Where Are You Going, Where Ha Essay, Research Paper

The story, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? was written by Joyce Carol Oates. The story is about a typical teenage girl named Connie who is obsessed with trying to act and appear to be a mature woman. Connie s age and her immaturity contribute to her tragic final end. She is a dreamer and is caught up in fairy tale ideas of romance. Her distorted mind cannot differ between reality and fantasy. She confuses conceitedness with true confidence and finds herself in a situation that she is not ready to handle.

Connie has trouble distinguishing between reality and fantasy. This is shown while she is laying out on that sunny Sunday when she meets her evil destiny, Arnold Friend. She was sitting in the sun dreaming about love and boys. She recalls to herself how sweet and gentle love can be and how it is just like the songs and movies that she has seen. Reality sets in when she opens her eyes and does not even remember where she is. Throughout the story Connie tends to get lost in daydreams about the boys and the idea of romance. (p. 283) Connie couldn t do a thing, her mind was all filled with trashy daydreams. The fantasies that she dreamed about where nothing like the nightmare that she would soon live out in reality.

Connie has a false sense of confidence that was created by her conceited and self-centered manners. (p.283) She knew she was pretty and that was everything. Connie s habit of looking into mirrors and checking other people s faces to get a reaction of her own is one example of her arrogance. She thinks that her wants and needs are more important than others are. She leaves her best friend at the hamburger restaurant alone so that she can go off with a boy.

Later in the story, when Arnold Friend arrives at her house uninvited, while she was alone, she was not alarmed with fear. Instead Connie is worried about how bad her appearance is. Though she id her best to act older, her true age shines through when she realizes that she is in danger. (p. 292) She cried out, she cried out for her mother, she felt her breath start to jerk back and forth in her lungs as if it were something Arnold Friend was stabbing her with. Lastly, Connie proves her immaturity when she is eventually persuaded into leaving with Arnold Friend.

In the story, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? the main character Connie gets caught up in trying to grow up too fast. Her tragic end is blamed on her immaturity and her inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality. Dreams of romance are distorted and made to seem perfect in her fantasies. Her self-admiring attitude is replaced by fear when she learns that reality is not as frivolous as she had thought.