Summary Of Where Are You Going Where Have You Been

Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is about a 15 year old girl named Connie. Connie is the dark blond haired girl who catches all the attention and knows she looks good. The story is somewhat journalistic in the sense that there are few extreme stylistic flourishes or complicated sentence structures. Oates's spare style allows the images in the story to stand out in realistic coherence, in a way that makes one feel they have some unexplainable importance. “There’s your sister in a blue dress, huh? And high heels, the poor b***h - nothing like you sweetheart! And your mother’s helping some fat woman with corn, they’re cleaning corn - husking the corn -” (98) Common items such as Arnold's sunglasses take on a whole new emotional drive. The title also touches on Connie's Predicament as she challenges Arnold Friend, who wants to take her away from everything familiar off to an unknown future: "The place
“Connie felt a wave of dizziness rise in her at this sight...” (86) The tone gets increasingly serious as the threat of violence spirals in Connie's meeting with Arnold Friend. The story takes place of 1960s - the standpoint of a teenager: drive-in restaurants, movie theaters, shopping malls, "ranch"-style homes. The ending is essentially tragic, Connie's submission to Arnold Friend standing for the ways women are oppressed in a patriarchal society. “Arnold Friend let go of the post tentatively and opened his arms for her..” (159). Connie's actions at the end of the story is an "unexpected gesture of heroism," as she makes the decision to sacrifice herself so that her family would remain unharmed. “She watched herself push the door slowly open as if she were safe back somewhere in the other doorway, watching this body and this head of long hair moving out into the sunlight where Arnold Friend waited.”