Ambiguous Identity In 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?'

Where there is desire, there is hope, despair, and struggle. Joyce Carol Oates illustrates animatedly the asphyxiated struggle of desire in her short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” The story narrates the life of a young girl, named Connie, and her fated and enigmatic confrontation with a strange man. Feeling trapped in her own home with her own family, Connie, a self-conscious and rebellious teenager, tries to figure out a way to identify herself with the world around her. Her desire of escaping the reality fuels her struggle to enter adulthood. Through the physical form of Arnold Friend, who embodies both the hope and the despair in Connie’s struggle, the author metaphorically portrays a vigorous and psychological pressure that Connie has to endure. The story is scripted to allude to the danger of identifying oneself through sexuality in young girls. To better understanding this cryptic story, it is important to follow the psychological processes and conflict of Connie’s character, which help unveil the allegorical meaning of a young girl’s rite of passage through sex.

A door to the beginning of her outcome is all that divides Connie in, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” from Arnold Friend, the devilish predator. Symbolism takes a big part in this story that gives a deeper meaning to Connie’s choices that ultimately extent to giving herself to Arnold. The author, Joyce Carol Oates in the short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” represents Arnold Friend as the real world by being challenging and malicious, and Connie as the innocent world by being defenseless and naive.

In the short story “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?” both characters, Connie and Arnold, suffer from having dual identities. Connie is an individual who acts completely different outside her home, where she tries to portray an image of being sexually appealing. However, she is the complete opposite within her home, where she hides her sexuality and acts more like the adolescent she really is. Arnold is a mature man, something Connie is looking for in life and this intrigues her. Both characters have trouble with their dual identities, Connie’s leads her to being vulnerable to growing mature in an unpleasant manner by the force of Arnold, while Arnold’s unknown character proves to not be genuine, as Connie brings out his violent nature in her quest to be an independent adult.

“Where are you going, where have you been,” by Joyce Carol Oates, narrates the story of Connie, a young egotistical and independent, girl, who faces the consequences of adulthood. She lives in the pop culture society where she spends most of her days daydreaming about romance. Connie’s impudent actions throughout the story causes her to face the harsh realities of manipulation and emotional abuse.

In Joyce Carol Oates’s, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”, character development is a key element throughout the story. As the main character, Connie is a very dynamic character as the story progresses. In the beginning, Connie is a very vain and frivolous character, giving the reader a negative impression. But, as the story continues, the reader learns about Connie’s indifferent and neglectful family and how popular media raises her, rather than her own family. This leads the reader to understand Connie’s personality better, and how the lack of love from her family makes her like this. By the end, Connie performs a heroic act, in which she saves her family by offering herself

In the story of “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” the main character Connie, is always caught up in her appearance. She is nothing like her sister who is said to be the “perfect” child. The mother always says how she wishes she could be like her sister, and Connie wishes that she and her mother were dead. Connie’s friend’s father drives them to a shopping plaza but they always end up going to a restaurant and meet with boys. She then finds a boy named Eddie where she eats with him and goes to an alley with him, where Connie sees a man say to her, “Gonna get you,

Joyce Carol Oates finds inspiration for her short story based on Charles Howard Schmid Jr, a serial killer who made his debut in 1960’s. Charles Schmid was a charming, older, bad boy who targeted young girls in Tucson, Arizona. The similarity can be seen in Joyce’s short story when Arnold Friend targets stunning, 15-year-old Connie. Manipulation as well as other factors lead Connie to make an irrational decision, which jeopardizes her life. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” aspects of belonging to neglectful family with an overachieving sister, an envious mother, and careless father particularly contribute in Connie’s kidnapping,

“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” a short story written by Joyce Carol Oates, revolves around two main characters — Connie and Arnold Friend. Connie is a 15 year old girl, the protagonist in the story, who disrespects her family, and tries to act more mature than she actually is. Arnold Friend is the mysterious “villain” figure in the story that places Connie in an unpleasant situation that causes her to question the extent of her maturity. Throughout the short story Arnold pushes Connie’s comfort level, and tries to get her to be adventurous by getting in his car for a ride; however, Connie realizes that she cannot get out of this troubling situation on her own. Even though the characters’ overall personas are different, they both show arrogant tendencies, which serve as both of their greatest weaknesses in the short story.

Each author designs the characters to stand out in the culture around them. Connie, in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” is a vein, conceited, teenage girl who frequently fibs to her friends’ parents about what they have been doing and their whereabouts. Even though this probably seems pretty ideal to your definition of an unruly American teenager, Connie is much more

Immaturity is a term most commonly associated with adolescence. As a young adolescent, high school is the center of the world and it is difficult to see beyond that. Social status is vital to Connie, the lead character in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?,” written by Joyce Carol Oats. School is her chance to be who she does not get to be at home. Like Connie, many other adolescents try to act older than they really are. Teenagers are especially prone to this because their brains are not fully developed. As a fifteen year old, Connie is somewhere in between childhood and adulthood. This causes her to struggle with the concept of maturity. Due to her immaturity, Connie confuses her ability to command attention from boys with the desire to have them pursue her sexually. Unable to tell these two apart, Connie is rendered helpless at the hands of the potentially dangerous Arnold Friend.

Analyzing Connie, the female protagonist in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” reveals the character’s journey of rebellion, a search for identity, and the protagonist’s psychological problems. Connie appears to be a seemingly normal teenage female during the first few sentences: fifteen years old, physically beautiful, and appears semi-narcissistic. As one reads on, underlying psychological issues begin to unearth themselves. Connie has a habit of needing to know that she is beautiful; she is continuously “…craning her neck to glance into mirrors…checking other people’s faces to make sure hers was alright.” (Perrine’s 487) Being a somewhat typical habit of teenage girls, always wanting to look at themselves, whether it is out of admiration or self-judgment, Connie is constantly aware of herself and appearance, despite her mother’s nagging. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” this appears to be an indication of a present insecurity, a lack of a sense of who Connie is. In the first paragraph, Connie describes beauty as “being everything” (Perrine’s 487); we are able to interpret the fact that without her beauty, Connie would be nothing. She continuously attempts to establish her own identity; she tests the boundaries with her parents, develops a separate persona when she is away from home, and searches out approval from older boys at the drive-in. This lack of self eventually plays a part in leaving with Arnold Friend, at the end of the story.

There are some stories that capture the reader’s attention and which keep us riveted from the beginning to the ultimate line of the tale. ‘’Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’’, a short story written by Joyce Carol Oates in 1966, is one of those. Inspired by the mythic song of the phenomenal singer Bob Dylan entitled ‘’It’s all over Now, Baby Blue,’’ the author describes the main character as a 15-year-old girl named ‘’ Connie’’, who is obsessed by her beauty and does not get along with her family. The heroine of the story ‘’Connie,’’ engages in an adolescent rebellion against her entourage by acting to appear older. This increases her vulnerability through the story and at the end

In the story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?, the author, Joyce Carol Oates, digs into the reality of meeting new people and having it go the wrong way. As Connie, the main character, is growing into a beautiful teenager, she wants to explore the

Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” begins with the introduction of it’s main character, Connie, a fifteen year- old girl. Oates makes Connie’s vanity

In Joyce Carol Oates, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”, she paints the picture of a teenage girl whose mother is jealous of her, father is absent, and sister is twenty-four and lives at home. Connie is a fifteen year old girl who sneaks around with her friends, is a bit boy crazy and is very much a daydreaming teenager. The beginning of the story starts off rather innocent, then through a series of hints scattered throughout the story, takes a turn for the worse when Connie’s eyes are opened to a face of evil no girl should ever have to experience and no boy should ever become. Oates reveals how family relationships directly and indirectly affect the way teenagers act and how it impacts their search for self-identity.