Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? By Joyce Carol Oates

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

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,”

As someone who was very pretty in her own youth, but then had to grow up, she knew that beauty fades and it is not what is truly important in life. It seems as though the mother wants Connie to understand that as well, but does not know how to convey her message and so it comes out in other ways. “ "Stop gawking at yourself. Who are you? You think you're so pretty?"[...] "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."” (Oates) She always compared Connie to her sister, June.

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

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.

Connie focuses on herself and how she looks, rags on her sister and her appearance, and is in feuds with her family more often than not over petty things. Like most young teenagers Connie’s looks are very important, “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.” (233). Connie constantly worrying about looks indicates that she cares about others opinions and what others to find looks appealing at all times. Many young girls believe they need to have the best looks in order to be accepted by their mothers and family and therefore Connie’s obsession over looks could have to do with the fact she feels if she is prettier than her sister, her mom may love her more and give her more attention. Connie focuses on her sister’s negatives to help herself be more appealing, “She [June] was a secretary in the same high school Connie attended, and if that wasn’t bad enough—with her in the same building—she was so plain and chunky and steady that Connie had to hear her praised all the time by her mother and her mother’s sister.” (233). Connie is clearly jealous of her older sister’s attention and therefore attacks her looks. Connie’s obsession with her looks and ragging on her sister tells us that she acts like a normal teenager at home, and this normality may help Connie in convincing that when she goes out she really does only do the normal teenager things they think she is

Connie worries about her looks more than anything else, its kind of like an obsession. She enjoys looking at herself in the mirror feeling a sense of satisfaction knowing she is pretty. “Her name was Connie. She was

In the same vein, narcissism is another trait that characterizes Connie’s attitude. She obviously has the sophisticated mind-set of a young lady that she pretends to be although she is only an adolescent. It is easy to detect through the story that the protagonist Connie spends all her time acting and protecting her ego. So many passages illustrate that point of view. Connie is a two faced adolescent. She presents to the exterior world the image of a modest and well behaved girl whereas she has in her the hidden quality of sexual flirtation. To describe Connie, Oates mentions, ‘’Connie had long dark hair that drew anyone’s eye to it, and she wore part of it pulled up on her head and puffed out and the rest of it she left fall down her back. She wore a pull-over jersey blouse that looked one way when she was at home and another way when she was away from home’’

At the beginning of the story, Connie displays so much self-confidence and independence that she appears shallow. Connie “knew she was pretty” and thought that “that was everything;” she is only concerned with having the best appearance (323). In other words, Connie does not possess any true values, and she does not view anything else as containing much of any real importance. Not only does she portray shallow characteristics but she also frequently disobeys her parents, showing how her will of taking on a more lenient personality affects her

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.”

A short story by Joyce Carol Oates called “Where are you going, where have you been?” reflects the writer’s point of view of the way society looked to women in the sixties. The story takes place in the 1960’s when almost everything reached a turning point at that time. It talks about a teenager who wanted boys’ attention, but she ended up leaving her family house with a stranger. Connie represented most teenage girls, and their destiny at that time. The story can be looked at from many different points of view such as feminist, social, psychological and historical (Purdue (OWL)). The time this story had taken place is what makes it important. The story was written when the feminist movement was established, and the American society

and she struggled to fit in the society like other fellow citizens. Marge Piercy used the character of Connie in her book and said she was an “Invisible person” who was trying to express her feelings but no one is there to listen to her. Secondly, Connie was not given any

The excerpts from their discussion above indicate how firm she is with her statements about art and who can decide an artwork is considered art. In fact, her classmates was naming her as one of the right people in a sarcastic manner as she kept dominating the class discussion. Aside of her activeness in the classroom, she was also keenly giving her opinions for her best friends Connie, Joan, and Giselle. All of them came from different social background and they have different judgments on every topics and occasions. For instance, she questioned why Connie needs a contraception kit when she did not even have a boyfriend even though that will hurt Connie whose self-esteem is low when it comes to find her boyfriend and eventually a husband.

Bethany just considered a self a disgrace and a piece of trash. Carla explained, “Bethany is beautiful and she has the charm, personality, and is perfectly pretty” (736). Of course, Bethany places a stereotype on beautiful by saying, “it is the real deal. Carla gets discounts on makeup for no reason. Parents treat beautiful children better and they even statistically get paid more. Beautiful people can have sex any time, any place” (736). Carla, confused, did not understand why Bethany wanted to be just like her. Bethany hated Carla most of the time because of her beauty. This leads Carla to go on a rant about beauty and why it is so difficult to live and be beautiful simultaneously.