Summary Of 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?'

“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is the suspenseful tale of fifteen year old Connie and her situation with a strange man. Connie, who usually enjoys the attention of the older boys, sees the man randomly when she is on a date. Some time later, the man shows up to Connie’s house and asks her if she wants to go for a ride with him and his friend. The man introduces himself as Arnold Friend, claiming to be eighteen years old. Connie soon begins to realize the two men look much older than eighteen, and she becomes frightened. Arnold begins revealing an uncomfortable amount of information he knows about Connie, which surprises her. When Connie threatens to call the police, Arnold assures her that he will not come in the house unless she picks up the phone. Connie picks up the phone at one point, but puts it back after she cries into it and Arnold instructs her to be a “good girl.” A feeling of emptiness takes over Connie after she finishes sobbing, and she finds herself eventually being lured out of her house by Arnold. The moral and intellectual critical approach is used to discover the meaning of works of literature to find out if they are true and significant. The reader is the one who decides if a
In hopes to seem more mature, Connie dressed, walked, and talked like she was older than fifteen. To go along with her I’m-so-grown-up attitude, she also got the older boys attention. Connie often daydreamed about the boys she met, however “all the boys fell back and dissolved into a single face that was not even a face but an idea, a feeling, mixed up with the urgent insistent pounding of the music and the humid night air of July.” Connie did not realize how young and immature she was until Arnold showed up at her house and wanted to take her away. It was only then that she came to notice where her rebellious actions made her end