Joyce C. Oates's "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" maturity verses immaturity. There is an old saying "there is a thin line between love and hate." Well, there is an even thinner line between maturity and immaturity. Immaturity verses maturity, a battle that has been fought since the beginning of time, and teens. In "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" Joyce C. Oates brings us to the battle-front of that war. Oates' portrayal of immaturity designs a house of cards, built on a foundation of conceded qualities, resentment, and misguided emotions that inevitably fails. Initially, Oates portrays Connie as an extremely conceded young woman. "She was fifteen and she had a quick nervous habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people's faces to make sure her own was all right." Oates set the tone for Connie's character by that statement alone. It was obvious that Connie was a pretty girl but what was more obvious is that Connie knew it. Connie's conceded quality was first revealed as she "gawked" at herself in a mirror to the point where it angered her mother. I imagine Connie's mother was probably talking to her and realized she was not paying attention to anything she said, fascinated by the reflection. Connie's relationship with her mother and sister made home life less than desirable. The resentment that exists between the three of them was unbearable. Her mother's resentment was made clear as she compares Connie's "room cleaning" abilities. "Why don't you keep your room clean like your sister?" from that statement I got the feeling June could do no wrong! June was just the opposite of Connie, plain, quiet, and wall flower type. Connie was constantly criticized and compared. Connie was made to feel inadequate by her mother's constant praise of her sister, thus leaving Connie to create an alternate personality. Therefore, unable to be her "inadequate" self at home, Connie's misguided emotions developed a second personality for any place other than home. Connie's second personality was nothing like "at home" Connie. This personality was giddy, flirtatious, and loved attention. This dual personality unveiled itself during her outing with friends, "Connie couldn't help but let her eyes wonder over the windshields and faces all around her, and her face gleaming with joy..." The more attention Connie got the more unlike June Connie would become.
In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, Oates wants to show a more intellectual and symbolic meaning in this short story. Oates has many symbolic archetypes throughout the short story along with an allegory. Oates uses these elements in her story by the selection of detail and word choice used. Oates does this because she wants to teach her audience a moral lesson.
First of all, Connie was not happy at home. The story says that her father "was away at work most of the time," and "didn't bother talking much to them," so Connie didn't have love from him and had to find male attention somewhere else. Connie found her happiness in escaping with her friend to the drive-in restaurant and daydreaming about boys. But the happiness she found in both of these things had nothing to do with actual events; it is based on a fantasy. When she was out at the drive-in with a boy, her face gleamed "with the joy that had nothing to do with Eddie or even this place; it might have been the music." When she daydreamed about boys, they all "fell back and dissolved into a single face that was not even a face, but an idea, a feeling mixed up with the urgent pounding of the music..."
As teenagers, we feel like we know all the complexities of life, and that the changes we experience during puberty are the ultimate variabilities of our lives, but the irony of this is that they still have so much more to learn. The story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” was written by Joyce Carol Oates, an influential, feminist author in the 1960s. The story was inspired by the real-life serial killer, Charles Schmid, also known as the “Pied Piper of Tucson”, who like the antagonist in the story, Arnold Friend, preyed on young girls as his victims (Sharma 5). An important element that influenced the story is that it was written in the 1960's, a period known as the Second-Wave of feminism, this was a time when women across America began to break free from the patriarchal system and assert their rights as citizens outside of the home (The 1960s-70s American Feminist Movement: Breaking Down Barriers
Each of us experiences transitions in our lives. Some of these changes are small, like moving from one school semester to the next. Other times these changes are major, like the transition between youth and adulthood. In Joyce Carol Oates' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", the author dramatizes a real life crime story to examine the decisive moment people face when at the crossroads between the illusions and innocence of youth and the uncertain future.
Connie is only concerned about her physical appearance. She can be described as being narcissistic because "she had a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirror or checking other people's faces to make sure her own was all right" (Oates 148). Connie wants her life to be different from everyone else's in her family. She thinks because she is prettier, she is entitled to much more. She wants to live the "perfect life" in which she finds the right boy, marries him, and lives happily ever after. This expectation is nothing less than impossible because she has not experienced love or anything like it. She has only been subjected to a fantasy world where everything is seemingly perfect. This is illustrated in the story when Connie is thinking about her previous encounters with boys: "Connie sat with her eyes closed in the sun, dreaming and dazed with the warmth about her as if this were a kind of love, the caresses of love, and her mind slipped over onto thoughts of the boy she had been with the night before and how nice he had been, how gentle, the way it was in movies and promised in songs" (151).
Connie has the need to be viewed as older and as more mature than she really is, all the while still displaying childlike behavior. She shows this childlike behavior by “craning her neck to glance in mirrors [and] checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was all right” (Oates 323). This shows that Connie is very insecure and needs other people’s approval. Although on one side she is very childish, on the other side she has a strong desire to be treated like an adult. This longing for adulthood is part of her coming of age, and is demonstrated by her going out to “bright-lit, fly-infested restaurant[s]” and meeting boys, staying out with those boys for three hours at a time, and lying to her parents about where she has been and who she has been with (Oates 325, 326). “Everything about her ha[s] two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home” (Oates 324). Even her physical movements represent her two-sided nature: “her walk that could be childlike and bobbing, or languid enough to make anyone think she was hearin...
However, as I continued to read the story I began to wonder if maybe Connie’s life was not in any way parallel to my own. I have a younger sister where she has an older sister, but that is where the similarities end. Her mother is always telling her that she should be more like June, her older sister. It seemed to me that June living with her parents at her age was unusual, but the fact that she seemed to enjoy this and was always doing things to h...
Connie's character plays a big role in what ultimately happens to her. Connie is a vain girl that thinks the way you look is everything. She plays the stereotypical part for girls in today's society. She thinks that as long as you are pretty and dress a certain way then you are everything. This comes across when Oates writes "Connie thought that her mother preferred her to June because she was prettier" (980). By flaunting her looks she could easily give a guy like Arnold Friend perverted ideas about her. It could make them see her as easy, which he did.
In the short story, Connie is a young, naïve, sassy, little girl who hates her mom and sister. According to Oates, “Connie wished her mother was dead” (324). Connie enjoys going out with her friends and going to a drive-in restaurant where the older kids hang out. Connie is innocent, but thinks about love and sex. She is desperate to appeal to boys and succeeds at it when a boy with shaggy black hair says to her, “Gonna get you, baby” (325). Her encounter with this boy will change her life forever, because he is the antagonist that influences Connie’s loss of innocence. On a Sunday afternoon, the boy, Arnold Friend, visits Connie and asks her to come for a ride, which she declines. But, Arnold Friend won’t take “no” for an answer and threatens to go in the house. For example when Connie says she will call the cops, Arnold says “Soon as you touch the phone I don’t need to keep my promise and come inside”
Her exposition is painstaking. She sets the scene by making the main character and protagonist, Connie, parallel to an average girl in the sixties. Oates' narrator introduces Connie using elements of description which puts emphasis on the vanity of the main character. Connie's mother is quickly introduced and is used by the narrator to reveal how much disdain her mother has for her vanity. The narrator uses the main character's mother to introduce her sister, June.
When Clarisse introduces herself, her individuality become obvious. While Guy and Mildred are caught up in following society’s unspoken rules Clarisse is unapologetically herself. While the only other female character is absorbed with the “parlor walls”, Clarisse is fascinated by the dew on the grass (7). She is eccentric, quirky, both idealistic and imaginative. She asks unusual questions such as, “may I make you angry again?” (21). She contrasts the other characters and her peer group. How many people would introduce themselves as “seventeen and crazy” (5)? In fact, many are convinced she is indeed crazy. The school makes her attend therapy sessions because they believe she is antisocial (20). She prefers wandering and watching people to driving fast cars and spending time at fun parks (7). She enjoys meaningful conversation not idle chatter. Clarisse’s unique and contrasting personality makes her a powerful character. These differences enable her to leave a lasting
During the teenage years they no longer want to be labeled the “child; matter of fact, they have a strong desire to rebel against the family norms and move quickly into adulthood. This transition and want for freedom can be a very powerful and frightening thing as there are evils in this world that cannot be explained. Most parents try to understand and give their teens certain freedoms, but at what expense? Joyce Oates gives us a chilly story about a teenager that wanted and craved this freedom of adulthood called “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”. This is a haunting story of a young girl by the name of Connie who gives us a glimpse of teenager transitioning from childhood with the need for freedom and the consequences of her actions. Connie is described as a very attractive girl who did not like her role in the family unit. She was the daughter who could not compare to her older sister and she felt her Mom showed favoritism towards her sister. Connie is your average teen who loves music, going out with friends, and she likes the attention she receives from boys. During this time, Connie is also growing into her sexuality and is obsessing with her looks as she wants and likes to be noticed by the opposite sex. Her sexual persona and need to be free will be what is fatal to her character’s life and well-being.
When approached by Arnold Friend at first, she was skeptical but was still charmed by him. As she began to feel uneasy, Connie could have used her intuition to realize that he was trouble. Once she had been engaged by Arnold, her life was over. The influences on Connie and her lack of instilled reasoning led to her down fall. Her family’s fragmented nature was echoed in her actions; consequently, she was unable to communicate with her parents, and she was never was able to learn anything of significance. She felt abandoned and rejected, because no one took the initiative to teach her how to make good decisions. Connie was unable to mature until she was faced with death and self sacrifice. In the end, her situation made it difficult for her to think and reason beyond the position she was in. By not being able apply insight, she fell into Arnold Friends lure. Misguidance by the parents strongly contributed to Connie’s
Connie’s clothes and infatuation with her own beauty symbolize her lack of maturity or knowing her true self, which in the end enables her to be manipulated by Arnold Friend. Connie was enamored with her own beauty; in the beginning of the story Oates states that Connie “knew
Oates drew the character of Connie very well - she possesses many of the qualities that teenaged children share. According to developmental psychologists, adolescents become highly critical of siblings, and peer relationships take precedence over familial ties during these years (Feldman, 455). These traits are apparent in Connie’s unflattering description of her older sister June, “…she was so plain and chunky…” (209) and the fact that Connie spends many nights out with friends, but refuses to attend an afternoon picnic with her family (211).