Summary Of Where Are You Going Where Have You Been

The 60's are not without reason called “Golden Sixties”. It was not only a time of relative peace and economic growth, but also a phase of rebellion in the youth, which questioned the way of life and beliefs of their parents. It was a time filled with music, miniskirts, sexual freedom and drugs. At that time, Joyce Carol Oates created her works, in which she talked about ordinary everyday affairs, giving them a specific dark climate fueled by the second bottom. A short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" was written in such climate. Oates addressed the problem of growing up in the 1960s. For many people this period seemed to be bliss, but for others it was a period full of doubts and dilemmas. The main character of this story,
Connie, also belonged to groups of people, who hid their inner fears from the world: lack of self-esteem, fear of intimacy and insufficient parental care.
When we meet Connie, she carelessly spends her time in front of the mirror, dressing up and admiring her beauty. Connie seems to be a full of life, self-confident and absorbed by her appearance 15-year-old girl. He has a happy, functional family: a working father, a mother who takes care of the house and an older sister. The girl also has friends with whom she spends time walking around the shopping center. It could seem that Connie does not need anything more for happiness. However, when we get to know Connie better, it turns out that her life is not as colorful as one would expect from a teenager living in the “Golden Sixties”. Hidden under the surface of self-admiration, is a girl uncertain of her worth, struggling with the "demons" of her problems. One of the problems is the negative relationship between a girl and her mother. Connie is almost non-stop criticized by her mother for her vanity, "Stop gawking at yourself. Who are you? You think you're so pretty?"(Oates 109). Such behavior may disturb the self-esteem of every young girl who is entering adulthood and discovers herself. It could also cause that this young girl tries to prove to herself that she is different than her mother says. For this reason, she constantly looks in the mirror, improves makeup, hair and carefully chooses clothes to make sure her mother is wrong. The girl does not know the reasons why her mother treats her like that, but she knows that “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 109). Under those circumstances a girl may assume that her mother's behavior may be a result of jealousy and disappointment due to the passing of time. An additional problem is the fact that Connie lives in the shadow of her older sister, June. The mother of the girls constantly compares Connie to June, depicting her in an even worse light: “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 109). She finds June to be perfect, despite the fact that she is nine years older than Connie and still lives with her parents. Nevertheless, in contrast to the 15-year-old sister, she is the fulfillment of parents' dreams, because she works, helps at home and most importantly – saves money. Connie is quite different from June, which is constantly emphasized by their mother who stigmatize her behavior. She seems not to notice the difference in age between the sisters, which may be the result of Connie's shortcomings. She does not try to find assets in Connie, but she constantly points out her mistakes and weaknesses. The girl is already so distressed by listening to critics at her address, that sometimes in her mind, she wishes her mother death and the growing conflict causes even greater dislike of the mother and doubts about herself.
Another fear of Connie is the fear of intimacy.
The 60s in which the girl lives are propagating freedom in intimacy. Fashion reveals more and more bodies in girls by exhibiting their charms. Young girls copy the style of fashion of the older girls, which makes it difficult to recognize their true age. Kissing and hugging couples seem to be seen everywhere on the streets. It is a "world" far from what the girl sees on a daily basis at home. Curiosity pushes her towards these novelties and boys, as if she wanted to check whether she is attractive or can please others. Contrary to the mother's opinion, she wants to show to "the whole world" that she is pretty, therefore she refines in detail her image of a mature woman. Her hairstyle, make-up, clothing and behavior effectively attract the attention of the opposite sex. Her behavior is in conflict with the teenager's concerns, but Connie is like two personalities in one person, “Everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home: her walk, which could be childlike and bobbing, or languid enough to make anyone think she was hearing music in her head; her mouth, which was pale and smirking most of the time, but bright and pink on these evenings out” (Oates 110). Interestingly, most of the time, her two sides seem to function in harmony and Connie smoothly changes from one to the other. However, because she is young, and she is learning a life other than in childhood, sometimes her efforts
are unskillful. With her behavior, she arouses confused feelings in others and gives them conflicting signals in their heads. In reality, the girl's behavior is only the facade behind which she hides when she feels safe, among her friends or a public place. Her imagination about adulthood, love and romance is based on the lyrics of the 60's, but it is different from the real nature of adulthood. Despite the fact that Connie tries to experiment in the intimate sphere, she does it on safe ground, not exceeding certain limits that make her anxious. Step by step she tries to get used to the changes taking place in the world around her as well as in herself. Unfortunately, Arnold Friend brutally snatches her from such a safe zone when he appears in front of her house one day. Confident at the beginning, Connie does not notice the lurking danger, thinking that it is still “childish” fun, innocent flirting. Unfortunately, under the influence of unambiguous proposals and statements from an uninvited guest, Connie sees the worst possible scenario in the eyes of the imagination, violating her intimate sphere. Friend addresses her directly with words, “I’m your lover. You don’t know what that is but you will” (Oates 118) and „I want you […] Seen you that night and thought, that's the one, yes sir. I never needed to look anymore.” (Oates 119). Hearing these words, the horrified girl realizes that her imprudent behavior has provoked the danger she was most afraid of. Under the influence of Arnold Friend's behavior, her adulthood facade disappeared deep in the frightened teenage heart and he became a real danger.
The last but not least concern of Connie is the lack of parental care.
Although she lives in one house with her parents, she is missing the attention and concern from her parents. The mother is focused only on the older daughter and does not notice the existence of Connie (unless she does something wrong) or her problems and doubts related to the period of puberty. It does not matter to her where and with whom her younger child spends time. As though she does not notice the danger that could wait for a teenager in such a relaxed atmosphere of the 1960s. A woman never offers her help with bringing the daughter and her friends to a shopping plaza. Connie is always dependent on the parents of her friends and satisfied with their kindness. In that case, she still faces a lack of interest in her person and in how she spends her time. Connie also cannot count too much on the care and interest of her father who “was away at work most of the time and when he came home he wanted supper and he read the newspaper at supper and after supper he went to bed” (Oates 109). The father, tired after all-day work only sporadically speaks to daughters and wife without considering it a necessity. Focuses on meeting the material needs of the family without bothering the emotional side of the life of daughters and wife. Connie’s sister is also not a person in whom the girl can look for support, especially since she is older than Connie and probably finds it difficult to find a common subject for
conversation. June only occasionally suggests to the sister some kind of entertainment or laconically ask about time spent away from home. The girl has no one to talk to about her dilemmas. She does not know who to turn to for help in the usual problems of adolescence. She lacks support from the parents and the only support he has is in the company of her friends, in front of who she pretends to be independent to cover her fears. In addition, parents also do not attach too much importance to nurturing the faith and related customs, which perhaps could be an alternative moral support for Connie. They do not care about her faith and the resulting in it sense of security based on "better tomorrow" and life in the community. On Sundays, when most families go to the church, Connie’s family go to her aunt for a barbecue. Because the girl does not feel like going there, they carelessly leave the teenager alone at home, without worrying about how she spends time or whether she will miss something. The first euphoria of Connie from the acquisition of partial independence ends when the threat in a form of Arnold Friend comes in and the girl realizes there is no one who can help her. Friend scares the girl with what he says and how he behaves. His behavior materializes all the worries of a teenage girl hidden deep beneath the cover of indifference and desire for independence. The little girl inside her “cried out, she cried for her mother, she felt her breath start jerking back and forth in her lungs as if it were something Arnold Friend was stabbing her with again and again with no tenderness” (Oates 121). The girl realizes that at this moment she is self-dependent and those who should be for her support are out of reach. Being at an impasse she realizes that her quest for independence was just a game. When the girl does not see the possibility of finding help, she realizes that she is still too young for independence and needs the support of her relatives.
In summary, it's safe to say that Connie, fighting her fears and on the way to finding independence, made many mistakes that many youths of her age often make. Her lack of self-confidence, the contentious criticism of her mother pushed her to behaviors unsuitable for her age. Such careless behavior resulted in the implementation of her biggest concerns about intimacy and lack of support from the family. She was brutally torn out of her safe zone into a brutal world of adults, which is very different from the imaginations of young people. Joyce Carol Oates in this short story, in a characteristic for her way, showed the truth about the problems of growing up, leaving the reader an open way for a free interpretation of her words.