Symbolism In Where Are You Going Where Have You Been?

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The Unknown In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, the story of a young girl involving her life style, family and friends. Connie is a typical girl that many of us could relate to, outgoing, friendly and a pretty but, she didn’t have the best relationship with her family. In the story a doorway is being used to represent Connie leaving behind the known to what could be her worst fear. Arnold Friend, comes to put in a valance Connie’s believes and the love for her family. At the beginning of the story Connie’s family is been introduced, her mother is very judgmental with her, always comparing Connie’s to her sister June, which is a lot older than her. In page 286, Oates stated, “Her mother had been pretty once too…but now her looks …show more content…

I see it as what could be Connie’s worst fear, “And Connie paid close attention herself, bathed in a glow of slow pulsed joy that seemed to sire mysteriously out of the music itself and lay languidly about the airless little room, breathed in and breathed out with each gentle rise and fall of her chest.” In this part I started to believe that Connie was having a dream, she started to describe what she was afraid of, and how her family wasn’t involved enough in her life to protect her from it. As well, her innocence demonstrated to what she believes is the evil, a monster cover up as a man. We can also appreciate the love that Connie has for her family, even though they didn’t have the best relationship she preferred to give herself to protect them. “She thought for the first time in her life that it was nothing that was hers, that belonged to her, but just a pounding, living thing inside this body that wasn’t really hers either.” meaning that she gives herself to “Arnold

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