MAKING MEANING

About the Author

Where Is Here?
Concept Vocabulary
As you perform your first read of “Where Is Here?” you will encounter the
following words.

gregarious   amiably   stoical
Joyce Carol Oates
(b. 1937) began writing Context Clues  If these words are unfamiliar to you, try using context
novels at age fourteen when clues—other words and phrases that appear in the text—to help you
she received a typewriter as a determine their meanings. There are various types of context clues that may
gift. In 1960, she graduated help you as you read. This box shows three examples.
first in her class from
Syracuse University. Oates, Synonyms: The recent dearth of milk has resulted in a shortage of
who teaches at Princeton other dairy products.
University, is famous for
having wide-ranging Elaborating Details: During her campaign, the senator was positively
interests. She has written monomaniacal, speaking passionately about one issue and one
novels, short stories, poetry, issue only.
plays, and essays in many
Contrast of Ideas: The shallowness of the second speech made the
different styles and genres.
profundity of the first even more evident.
Her writing often combines
the small matters of everyday
life with violence and horror. Apply your knowledge of context clues and other vocabulary strategies to
determine the meanings of unfamiliar words you encounter during your
first read.

First Read FICTION

Apply these strategies as you conduct your first read. You will have an
opportunity to complete a close read after your first read.

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NOTICE whom the story is ANNOTATE by marking
about, what happens, where vocabulary and key passages
and when it happens, and why you want to revisit.
those involved react as
 Standards
they do.
Reading Literature
By the end of grade 10, read and
comprehend literature, including
stories, dramas, and poems at the
high end of the grades 9–10 text CONNECT ideas within RESPOND by completing
complexity band independently and the selection to what you the Comprehension Check and
proficiently. already know and what you by writing a brief summary of
Language have already read. the selection.
• Determine or clarify the meaning
of unknown and multiple-meaning
words and phrases based on grades
9–10 reading and content, choosing
flexibly from a range of strategies.
• Use context as a clue to the
meaning of a word or phrase.

68  UNIT 1 • INSIDE THE NIGHTMARE

 SHORT STORY

Where Is Here? Joyce Carol Oates

BACKGROUND
The novels of Ann Radcliffe, an English writer, and the short stories of Edgar
Allan Poe inspired Joyce Carol Oates to write Gothic literature. “Horror is a
fact of life,” she has said. “As a writer I’m fascinated by all facets of life.”
In this story, Oates highlights the uncertainty and potential danger that lurk
under the surface of everyday events.

F or years they had lived without incident in their house in a

quiet residential neighborhood when, one November evening at
dusk, the doorbell rang, and the father went to answer it, and there
NOTES

on his doorstep stood a man he had never seen before. The stranger
apologized for disturbing him at what was probably the dinner hour
and explained that he’d once lived in the house—“I mean, I was a
child in this house”—and since he was in the city on business he
thought he would drop by. He had not seen the house since January
1949 when he’d been eleven years old and his widowed mother had
sold it and moved away but, he said, he thought of it often, dreamt
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of it often, and never more powerfully than in recent months. The Mark context clues or indicate
father said, “Would you like to come inside for a few minutes and another strategy you used that
helped you determine meaning.
look around?” The stranger hesitated, then said firmly, “I think I’ll
gregarious (gruh GAIR ee uhs)
just poke around outside for a while, if you don’t mind. That might
adj.
be sufficient.” He was in his late forties, the father’s approximate age.
MEANING:
He wore a dark suit, conservatively cut; he was hatless, with thin
silver-tipped neatly combed hair; a plain, sober, intelligent face and
frowning eyes. The father, reserved by nature, but genial and even
gregarious when taken unaware, said amiably, “Of course we don’t amiably (AY mee uh blee) adv.
mind. But I’m afraid many things have changed since 1949.” MEANING:
2 So, in the chill, damp, deepening dusk, the stranger wandered
around the property while the mother set the dining room table and
the father peered covertly out the window. The children were upstairs
in their rooms. “Where is he now?” the mother asked. “He just went
into the garage,” the father said. “The garage! What does he want in

Where Is Here?  69
 there?” the mother said uneasily. “Maybe you’d better go out there
NOTES with him.” “He wouldn’t want anyone with him,” the father said. He
moved stealthily to another window, peering through the curtains.
A moment passed in silence. The mother, paused in the act of setting
down plates, neatly folded paper napkins, and stainless-steel cutlery,
said impatiently, “And where is he now? I don’t like this.” The father
said, “Now he’s coming out of the garage,” and stepped back hastily
from the window. “Is he going now?” the mother asked. “I wish I’d
answered the door.” The father watched for a moment in silence then
said, “He’s headed into the backyard.” “Doing what?” the mother
asked. “Not doing anything, just walking,” the father said. “He seems to
have a slight limp.” “Is he an older man?” the mother asked. “I didn’t
notice,” the father confessed. “Isn’t that just like you!” the mother said.
3 She went on worriedly, “He could be anyone, after all. Any kind
of thief, or mentally disturbed person, or even murderer. Ringing our
doorbell like that with no warning and you don’t even know what he
looks like!”
4 The father had moved to another window and stood quietly
watching, his cheek pressed against the glass. “He’s gone down to
the old swings. I hope he won’t sit in one of them, for memory’s sake,
and try to swing—the posts are rotted almost through.” The mother
drew breath to speak but sighed instead, as if a powerful current of
feeling had surged through her. The father was saying, “Is it possible
he remembers those swings from his childhood? I can’t believe they’re
actually that old.” The mother said vaguely, “They were old when
we bought the house.” The father said, “But we’re talking about forty
years or more, and that’s a long time.” The mother sighed again,
involuntarily. “Poor man!” she murmured. She was standing before
her table but no longer seeing it. In her hand were objects—forks,
knives, spoons—she could not have named. She said, “We can’t bar the
door against him. That would be cruel.” The father said, “What? No
one has barred any door against anyone.” “Put yourself in his place,”
the mother said. “He told me he didn’t want to come inside,” the father

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said. “Oh—isn’t that just like you!” the mother said in exasperation.
5 Without a further word she went to the back door and called out
for the stranger to come inside, if he wanted, when he had finished
looking around outside.

6 They introduced themselves rather shyly, giving names, and

forgetting names, in the confusion of the moment. The stranger’s
handshake was cool and damp and tentative. He was smiling
hard, blinking moisture from his eyes; it was clear that entering his
childhood home was enormously exciting yet intimidating to him.
Repeatedly he said, “It’s so nice of you to invite me in—I truly hate
to disturb you—I’m really so grateful, and so—” But the perfect word
eluded him. As he spoke his eyes darted about the kitchen almost like
eyes out of control. He stood in an odd stiff posture, hands gripping
the lapels of his suit as if he meant to crush them. The mother,

70  UNIT 1 • INSIDE THE NIGHTMARE

 meaning to break the awkward silence, spoke warmly of their
satisfaction with the house and with the neighborhood, and the father NOTES

concurred, but the stranger listened only politely, and continued to

stare, and stare hard. Finally he said that the kitchen had been so
changed—”so modernized”—he almost didn’t recognize it. The floor
tile, the size of the windows, something about the position of the
cupboards—all were different. But the sink was in the same place of
course; and the refrigerator and stove; and the door leading down to
the basement—“That is the door leading down to the basement, isn’t
it?” He spoke strangely, staring at the door. For a moment it appeared
he might ask to be shown the basement but the moment passed,
fortunately—this was not a part of their house the father and mother
would have been comfortable showing to a stranger.
7 Finally, making an effort to smile, the stranger said, “Your kitchen
is so—pleasant.” He paused. For a moment it seemed he had nothing
further to say. Then, “A—controlled sort of place. My mother— When
we lived here—” His words trailed off into a dreamy silence and
the mother and father glanced at each other with carefully neutral
expressions.
8 On the windowsill above the sink were several lushly blooming
African violet plants in ceramic pots and these the stranger made a
show of admiring. Impulsively he leaned over to sniff the flowers—
“Lovely!”—though African violets have no smell. As if embarrassed,
he said, “Mother too had plants on this windowsill but I don’t recall
them ever blooming.”
9 The mother said tactfully, “Oh, they were probably the kind that
don’t bloom—like ivy.”
10 In the next room, the dining room, the stranger appeared to be
even more deeply moved. For some time he stood staring, wordless.
With fastidious slowness he turned on his heel, blinking, and
frowning, and tugging at his lower lip in a rough gesture that must
have hurt. Finally, as if remembering the presence of his hosts, and
the necessity for some display of civility, the stranger expressed his
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admiration for the attractiveness of the room, and its coziness. He’d
remembered it as cavernous, with a ceiling twice as high. “And
dark most of the time,” he said wonderingly. “Dark by day, dark by
night.” The mother turned the lights of the little brass chandelier
to their fullest: shadows were dispersed like ragged ghosts and
the cut-glass fruit bowl at the center of the table glowed like an
exquisite multifaceted jewel. The stranger exclaimed in surprise. He’d
extracted a handkerchief from his pocket and was dabbing carefully
at his face, where beads of perspiration shone. He said, as if thinking
aloud, still wonderingly, “My father was a unique man. Everyone
who knew him admired him. He sat here,” he said, gingerly touching
the chair that was in fact the father’s chair, at one end of the table.
“And Mother sat there,” he said, merely pointing. “I don’t recall my
own place or my sister’s but I suppose it doesn’t matter. . . . I see you
have four place settings, Mrs. . . . ? Two children, I suppose?” “A boy

Where Is Here?  71
 eleven, and a girl thirteen,” the mother said. The stranger stared not
NOTES at her but at the table, smiling. “And so too we were—I mean, there
were two of us: my sister and me.”
11 The mother said, as if not knowing what else to say, “Are you—
close?”
12 The stranger shrugged, distractedly rather than rudely, and moved
on to the living room.
13 This room, cozily lit as well, was the most carefully furnished
room in the house. Deep-piled wall-to-wall carpeting in hunter green,
cheerful chintz1 drapes, a sofa and matching chairs in nubby heather
green, framed reproductions of classic works of art, a gleaming gilt-
framed mirror over the fireplace: wasn’t the living room impressive
as a display in a furniture store? But the stranger said nothing at first.
Indeed, his eyes narrowed sharply as if he were confronted with a
disagreeable spectacle. He whispered, “Here too! Here too!”
14 He went to the fireplace, walking, now, with a decided limp; he
drew his fingers with excruciating slowness along the mantel as if
testing its materiality. For some time he merely stood, and stared, and
listened. He tapped a section of wall with his knuckles—“There used
to be a large water stain here, like a shadow.”
15 “Was there?” murmured the father out of politeness, and “Was
there!” murmured the mother. Of course, neither had ever seen a
water stain there.
16 Then, noticing the window seat, the stranger uttered a soft
surprised cry, and went to sit in it. He appeared delighted: hugging
his knees like a child trying to make himself smaller. “This was one
of my happy places! At least when Father wasn’t home. I’d hide
away here for hours, reading, daydreaming, staring out the window!
Sometimes Mother would join me, if she was in the mood, and
we’d plot together—oh, all sorts of fantastical things!” The stranger
remained sitting in the window seat for so long, tears shining in his
eyes, that the father and mother almost feared he’d forgotten them.
He was stroking the velvet fabric of the cushioned seat, gropingly

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touching the leaded windowpanes. Wordlessly, the father and mother
exchanged a glance: who was this man, and how could they tactfully
get rid of him? The father made a face signaling impatience and the
mother shook her head without seeming to move it. For they couldn’t
be rude to a guest in their house.
17 The stranger was saying in a slow, dazed voice, “It all comes back
to me now. How could I have forgotten! Mother used to read to me,
and tell me stories, and ask me riddles I couldn’t answer. ‘What
creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at midday, three
legs in the evening?’ ‘What is round, and flat, measuring mere inches
in one direction, and infinity in the other?’ ‘Out of what does our life
arise? Out of what does our consciousness arise? Why are we here?
Where is here?’”

1. chintz  n. printed cotton fabric used especially for curtains and upholstery.

72  UNIT 1 • INSIDE THE NIGHTMARE

 18 The father and mother were perplexed by these strange words
and hardly knew how to respond. The mother said uncertainly, NOTES

“Our daughter used to like to sit there too, when she was younger.
It is a lovely place.” The father said with surprising passion, “I hate
riddles—they’re moronic some of the time and obscure the rest of
the time.” He spoke with such uncharacteristic rudeness, the mother
looked at him in surprise.
19 Hurriedly she said, “Is your mother still living, Mr. . . . ?” “Oh no.
Not at all,” the stranger said, rising abruptly from the window seat, and
looking at the mother as if she had said something mildly preposterous.
“I’m sorry,” the mother said. “Please don’t be,” the stranger said. “We’ve
all been dead—they’ve all been dead—a long time.”
20 The stranger’s cheeks were deeply flushed as if with anger and his
breath was quickened and audible.
21 The visit might have ended at this point but so clearly did the
stranger expect to continue on upstairs, so purposefully, indeed
almost defiantly, did he limp his way to the stairs, neither the father
nor the mother knew how to dissuade him. It was as if a force of
nature, benign at the outset, now uncontrollable, had swept its way
into their house! The mother followed after him saying nervously,
“I’m not sure what condition the rooms are in, upstairs. The
children’s rooms especially—” The stranger muttered that he did
not care in the slightest about the condition of the household and
continued on up without a backward glance.
22 The father, his face burning with resentment and his heart
accelerating as if in preparation for combat, had no choice but to
follow the stranger and the mother up the stairs. He was flexing and
unflexing his fingers as if to rid them of stiffness.
23 On the landing, the stranger halted abruptly to examine a stained-
glass fanlight—“My God, I haven’t thought of this in years!” He
spoke excitedly of how, on tiptoe, he used to stand and peek out
through the diamonds of colored glass, red, blue, green, golden
yellow: seeing with amazement the world outside so altered. “After
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such a lesson it’s hard to take the world on its own terms, isn’t it?”
he asked. The father asked, annoyed, “On what terms should it be
taken, then?” The stranger replied, regarding him levelly, with a just
perceptible degree of disdain, “Why, none at all.”
24 It was the son’s room—by coincidence, the stranger’s old room—
the stranger most wanted to see. Other rooms on the second floor,
the “master” bedroom in particular, he decidedly did not want to
see. As he spoke of it, his mouth twitched as if he had been offered
something repulsive to eat.
25 The mother hurried on ahead to warn the boy to straighten up
his room a bit. No one had expected a visitor this evening! “So you
have two children,” the stranger murmured, looking at the father
with a small quizzical smile. “Why?” The father stared at him as if he
hadn’t heard correctly. “’Why’?” he asked. “Yes. Why?” the stranger
repeated. They looked at each other for a long strained moment, then

Where Is Here?  73
 the stranger said quickly, “But you love them—of course.” The father
NOTES controlled his temper and said, biting off his words, “Of course.”
26 “Of course, of course,” the stranger murmured, tugging at his
necktie and loosening his collar, “otherwise it would all come to an
end.” The two men were of approximately the same height but the
father was heavier in the shoulders and torso; his hair had thinned
more severely so that the scalp of the crown was exposed, flushed,
damp with perspiration, sullenly alight.

27 With a stiff avuncular2 formality the stranger shook the son’s hand.
“So this is your room, now! So you live here, now!” he murmured,
as if the fact were an astonishment. Not used to shaking hands, the
boy was stricken with shyness and cast his eyes down. The stranger
limped past him, staring. “The same!—the same!—walls, ceiling,
floor—window—” He drew his fingers slowly along the windowsill;
around the frame; rapped the glass, as if, again, testing materiality;
stooped to look outside—but it was night, and nothing but his
reflection bobbed in the glass, ghostly and insubstantial. He groped
against the walls, he opened the closet door before the mother could
protest, he sat heavily on the boy’s bed, the springs creaking beneath
him. He was panting, red-faced, dazed. “And the ceiling overhead,”

2. avuncular  (uh VUHN kyoo luhr) adj. having traits considered typical of uncles; jolly,
indulgent, stodgy.

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74  UNIT 1 • INSIDE THE NIGHTMARE

 he whispered. He nodded slowly and repeatedly, smiling. “And the
floor beneath. That is what is.” NOTES

28 He took out his handkerchief again and fastidiously wiped his

face. He made a visible effort to compose himself.
29 The father, in the doorway, cleared his throat and said, “I’m afraid
it’s getting late—it’s almost six.”
30 The mother said, “Oh yes I’m afraid—I’m afraid it is getting late.
There’s dinner, and the children have their homework—”
31 The stranger got to his feet. At his full height he stood for a
precarious moment swaying, as if the blood had drained from his
head and he was in danger of fainting. But he steadied himself with
a hand against the slanted dormer ceiling. He said, “Oh yes!—I
know!—I’ve disturbed you terribly!—you’ve been so kind.” It
seemed, surely, as if the stranger must leave now, but, as chance had
it, he happened to spy, on the boy’s desk, an opened mathematics
textbook and several smudged sheets of paper, and impulsively
offered to show the boy a mathematical riddle—“You can take it to
school tomorrow and surprise your teacher!”
32 So, out of dutiful politeness, the son sat down at his desk and the
stranger leaned familiarly over him, demonstrating adroitly with
a ruler and a pencil how “what we call ‘infinity’” can be contained
within a small geometrical figure on a sheet of paper. “First you draw
a square; then you draw a triangle to fit inside the square; then you
draw a second triangle, and a third, and a fourth, each to fit inside the
square, but without their points coinciding, and as you continue—here,
son, I’ll show you—give me your hand, and I’ll show you—the border
of the triangles’ common outline gets more complex and measures
larger, and larger, and larger—and soon you’ll need a magnifying
glass to see the details, and then you’ll need a microscope, and so on
and so forth, forever, laying triangles neatly down to fit inside the
original square without their points coinciding—!” The stranger spoke
with increasing fervor; spittle gleamed in the corners of his mouth. The
son stared at the geometrical shapes rapidly materializing on the sheet
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of paper before him with no seeming comprehension but with a rapt

staring fascination as if he dared not look away.
33 After several minutes of this the father came abruptly forward and
dropped his hand on the stranger’s shoulder. “The visit is over,” he
said calmly. It was the first time since they’d shaken hands that the
two men had touched, and the touch had a galvanic3 effect upon the
stranger: he dropped ruler and pencil at once, froze in his stooped
posture, burst into frightened tears.
Mark context clues or indicate
another strategy you used that
34 Now the visit truly was over; the stranger, at last, was leaving, having helped you determine meaning.
wiped away his tears and made a stoical effort to compose himself; stoical (STOH ih kuhl) adj.
but on the doorstep, to the father’s astonishment, he made a final,
MEANING:
preposterous appeal—he wanted to see the basement. “Just to sit on

3. galvanic  (gal VAN ihk) adj. startling; stimulating as if by electric current.

Where Is Here?  75
 the stairs? In the dark? For a few quiet minutes? And you could close
NOTES the door and forget me, you and your family could have your dinner
and—”
35 The stranger was begging but the father was resolute. Without
raising his voice he said, “No. The visit is over.”
36 He shut the door, and locked it.
37 Locked it! His hands were shaking and his heart beat angrily.
38 He watched the stranger walk away—out to the sidewalk, out
to the street, disappearing in the darkness. Had the streetlights
gone out?
39 Behind the father the mother stood apologetic and defensive,
wringing her hands in a classic stance. “Wasn’t that sad! Wasn’t
that—sad! But we had no choice but to let him in, it was the only
decent thing to do.’’ The father pushed past her without comment.
In the living room he saw that the lights were flickering as if on the
brink of going out; the patterned wallpaper seemed drained of color;
a shadow lay upon it shaped like a bulbous cloud or growth. Even
the robust green of the carpeting looked faded. Or was it an optical
illusion? Everywhere the father looked, a pulse beat mute with rage.
“I wasn’t the one who opened the door to that man in the first place,”
the mother said, coming up behind the father and touching his arm.
Without seeming to know what he did the father violently jerked his
arm and thrust her away.
40 “Shut up. We’ll forget it,” he said.
41 “But—”
42 “We’ll forget it.”
43 The mother entered the kitchen walking slowly as if she’d been
struck a blow. In fact, a bruise the size of a pear would materialize
on her forearm by morning. When she reached out to steady herself
she misjudged the distance of the doorframe—or did the doorframe
recede an inch or two—and nearly lost her balance.
44 In the kitchen the lights were dim and an odor of sourish smoke,
subtle but unmistakable, made her nostrils pinch.

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45 She slammed open the oven door. Grabbed a pair of pot holders
with insulated linings. “I wasn’t the one, . . .” she cried, panting, “and
you know it.”  ❧

76  UNIT 1 • INSIDE THE NIGHTMARE

 Comprehension Check
Complete the following items after you finish your first read. Review and clarify
details with your group.

1. Why has the stranger come to visit the house?

2. What are the initial suspicions that the mother has about the stranger?

3. How does the stranger react when the father tells him, “The visit is over”?

4. How do the rooms of the house seem changed after the stranger’s visit?
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5.   Notebook  Choose four key events that best capture the plot of the story.
Write a summary of the story based on these four events.

RESEARCH
Research to Clarify  Choose at least one unfamiliar detail from the text. Briefly
research that detail. In what way does the information you learned shed light on an
aspect of the story?

Research to Explore  This story may spark your curiosity to learn more about the author
or the genre. Briefly research a topic that interests you. You may want to share what you
learn with your group.

Where Is Here?  77
 MAKING MEANING

Close Read the Text

With your group, revisit sections of the text you marked
during your first read. Annotate details that you notice.
What questions do you have? What can you conclude?
Where Is Here?

Cite textual evidence

Analyze the Text to support your answers.

Complete the activities.

1. Review and Clarify  With your group, reread paragraph 25. The stranger
GROUP DISCUSSION discovers the father has two children and asks, “Why?” Do you find that
Keep in mind that there is question unsettling? Explain.
no “correct” interpretation
of certain stories. In these 2. Present and Discuss  Now, work with your group to share other key
cases, the author deliberately passages from “Where Is Here?” What made you choose these particular
leaves some questions passages? Take turns presenting your passages. Discuss what details you
unanswered. As a reader, noticed, what questions you asked, and what conclusions you reached.
you should use clues in the
text and reasoning to come 3. Essential Question: What is the allure of fear?  What has this selection
up with your interpretations taught you about portrayals of fear in literature? Discuss with your group.
or answers to these
questions.
language development

Concept Vocabulary
gregarious   amiably   stoical

  WORD NETWORK Why These Words?  The three concept vocabulary words are related. With
your group, determine what the words have in common. How do these word
Add words related to fear
choices enhance the impact of the text?
from the text to your Word
Network.

Practice
Notebook  Confirm your understanding of each word by using it in a
sentence. Be sure to use context clues that suggest the word’s meaning. Copyright © SAVVAS Learning Company LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Word Study
 Standards Notebook  Adverbs of Manner An adverb is a word that modifies
Reading Literature a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Many adverbs, particularly those
Analyze how an author’s choices
concerning how to structure a describing the manner in which an action verb is performed, are formed by
text, order events within it, and adding the Anglo-Saxon suffix -ly to an adjective. Sometimes, the addition of
manipulate time (e.g., pacing, this suffix requires a change in the ending of the adjective. For instance, the
flashbacks) create such effects.
father in “Where Is Here?” states something amiably—or in an amiable manner.
Language
• Spell correctly. Reread paragraph 2 of the story. Mark the adverbs ending in -ly. Then, write
• Identify and correctly use patterns the adjectives from which they are formed.
of word changes that indicate
different meanings or parts of
speech.

78  UNIT 1 • INSIDE THE NIGHTMARE

 essential question: What is the allure of fear?

Analyze Craft and Structure

Literary Style  Through the use of gloomy settings, suffering characters,
supernatural events, and sudden plot twists, traditional Gothic writers such
as Edgar Allan Poe constructed stories of imagination, fear, and horror.
Today, modern Gothic writers still produce stories marked by fear and
dread. However, they modify elements to suit modern tastes and ideas.

LITERARY ELEMENT TRADITIONAL GOTHIC MODERN GOTHIC

Setting Remote, exotic settings, such as a Ordinary places, which may

gloomy mansion or castle make strange events more
unsettling

Characters Strange, eccentric people, often of Ordinary people, to whom readers

high social standing can easily relate

Plot Events Unusual occurrences involving Situations in which normal life is

violence or supernatural elements interrupted in disturbing ways

Endings Dramatic endings that fully resolve Ambiguous endings that leave
the dark, scary events questions unanswered

The effect of these shifts is to relocate the source of readers’ fear. Modern
Gothic literature does not allow readers a comfortable distance from dark
situations. Instead, the unusual events feel as if they could happen to us.

CITE TEXTUAL EVIDENCE

Practice to support your answers.

Work individually to identify details in “Where Is Here?” that relate to each literary element.
Then, discuss your choices with your group. Focus especially on your interpretations of the
ambiguous ending.

LITERARY ELEMENTS DETAILS FROM “WHERE IS HERE?”

Setting
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Characters

Events

Ending

Where Is Here?  79
 LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Author’s Style
Character Development  Conversation between characters in a story,
or dialogue, is one of the tools fiction writers use to make their characters
come alive on the page. Authors use dialogue to show readers what
characters are like, how they interact with others, how they feel about
WHERE IS HERE?
their situations, and what motivates them. Consider this example from
“Where Is Here?”:

Example of Dialogue: The stranger hesitated, then said firmly, “I think

I’ll just poke around outside for a while, if you don’t mind. That might be
sufficient.”

How It Develops Character: Paired with descriptive elements, such as the

idea that the stranger “hesitated” but then spoke “firmly,” the dialogue
reveals that the stranger is polite, well-spoken, and nervous.

Read It 
Work individually. Use this chart to analyze the mother in “Where Is Here?”
Explain what you learn about her character from each example of dialogue.
Then, compare your responses to those of your group.

DIALOGUE HOW IT DEVELOPS CHARACTER

“Isn’t that just like you!” the

mother said.
She went on worriedly, “He could be
anyone, after all. Any kind of thief, or
mentally disturbed person, or even
murderer. Ringing our doorbell like
that with no warning and you don’t
even know what he looks like!”

The mother sighed again,

involuntarily. “Poor man!” she
murmured. She was standing before
her table but no longer seeing it. In Copyright © SAVVAS Learning Company LLC. All Rights Reserved.
her hand were objects—forks, knives,
spoons—she could not have named.
She said, “We can’t bar the door
against him. That would be cruel.”
 Standards
“I wasn’t the one who opened the
Reading Literature
Analyze how complex characters door to that man in the first place,”
develop over the course of a text, the mother said, coming up behind
interact with other characters, and the father and touching his arm.
advance the plot or develop the
theme.
Writing
Write narratives to develop real or Write It 
imagined experiences or events using
Notebook  Write a paragraph in which you describe an interaction between
effective technique, well-chosen
details, and well-structured event two people. They may be fictional or real. Use dialogue to make the interaction
sequences. come alive.

80  UNIT 1 • INSIDE THE NIGHTMARE

 Effective expression

Writing to Sources
Every work of fiction is set in a particular time and place. In our imaginations,
though, the characters exist before and after the story.

Assignment
With your group, write a brief narrative that extends the scope of
“Where Is Here?” Make sure that your narrative stays true to the
characterizations, style, and tone of the story. Choose one of the
following topics:
  Write a prequel that reveals the stranger’s past. Who is he, and
which details of the story he tells to the family are true? What is the
stranger’s goal in visiting the house—does he simply want to see
his home again, or does he have another, more sinister reason for
wanting to return?

  Write a sequel in which the stranger returns to the house after some
time has passed. How has he changed, having seen his childhood
home earlier? How is he greeted by the family this time? Are the
mother and father more or less suspicious of him and his motives?

  Write a police report filed after the stranger leaves. Imagine that the
mother and father call the police to report the incident. What kinds
of questions are the police likely to ask about the stranger? What
kinds of answers are they likely to receive?

Project Plan  Use this chart to plan your narrative. In the middle column,   EVIDENCE LOG
plan the action. In the right-hand column, explain the goal of each
Before moving on to a
paragraph. Follow the chart to draft the narrative, and then present your new selection, go to your
narrative to the class. Have different group members read portions of the Evidence Log and record
narrative aloud. what you learned from
“Where Is Here?”

PARAGRAPH WHAT HAPPENS NARRATIVE GOAL

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Where Is Here?  81