Feminist Allegory InWhere Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

At home, she kept to herself. She was very ostracized by her mother, for her mother didn’t like the way Connie acted. She was considered a child—a lazy child stuck in her own thoughts. In Connie’s eyes, her mother never had anything good to say about Connie because her June was always doing something right. Whether it’d be paying bills or cleaning up around the house, June was the praised child. By being put down so much it pushed Connie to isolation, which led her to think more of herself and do nothing but daydream. I think playing the role of the child didn’t bother Connie so much because she was the youngest of everyone; however, what seems to bother her more is how her mother views her. What we later see is that when Connie is being threatened by Arnold, she screams for her mother over the undialed phone which shows how terrified Connie is faced with a real-life

Oates emphases that Connie is in her adolescence, who is trying to transition into thinking like an adult. Connie, who is obsessed with her appearance, is constantly “craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was all right”(Oates 1). She is starting to

In the beginning of the story, the way Oates describes Connie’s behaviors help construct Connie’s state of mind as a doubtful and vulnerable young girl. The author perfectly capture the essences of Connie’s character by illustrates how Connie has, “a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was all right,”

In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates we the readers see the conflict of a teenage, conceited, superficial girl when faced with a situation that brings her to an entire new understanding of life. We see Connie in the beginning without a care in the world other than looking good for the next guy she will hook up with. Oates explains, “She was fifteen and she had a quick, nervous giggling habit or craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was all right” (Oates Web). I really enjoy Oates’s expression of how strong Connie’s arrogance is, especially because this totally changes by the end of the story. By the end of the story Connie is way less selfish and more aware

Connie does not want to be the nice and innocent pretty girl. She wants to be known for being very sexual. In the story she makes fun of her sister June because she is very modest and not sexual and causes conflict with their family. Also June is overweight twenty-four years old and still living at home. But she also does chores and does them without complaining to her parents. While Connie is a way from home she has two totally different ways of acting. Be that as it may, Arnold friend ‘s landing in her home drives her two sides to consolidate fiercely. As it were, Connie is not completely sexual until Arnold's interruption into her home until then; her sexuality was something outside of her "actual" self, the self that she permitted her family to see. Arnold also has a friend named Ellie. While Arnold drives up to Connie’s house Ellie stays in the car and she listens to music while Arnold speaks to Connie. Also Connie’s mother shows a large amount of frustration towards her and the way she acts and dresses. Connie and her mother fight constantly. But towards the end of the story when Connie is attacked my Arnold she cries out to her

In conclusion, the search for independence caused the world to change in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. With many things going on with drugs, alcohol, and sex, it is easy to see why Joyce Carol Oates chose this theme for Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Connie fell in to the trap of the sexual desires that she wanted for herself, only with it ending badly. Her maturation along with sexual radicalism and capitalism sexually repressed the masses in the interests of its life negating and exploitative goals. With all of this

The beginning of the short story enlightens the reader into the relationship that Connie has with her mother. Connie’s mother does not agree with her admiration for herself. This is due to Connie’s mother’s own insecurities. Oates writes, “Her mother had been pretty once too, if you could believe those old snapshots in the album, but now her looks were gone and that was why she was always after Connie” (Oates 3043). Connie was aware that her mother was jealous of the way she looked and envied her young adolescence. Her mother was nagging her daily and constantly comparing her to her sister. The constant comparison and nagging left Connie to deal with internally judging herself. Oates expresses Connie’s strong unhappiness with her mother by stating “…but around his bent head Connie’s mother kept picking at her until Connie wished her mother was dead and she herself was dead and it was all over” (3043). Connie’s frustration with her mother lies deep within her internal judgments. She repeatedly obsesses over her mother’s words and desires attention from older males. Even though she does not feel as if she fits in with her sister June, there are some characteristics that she likes about her sister. One of these characteristics is that June is older. Since June is older, Connie is allowed to go out when her sister does which allows her to embrace her rebellious adolescence. She wishes she was older and battles with her internal misconception of her age. In the story, Connie is at an age where she is experimenting with her surroundings. Young girls are regularly comparing themselves to their friends and their elders. The obsession of comparison leaves Connie continuously striving to be better and to increase her attractiveness. Her misconceptions suggest to her that she needs to be more sexual. Her varying internal conflicts leave her with a void that she tries to fill otherwise.

Joyce Carol Oates plays upon the stereotypic female gender role through her adolescent character, Connie, in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” The story was written at a significant time in America’s history. It was a season when social and moral conventions were challenged. This period experienced the rise of women struggling for sexual freedom and gender equality in a patriarchal society. Oates portrays the protagonist, Connie, as naive, unaware and inexperienced; she has yet to find her identity and fully understand her place as a women in the world. She believes she has learned to play the game of the sexes and that she has the upper hand. This belief, though, is quickly subverted when she is confronted by Arnold Friend, a man who works to reinforce patriarchal standards by punishing Connie for acting outside stereotypic female role boundaries, she then realizes as a women, she has very little power.

In the beginning, Connie’s character is one of innocence, self-absorption, and shallowness. Oates describes Connie as a fifteen-year-old girl who has “a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors and check other people’s faces to make sure her own was all right” (Oates 157). In this description, Connie’s dynamic character acts shallow and is self-absorbed. She places her values on her physical appearance and in her friends’ acceptance. Connie “knew she was pretty and that was everything” to her (158). Connie bases her self -worth on her looks and in the values of her friends’ perception of her.

In the story Oates mentions about Connie that “everything about her has two sides to it” (1), by this Oates means the way Connie would act at home was completely different from the way she would act out in public and with her friends. In Connie’s home setting Connie was a very self-centered character. She believed “she was pretty and that was everything.” (1), Connie may be extremely insecure about herself, considering that she believes her looks are all she has to offer. Connie and her mother’s relationship was not the best. Her mother would continuously point out things Connie would do wrong and would compare Connie to her sister, June. In one

The characterizations of Connie’s family members have great effects on Connie. And Connie’s mother’s characterization is the main motivator for Connie’s rebellion. She always compares Connie with June, who is the “ideal daughter” in her eyes, and blames Connie for some little things, such as improper dressing and not having a tidy room. Oates suggests that the reason for Connie’s mother prohibiting Connie to dress up like an adult is that “ Her mother had been pretty once too” (Oates 1), but now “her looks were gone and that was why she always after Connie” (Oates 1). Therefore, she is jealous about Connie’s beauty and feels uncomfortable when seeing Connie wear beautiful outfits. Meanwhile, she likes June so much because June is obedient and plain, which makes her feel that she is dominant in the relationship. In the short story, Connie’s father is not given much description by the author, but

The characterizations of Connie’s family members have great effects on Connie. And onnie’s mother’s characterization is the main motivator for Connie’s rebellion. She always compares Connie with June, who is the “ideal daughter” in her eyes, and blames Connie for some little things, such as improper dressing and not having a tidy room. Oates suggests that the reason for Connie’s mother prohibiting Connie to dress up like an adult is that “ Her mother had been pretty once too” (Oates 1), but now “her looks were gone and that was why she always after Connie” (Oates 1). Therefore, she is jealous about Connie’s beauty and feels uncomfortable when seeing Connie wear beautiful outfits. Meanwhile, she likes June so much because June is obedient and plain, which makes her feel that she is dominant in the relationship. In the short story, Connie’s father is not given much description by the author, but his characterization has an effect on Connie as well. The irresponsible father spends little time with family and seldom has conversations to his daughters. When hearing his wife’s complain about Connie, he just bends his head with saying nothing, which makes Connie feels ignored and lonely. Urbanski states that “The father, who spent most of his time at work, is weak” (Urbanski 200) to reveals the father is not an active figure in his daughter’s life. Therefore, lacking of the company and communication of family members, Connie becomes upset. In addition, Connie’s sister June, who has the opposite characterization, is also one of the reasons for Connie’s rebellion. In Connie’s eyes, June is a

In the story, “Where are you Going, Where Have you Been?” the author, Joyce Carol Oates, uses literary devices to convey a message about the loss of innocence. To be more specific, Oates’s characterization of the protagonist, Connie, specifically shows the actions leading to her innocence being taken from her. The literary device of characterization gives a clear picture Oates thoughts at the time she wrote the story, expressing concern for young girls who are at risk of having their innocence taken from them.

In her sorrow for the behavior of her daughter Connie, the mother often expresses a bit more appreciation and consideration for the older sister June. She declares somewhere in the story, ‘’Why don’t you keep your room clean like your sister? How’ve you got your hair fixed-what the hell stinks? Hair spray? You don’t see your sister using that junk’’ (Henderson ). It is well-known that anything in excess is harmful, but Connie does not seem to have been aware of this. Connie’s behavior, far away from doing good to her, exposes her to her sexual predator as an easy prey.

The author puts Connie out to be a bad kid but is she really? Yeah, Connie is not the most respectful or well-behaved kid but who is at the age of fifteen. The author shares some instances where Connie does not make the best decisions. The author shares, “She spent three hours with him, at the restaurant where they ate hamburgers and drank cokes…and then down an alley a mile or so away” (Oate’s. 109). The quote shows how Connie put herself in situations that a girl her age should have never been in. The author gives Connie the identity of not being confident in herself when she says, “Connie would raise her eyebrows at these familiar complaints and look right through her mother, into a shadowy vision of herself as she was right at that moment: she knew she was pretty and that was everything.”