Monsters-Oates/Dylan

Both Bob Dylan's song "Baby Blue" and Joyce Oates's story of 'Where are you, going, where have you been?' are about travelers and the worst-case-scenario demons people meet along the way. Dylan jarringly describes the nightmare of an orphan with a gun, seasick sailors, and empty-handed army men which are all nightmare specific situations. In Oates's story the heroine meets an equally nightmarish individual who ultimately takes her away in a gold jalopy. Oates pairs this mysterious man with a mysterious car to strike fear in Connie's mind. She has no idea where he has been or where he is going.

Dylan alludes to the highway as a dangerous place that's "for gamblers" and talks about "vagabonds rapping at your door." It's likely that Oates and Dylan felt this way about strange men with strange cars from Charles Manson and his chilling escapades in the 1960's. As many of the stories went, Manson, a crazed lunatic, accumulated followers and roamed the west coast in a school bus. Mason's cult grew and eventually followed out murders and other monster-like things under his watch.