1960년대 미국 대중음악과 함께 읽는 조이스 캐롤 오츠의 「어디로 가는지, 어디에 있었는지?」

Abstract

Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where are you going, where have you been?” is one of the most anthologized short stories used in American college education. Written and first published in 1966, Oates’s story of a fatal encounter between a teenage girl Connie and an enigmatic visitor who seduces and threatens her to leave home interestingly interweaves a real-life murder scandal with the details of youth culture, allegories and mystery. The role of popular music is crucial to better understand Connie as a teenage female protagonist in the landscape of Cold War America. While she wanders around the limited territory between her home and shopping malls, “the music is always in the background.” Though Oates never uses any specific song lyrics or names, imagining Connie’s radio play list and reading the lyrics of the hits in the mid-60s effectively inspire readers to understand her yearning for freedom and independence as well as her vague dreams of romance the songs promise and betray. Songs by Bob Dylan, Crispian St. Peters, Petula Clark, The Byrds, and the Shangri-Las are examined as a soundtrack of Connie’s life and the society she lived in.