Comparing The Short Stories 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?'

The characters in short stories, ‘Where are you going, Where have you been?’ by Joyce Carol Oates and ‘The man who was almost a man’ by Richard Wright, have lot of similarities between them even though the stories themselves take place in different setting in different time periods, but using symbolism, context clues, and our own experiences we as students of literature can better understand both characters and get an insight into their inner workings beyond what the text tells us on the surface.
In the story ‘Where are you going, Where have you been?’ by Joyce we can get an insight into Connie's relationship with her mom using the first description we see about Connie's mother and she “noticed everything and knew everything”(4). Here we

Is not to be overlooked. We see that Dave “struck out across the fields” and this sounds like he’s walking through the fields without any sort of caution or care. He’s hastily moving about the fields that contain nothing in them but crops and dirt. These fields are a representation of his life as he spends all day working in them. Here we can use the fields to represent how he feels about his place in life. He’s stuck in a place that doesn’t have anything for him and he sees nothing for himself in the fields. The last bit really ties together how the main protagonist, Dave, feels about his situation. He is looking “homeward” in a sense rather than towards a specific location. More of an idea than an actual place but somewhere where he can feel at home. All the while looking through a paling light. In this context we can assume that paling means dimming and it’s as if his window of opportunity is closing. He's growing frustrated as he gets older and sees nothing change. The idea of a place where he feels at home is slowly vanishing and he is now feeling rushed to find that sense of home or to belong somewhere much like Connie. Both of these characters are severely unhappy with their current situation and

Hair spray? You don't see your sister using that junk”. This the first things she says to connie and she’s scorning connie and her attempt to be herself. She doesn't say it looks nice or compliments her in any way but rather says that it ”stinks”. Stinks carries a lot of negative connotation. Usually trash stinks, or even animals but hair spray doesn’t bring up the word stink in my mind, and in all reality I like the smell of hairspray and I'm sure other people do as well. We can sense that because she thinks it stinks she probably doesn’t use it herself again revealing the gap at understanding between the two. Right after that she again compares her to her sister June and she calls the hairspray junk. Junk as in useless, rubbish, a waste and it’s interesting she uses this word choice because it further explains what she thinks of physical beauty. She doesn’t think focusing your attention on your physical appearance is a worthwhile endeavor and thinks it’s useless. Connie's relationship with her mom is artificial at best and there really is no understanding between the two. We can see a parallel also between Dave’s relationship with his own