Short Story 'Where Are You Going Where Have You Been'

In the short story Where Are you Going Where Have You been,the main character Connie is very promiscuous and struggles with finding herself. Joyce Carol Oates takes the reader on a journey of teen rebellion turned tragic and uses Connie to show that becoming independent is not easy.
Throughout the story you can interpret that Connie felt vulnerable and neglected by her family and friends. Her mother always talked about how she should be more like her older sister, Jane “she was so plain and chunky and steady that connie had to hear her praised all the time by her mother and her mother’s sister’s.” Connie being constantly compared to her sister made her feel like she was not enough and wanted to be her own independent person and nothing like her sister. Her mother’s constant disapproval of her looks and the way she acts makes Connie look for love anywhere, but at home. Connie’s confidence and her identity is based primarily on her physical beauty. She runs across highways to go to the diner where older boys hang out, and like most teens she acts a different way in front of her friends than how she acts in front of her family when she is at home “everything about her had two side to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home”. Even though kids try hard to gain independence at such a young age when it is put to the test they often do not know what to do, they may think they are transitioning into mature and independent
Connie finally was forced into the adulthood that she thought always hoped for. Joyce Carol Oates takes the reader on a journey of teen rebellion turned tragic to teach the readers that you should not rush your childhood to become and adult and she uses Connie to show that becoming independent is not as easy as it seems and if rushed can sometimes have a brutal