Summary Of The Story 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been'

“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates is a well thought out short story full of different elements and literary devices hidden between words and sentences. A few elements that are prominent enough to focus on throughout the story are symbolism, setting, and themes.
To begin with, symbolism is used a few times throughout “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”. One symbol is Arnold Friend’s car which is “painted so bright it almost hurt her eyes to look at it”. It is symbolic of something not being right with Arnold himself, of hiding a secret. After viewing the car the narrator then says, “She looked at it for a while as if the words meant something to her that she did not yet know.” Connie seeing the car that’s

trying to pass off as hip, cool, and young, makes her feel like something is wrong with Arnold himself although she doesn’t know exactly what yet. After more conversation and observation, Arnold Friend is then described. There was that “…slippery friendly smile of his, that sleepy dreamy smile that all the boys used to get across ideas they didn't want to put into words. She recognized all this and also the singsong way he talked, slightly mocking, kidding, but serious and a little melancholy, and she recognized the way he tapped one fist against the other in homage to the perpetual music behind him. But all these things did not come together.” She starts getting nervous because of all the signs that shows there is something wrong with this man that she knew nothing about. All she had to go off were his car and his character which were both hiding something underneath it.
The setting in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Oates is extremely important. The story was written in the 1960’s, during the Women’s Liberation Movement. Dramatic changes were happening for women at this time and Oates strongly shows this in several ways. Women were declaring themselves independent and expressing and claiming their sexuality in ways they had never been able to before. Because of the rise in women’s independence and rise of women’s sexuality, that may be the reason of Connie’s desperation of changing with the times. She was desperate to fit in and move forward with her life as was the rest of America’s women.
One major literary device used in this story is the use of themes. There are several different themes in this short story including Connie searching for sexuality and independence. Throughout the short story, Connie is constantly preoccupied about her looks. “She was fifteen and she had a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people's faces to make sure her own was all right.”. Connie and her friends would go to the diner where the older kids would hang out quite often. The young fifteen year old would be so focused on boys and sexuality that she would leave her friend alone to hang out with a boy Eddie she barely knew. “She spent three hours with him, at the restaurant where they ate hamburgers and drank Cokes in wax cups that were always sweating, and then down an alley a mile or so away, and when he left her off at five to eleven only the movie house was still open at the plaza.” The time spent in so far down the alley implies that they were doing more than talking.
In addition to themes, Connie’s journey to find independence is shown in by her reluctance to be like her sister which her mother wants so badly of her.

Connie constantly had to listen to her mother complain about how her sister was one way and Connie was another; “June did this, June did that, she saved money and helped clean the house and cooked and Connie couldn't do a thing, her mind was all filled with trashy daydreams.” By not conforming to her mother’s wishes this shows a certain level of independence achieved. Connie and her friends would often be dropped off at the mall by her friend’s father and they would be by themselves until eleven at night. Sometimes they would watch movies or walk through the stores which was what they would say they were doing. Sometimes they would walk across the street to the diner that was earlier mentioned. At the end of the night the father wouldn’t even ask what they had done, not questioning their actions. This leads the young adults to believe they’re mature and not think about the consequences of their actions by going to the diner with the older kids. They didn’t think about their actions of hanging out at “…the maze of parked and cruising cars to the brightlit, fly-infested restaurant, their faces pleased and expectant as if they were entering a sacred building that loomed up out of the night to give them what haven and blessing they yearned for.” They didn’t care if it was a low end restaurant, they just wanted to hang out with the grownups to act as if they were mature as well. The final act of independence Connie shows was at the end of the story when Connie has to make the choice of going with Arnold Friend or risk her family being hurt by him. In the end, in her dazed confusion of being pressured, she decides to go with Friend. “She put out her hand against the screen. She watched herself push the door slowly open as if she were back safe somewhere in the other doorway,” during this moment of her walking out she

looks out to behind Friend to where “sunlit reaches of the land behind him and on all sides of him—so much land that Connie had never seen before and did not recognize except to know that she was going to it.”. Although she was dazed and scared and confused, she seems to almost be excited to be venturing out to a world unknown. She’s finally making an independent decision that will change her life.
The literary elements of symbolism, setting, and themes are important to this story because it sets the scene, reveals hidden messages, and explains the reasoning of certain events. Setting and theme work hand in hand with each other. Because of the time the story was written and what women were trying to go through at the time, that is where the theme comes into play. Because of the time frame, that’s the reason Connie was so focused on sexuality and independence, which is how those two ended up becoming the themes. In the end, each literary element mentioned and not mentioned played a big role in creating the short story that it is.