"Where Have You Been? Where Are You Going?" Joyce Carol Oates

Jessica Gerlemann
Professor Harrell
En 1333
September 9, 2010
Carol Oates uses Connie to Show the Reality of How Flirting with Danger Can Become Disastrous
In this shocking, eye-appealing story we learn that there are disastrous consequences when innocence of flirtation evolves into danger. Although Connie’s life revolves around her head-in-the-cloud dreams and look-in-the-mirror pretty face; her flirtatious attitude overcomes a slap in the face with reality. Soon we come to realize that being pretty and popular sometimes requires you to pay the price and reap the consequences. In this story Joyce Carol Oates uses irony in the title and wraps it up in the end. Eventually the name Arnold “Friend” is used and it becomes ironic because he is really the opposite. Arnold Friend says, “I’m gonna get you baby,” and that is just the beginning of the foreshadowing of events Oates uses to unravel the plot and message of the story. (Kennedy, X.J., and Dana Gioia. Backpack Literature.1970.Print. )
At first the story starts off describing an average girl’s life, desires and ambitions. Yet, those dreamy days of sitting at home and looking in the mirror illustrated every young girls wonder and admiration of a world of possibilities just waiting to be unveiled. With a life where a mom constantly complains, nagging at her daughter with a jealousy of her youth, Connie still enjoys the leisure of going to the mall. She lives two separate lives from home and in the outside world. When she spends time with a boy named Eddie, she walks past Arnold friend for the first time who wags his finger at her in admiration. Only this time the admiration would get her into trouble. This admiration of a total stranger foreshadows the events to come of what Connie describes as a “forty-year old baby,” showing up on her doorstep practically begging for a ride of a different kind.( Kennedy, X.J., and Dana Gioia. Backpack Literature.1970.Print. ) Naturally Connie doesn’t know what to expect.
Soon the decision to bail out on a BBQ and stay at home listening to Bobby King on the radio becomes an initiation of growing up to fast. Connie is introduced to the not-so-nice world of being seduced by possibly a sexual predator. For example, Arnold Friend shows up at the door sweet-talking her to coax her out of the house. He is very vindictive and even slyly threatens her about her family so that she would be willing to come along for a ride. Eventually, Connie feels herself being pulled toward him. Panicking in her first real situation of initiation of growing up she finds herself distraught.