Is Connie In Joyce Carol Oates Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have you been?” is a coming-of-age short story that depicts the virtually invisible barrier between adolescence and adulthood. Connie is a feisty fifteen-year-old girl that doesn’t intend to ride in the backseat for the duration of her younger years, unlike her older sister June, who her mother tends to favor throughout most of the story. Her mother causes most of the friction in the house between the two, mainly because “[e]verything about [Connie] had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home” (Oates 552). One critical attribute Oates gives Connie is her undeniable infatuation to sexual curiosity and her willingness to explore. Oates paints Connie identical to average
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Whether the man is her father or some basic, ordinary boy she met while she was out, her being whisked away by a man with a vehicle stands for her freedom. One of the first scenes in the film version of Oates’ story, Smooth Talk, is of Connie and her two friends hitching a ride from a stranger, but with Connie sitting in the bed of the truck. She is physically separated from her friends and is clearly a free-spirited girl. Later on, Connie and her father are conversing and she mentions that she can’t wait to be old enough to drive, literally showing her “means of escape from what she sees as the impossibly staid and dull existence of her suburban mom” (Dickinson 586-587). Connie feels as if she can’t wait to be able to have the independence she thinks is associated with driving herself instead of relying on someone to chauffeur her around town. In addition to her always riding in the passenger seat, every car ride in chronological order grows in intensity leading up to her interaction with Arnold. Each time she gets in the shotgun seat with a boy, the following events mature into a sight she hasn’t seen before. Every ride inches Connie closer and closer to the sexual freedom she imagines, but she could never dream of the doors Arnold opens for
Whether the man is her father or some basic, ordinary boy she met while she was out, her being whisked away by a man with a vehicle stands for her freedom. One of the first scenes in the film version of Oates’ story, Smooth Talk, is of Connie and her two friends hitching a ride from a stranger, but with Connie sitting in the bed of the truck. She is physically separated from her friends and is clearly a free-spirited girl. Later on, Connie and her father are conversing and she mentions that she can’t wait to be old enough to drive, literally showing her “means of escape from what she sees as the impossibly staid and dull existence of her suburban mom” (Dickinson 586-587). Connie feels as if she can’t wait to be able to have the independence she thinks is associated with driving herself instead of relying on someone to chauffeur her around town. In addition to her always riding in the passenger seat, every car ride in chronological order grows in intensity leading up to her interaction with Arnold. Each time she gets in the shotgun seat with a boy, the following events mature into a sight she hasn’t seen before. Every ride inches Connie closer and closer to the sexual freedom she imagines, but she could never dream of the doors Arnold opens for