to be tempted by the strange devilish figure who arrives on her parents’ front drive, and here the fact that both Eddie and Arnold arrive in cars, a symbol of adulthood and independence, is of significance.

In the last analysis, ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’ is a powerful – one might almost say archetypal – exploration of the confusion, uncertainty, and hesitation that attend on adolescence, as young people, and especially young girls in this regard, negotiate the difficult path from girlhood to womanhood.

We might call this ‘rite of passage’ or ‘coming of age’, but Oates’ story, given the dark true events that inspired it, is unsettling because it implies that coercion and threats are not only usual but perhaps even necessary, at least in a patriarchal society, to wrest indecisive young girls over that threshold.

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The state of AI in early 2024: Gen AI adoption spikes and starts to generate value

If 2023 was the year the world discovered generative AI (gen AI) , 2024 is the year organizations truly began using—and deriving business value from—this new technology. In the latest McKinsey Global Survey  on AI, 65 percent of respondents report that their organizations are regularly using gen AI, nearly double the percentage from our previous survey just ten months ago. Respondents’ expectations for gen AI’s impact remain as high as they were last year , with three-quarters predicting that gen AI will lead to significant or disruptive change in their industries in the years ahead.

About the authors

This article is a collaborative effort by Alex Singla , Alexander Sukharevsky , Lareina Yee , and Michael Chui , with Bryce Hall , representing views from QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, and McKinsey Digital.

Organizations are already seeing material benefits from gen AI use, reporting both cost decreases and revenue jumps in the business units deploying the technology. The survey also provides insights into the kinds of risks presented by gen AI—most notably, inaccuracy—as well as the emerging practices of top performers to mitigate those challenges and capture value.

AI adoption surges

Interest in generative AI has also brightened the spotlight on a broader set of AI capabilities. For the past six years, AI adoption by respondents’ organizations has hovered at about 50 percent. This year, the survey finds that adoption has jumped to 72 percent (Exhibit 1). And the interest is truly global in scope. Our 2023 survey found that AI adoption did not reach 66 percent in any region; however, this year more than two-thirds of respondents in nearly every region say their organizations are using AI. 1 Organizations based in Central and South America are the exception, with 58 percent of respondents working for organizations based in Central and South America reporting AI adoption. Looking by industry, the biggest increase in adoption can be found in professional services. 2 Includes respondents working for organizations focused on human resources, legal services, management consulting, market research, R&D, tax preparation, and training.

Also, responses suggest that companies are now using AI in more parts of the business. Half of respondents say their organizations have adopted AI in two or more business functions, up from less than a third of respondents in 2023 (Exhibit 2).

Gen AI adoption is most common in the functions where it can create the most value

Most respondents now report that their organizations—and they as individuals—are using gen AI. Sixty-five percent of respondents say their organizations are regularly using gen AI in at least one business function, up from one-third last year. The average organization using gen AI is doing so in two functions, most often in marketing and sales and in product and service development—two functions in which previous research  determined that gen AI adoption could generate the most value 3 “ The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier ,” McKinsey, June 14, 2023. —as well as in IT (Exhibit 3). The biggest increase from 2023 is found in marketing and sales, where reported adoption has more than doubled. Yet across functions, only two use cases, both within marketing and sales, are reported by 15 percent or more of respondents.

Gen AI also is weaving its way into respondents’ personal lives. Compared with 2023, respondents are much more likely to be using gen AI at work and even more likely to be using gen AI both at work and in their personal lives (Exhibit 4). The survey finds upticks in gen AI use across all regions, with the largest increases in Asia–Pacific and Greater China. Respondents at the highest seniority levels, meanwhile, show larger jumps in the use of gen Al tools for work and outside of work compared with their midlevel-management peers. Looking at specific industries, respondents working in energy and materials and in professional services report the largest increase in gen AI use.

Investments in gen AI and analytical AI are beginning to create value

The latest survey also shows how different industries are budgeting for gen AI. Responses suggest that, in many industries, organizations are about equally as likely to be investing more than 5 percent of their digital budgets in gen AI as they are in nongenerative, analytical-AI solutions (Exhibit 5). Yet in most industries, larger shares of respondents report that their organizations spend more than 20 percent on analytical AI than on gen AI. Looking ahead, most respondents—67 percent—expect their organizations to invest more in AI over the next three years.

Where are those investments paying off? For the first time, our latest survey explored the value created by gen AI use by business function. The function in which the largest share of respondents report seeing cost decreases is human resources. Respondents most commonly report meaningful revenue increases (of more than 5 percent) in supply chain and inventory management (Exhibit 6). For analytical AI, respondents most often report seeing cost benefits in service operations—in line with what we found last year —as well as meaningful revenue increases from AI use in marketing and sales.

Inaccuracy: The most recognized and experienced risk of gen AI use

As businesses begin to see the benefits of gen AI, they’re also recognizing the diverse risks associated with the technology. These can range from data management risks such as data privacy, bias, or intellectual property (IP) infringement to model management risks, which tend to focus on inaccurate output or lack of explainability. A third big risk category is security and incorrect use.

Respondents to the latest survey are more likely than they were last year to say their organizations consider inaccuracy and IP infringement to be relevant to their use of gen AI, and about half continue to view cybersecurity as a risk (Exhibit 7).

Conversely, respondents are less likely than they were last year to say their organizations consider workforce and labor displacement to be relevant risks and are not increasing efforts to mitigate them.

In fact, inaccuracy— which can affect use cases across the gen AI value chain , ranging from customer journeys and summarization to coding and creative content—is the only risk that respondents are significantly more likely than last year to say their organizations are actively working to mitigate.

Some organizations have already experienced negative consequences from the use of gen AI, with 44 percent of respondents saying their organizations have experienced at least one consequence (Exhibit 8). Respondents most often report inaccuracy as a risk that has affected their organizations, followed by cybersecurity and explainability.

Our previous research has found that there are several elements of governance that can help in scaling gen AI use responsibly, yet few respondents report having these risk-related practices in place. 4 “ Implementing generative AI with speed and safety ,” McKinsey Quarterly , March 13, 2024. For example, just 18 percent say their organizations have an enterprise-wide council or board with the authority to make decisions involving responsible AI governance, and only one-third say gen AI risk awareness and risk mitigation controls are required skill sets for technical talent.

Bringing gen AI capabilities to bear

The latest survey also sought to understand how, and how quickly, organizations are deploying these new gen AI tools. We have found three archetypes for implementing gen AI solutions : takers use off-the-shelf, publicly available solutions; shapers customize those tools with proprietary data and systems; and makers develop their own foundation models from scratch. 5 “ Technology’s generational moment with generative AI: A CIO and CTO guide ,” McKinsey, July 11, 2023. Across most industries, the survey results suggest that organizations are finding off-the-shelf offerings applicable to their business needs—though many are pursuing opportunities to customize models or even develop their own (Exhibit 9). About half of reported gen AI uses within respondents’ business functions are utilizing off-the-shelf, publicly available models or tools, with little or no customization. Respondents in energy and materials, technology, and media and telecommunications are more likely to report significant customization or tuning of publicly available models or developing their own proprietary models to address specific business needs.

Respondents most often report that their organizations required one to four months from the start of a project to put gen AI into production, though the time it takes varies by business function (Exhibit 10). It also depends upon the approach for acquiring those capabilities. Not surprisingly, reported uses of highly customized or proprietary models are 1.5 times more likely than off-the-shelf, publicly available models to take five months or more to implement.

Gen AI high performers are excelling despite facing challenges

Gen AI is a new technology, and organizations are still early in the journey of pursuing its opportunities and scaling it across functions. So it’s little surprise that only a small subset of respondents (46 out of 876) report that a meaningful share of their organizations’ EBIT can be attributed to their deployment of gen AI. Still, these gen AI leaders are worth examining closely. These, after all, are the early movers, who already attribute more than 10 percent of their organizations’ EBIT to their use of gen AI. Forty-two percent of these high performers say more than 20 percent of their EBIT is attributable to their use of nongenerative, analytical AI, and they span industries and regions—though most are at organizations with less than $1 billion in annual revenue. The AI-related practices at these organizations can offer guidance to those looking to create value from gen AI adoption at their own organizations.

To start, gen AI high performers are using gen AI in more business functions—an average of three functions, while others average two. They, like other organizations, are most likely to use gen AI in marketing and sales and product or service development, but they’re much more likely than others to use gen AI solutions in risk, legal, and compliance; in strategy and corporate finance; and in supply chain and inventory management. They’re more than three times as likely as others to be using gen AI in activities ranging from processing of accounting documents and risk assessment to R&D testing and pricing and promotions. While, overall, about half of reported gen AI applications within business functions are utilizing publicly available models or tools, gen AI high performers are less likely to use those off-the-shelf options than to either implement significantly customized versions of those tools or to develop their own proprietary foundation models.

What else are these high performers doing differently? For one thing, they are paying more attention to gen-AI-related risks. Perhaps because they are further along on their journeys, they are more likely than others to say their organizations have experienced every negative consequence from gen AI we asked about, from cybersecurity and personal privacy to explainability and IP infringement. Given that, they are more likely than others to report that their organizations consider those risks, as well as regulatory compliance, environmental impacts, and political stability, to be relevant to their gen AI use, and they say they take steps to mitigate more risks than others do.

Gen AI high performers are also much more likely to say their organizations follow a set of risk-related best practices (Exhibit 11). For example, they are nearly twice as likely as others to involve the legal function and embed risk reviews early on in the development of gen AI solutions—that is, to “ shift left .” They’re also much more likely than others to employ a wide range of other best practices, from strategy-related practices to those related to scaling.

In addition to experiencing the risks of gen AI adoption, high performers have encountered other challenges that can serve as warnings to others (Exhibit 12). Seventy percent say they have experienced difficulties with data, including defining processes for data governance, developing the ability to quickly integrate data into AI models, and an insufficient amount of training data, highlighting the essential role that data play in capturing value. High performers are also more likely than others to report experiencing challenges with their operating models, such as implementing agile ways of working and effective sprint performance management.

About the research

The online survey was in the field from February 22 to March 5, 2024, and garnered responses from 1,363 participants representing the full range of regions, industries, company sizes, functional specialties, and tenures. Of those respondents, 981 said their organizations had adopted AI in at least one business function, and 878 said their organizations were regularly using gen AI in at least one function. To adjust for differences in response rates, the data are weighted by the contribution of each respondent’s nation to global GDP.

Alex Singla and Alexander Sukharevsky  are global coleaders of QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, and senior partners in McKinsey’s Chicago and London offices, respectively; Lareina Yee  is a senior partner in the Bay Area office, where Michael Chui , a McKinsey Global Institute partner, is a partner; and Bryce Hall  is an associate partner in the Washington, DC, office.

They wish to thank Kaitlin Noe, Larry Kanter, Mallika Jhamb, and Shinjini Srivastava for their contributions to this work.

This article was edited by Heather Hanselman, a senior editor in McKinsey’s Atlanta office.

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    Where are we going?, 1897-98, oil on canvas, 139.1 x 374.6 cm (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Gauguin himself provided a telling description of the painting's esoteric imagery in the same letter to de Monfried, written in February 1898: It is a canvas four meters fifty in width, by one meter seventy in ...

  2. Gauguin, Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?

    Where are we going?, 1897-98, oil on canvas, 139.1 x 374.6 cm (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Gauguin himself provided a telling description of the painting's esoteric imagery in the same letter to de Monfried, written in February 1898: "It is a canvas four meters fifty in width, by one meter seventy in ...

  3. Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

    Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (French: D'où venons-nous ?Que sommes-nous ? Où allons-nous ?) is a 1897-98 painting by French artist Paul Gauguin.The painting was created in Tahiti, and is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts.Viewed as a masterpiece by Gauguin, the painting is considered "a philosophical work comparable to the themes of the Gospels".

  4. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Oates Essay

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  8. Where Are You Going Where Have You Been Thesis

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