Analysis Of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

Connie, the main character in Joyce Carol Oates' "Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been" is a fifteen-year-old girl, just realizing her beauty. It is summer vacation, and she is spending her time either with boys or daydreaming about them. Connie is a typical teenage girl with a desperate need for independence. She does not get along with her mother, and her father is seldom around. He works a great deal of the time, and when he comes home, he likes to eat and go to bed. Connie has a girlfriend who she enjoys going to the mall with. While at the mall, the girls like to meet boys and watch movies. It is a place where the girls can express themselves in a way different from the ways in which they portray themselves at home. The story's

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.

Connie is like the average American girl who has just hit adolescence. She can't seem to walk past a mirror without examining herself in it first, she is at war with her mother, and thinks about boys round-the-clock. It is a hot summer in the sixties and many teens have little to do so they spend their time out and about at the local shops. The high temperatures send Connie and her friends to do the same. One night while in the street a random man makes a comment towards Connie and she thinks nothing of it. Days later, while alone in her family home the same man shows up at her door. He asks her to join him but she refuses. After a few brash threats she complies and joins the strange man for a ride in his gold car. In the short story, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by author Joyce Carol Oates the protagonist Connie is conflicted by her desires, adolescent females from all decades can relate to the desires synonymous with adulthood. In the present day many adolescence fall victim when experiencing adolescent desires for attention, some excitement, and the ideas of freedom.

Many people live life in a “fantasy world” and sometimes when they dream, that fantasy could end up like it is really happening. In the short story,Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been by Joyce Carol Oates there is a likely chance that Connie’s encounter was a dream. Through further analysis it is revealed that Joyce Carol Oates’ short story is merely a dream in which Connie’s odd wish is fulfilled, all of which is achieved through setting, characterization, and plot.

The short story “Where are you going, Where have you been” by Joyce Carol Oates was published in 1966. The story was purposely written for Bob Dylan, who’s song “It’s all over now, Baby Blue” had a great influence on the story. story Oates gives us many descriptions of the characters to give the reader a better understanding of what the character is feeling, thinking, and shows their personalities through their actions. The story also includes many signs and a great deal of symbolism. In this analysis, I will explore is Arnold friend representing an evil entity or is he simply genuinely trying to be Connie’s friend. A character by the name of Arnold Friend could potentially be a symbol of a demonic force, or even the devil.

life she have been living with her parents and want to live a fulfilling life in her kingdom or

A number of the stories, graphic memoirs and poems we discussed in class have introduced us to women who have been trapped in some way in their lives. Henrik Ibsen’s A Dolls House (1879) and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892) both demonstrate women being trapped by men in a patriarchal society in the nineteenth century. However, Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where are you going, where have you been?”(1974), Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl” (1978) and Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis (2005) are about social norms and girls being sexualized at a young age in the 20th century.

The suspenseful short story has a theory where Connie could of been dreaming the whole thing. Through “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”, A short story Joyce Carol Oates writes how it could be a suspenseful dream. In the short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” Joyce Carol Oates shows that it is all a dream by use the plot, imagery , and setting throughout the story. Work on spacing by commas

“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.

The teenage rebellion, which most of people experience during the puberty, always worsens the relationship between parents and children. Written by Joyce Carol Oates, the short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” describes the condition and consequence of a family whose child is rebellious. Through the characterization, plot, and dialogue, Oates successfully exhibits the thesis that Connie’s bad ending is the consequence of her parents’ attitude and actions.

The short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” By Joyce Carol Oates it show: Visions of America, Sexuality, and Youth. In Visions of America it gives us a look on how some family’s live in America. People who might not be from the United States they might see the vision of a happy family with both parents and their children eating dinner at the dinner tables. However that is not how everyone who lives in America lives like. Or that if a person moves to the United States they can have their American dream of having nothing in life to tomorrow being the richest person. But it is not as easy as saying as it happening, because in fact most people’s American dream might never start. American’s families are not as perfect as what people from around the world might see it. There is problem in every family from big to small, but everyone deals with it. I believe that Connie really shows what happens back doors in an American family. Joyce Carol Oates really buts Connie as this character that many people do not see who are not from the United States, that a daughter talks and doesn’t like her mother or doesn’t have a good relationship with her father. “Connie wished her mother was dead and she herself was dead and it was all over. “She makes me want to throw up sometimes,” she complained to her friends. She had a high, breathless, amused voice that made everything she said sound a little forced, whether it was sincere or not.”(pg. 506) Or

Joyce Oats short story, “ Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” is a great read on many different levels. Oats displays the effects of youthfulness in a teenage girl named Connie. The story is a gripping story that unveils the weakness of a teenage girl. Connie could hardly validate fantasy from reality. She delights herself as a beautiful girl who understands the basic mores of life. Her need for boys attention makes her pride herself as a shinning example of beauty. Connie finds desire in her sexuality, listening to music and daydreaming her ideas into fantasies. Connie’s major dilemma in the story is Arnold Friend, which we will explore later. The importance’s of the music in this short story is pronounce, because I feel that music sets the mood for important events, that Connie deals with. The premise that flows through this story is that music is connected to the real world and weaves through Connie 's dream world.

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.