"Where are you going?..."
Being a teenager is a difficult period in one's life. A teenager is no longer a child but not yet an adult. This state of turmoil makes the teenager's role in both family and society unclear. Joyce Carol Oates portrays a relatively typical teenage girl as the main character in "Where are you going? Where have you been?" At fifteen Connie exhibits traits common in teenage girls such as confusion, rebellion, and egocentrism. However, her confusion has a negative effect on her choices in life and ends up increasing her helplessness. Joyce Carol Oates establishes the character of Connie as a typical teenage girl through detailed descriptions of Connie's physical appearance and personality, which aids the reader in understanding Connie's vulnerability to Arnold Friend. From the very first paragraph in this short story, the reader gets an immediate sense of Connie. She is described as having, "...a quick nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people's faces to make sure her own was all right" (336). Joyce Carol Oates describes Connie's physical appearance, "Connie had long dark blond hair that drew anyone's eye to it, and she wore part of it pulled up on her head and puffed out and the r
Perhaps she would not have attracted him with her flirtatious looks and vain prettiness had she not been so keen on rebelling against her mother. Connie's confusion and sense of rebellion is so strong that Connie wishes her mother dead: "Connie's mother kept picking at her until Connie wished her mother were dead and she herself were dead and it were all over" (336). Without her rebellious streak, she might have gone with her parents to the barbeque; she might not have snuck off with Eddie that night and seen Arnold Friend. Though on some level she knows it is her looks that attracted Arnold Friend to her. In the middle of the story, there is an indication that she flirted with him, "Now she remembered him even better, back at the restaurant, and her cheeks warmed at the thought of how she sucked in her breath just at the moment she passed him-how she must have looked at him" (342). all the boys fell back and dissolved into a single face that was not even a face, but an idea, a feeling. But the thrill of making a choice pushes the door right open, sealing her fate. Both these aspects contribute to her overall inner conflict and outward confusion. Joyce Carol Oates signifies that she has trouble with her identity, "Everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home" (337). But Connie would simply, "raise her eyebrows at these familiar complaints and look right through her mother.
Common topics in this essay:
Arnold Friend,
Carol Oates,
Eddie Connie,
,
Arnold Friend's,
Despite Connie's,
Connie Connie's,
arnold friend,
teenage girl,
joyce carol oates,
carol oates,
Joyce Carol,
joyce carol,
typical teenage girl,
typical teenage,
mother dead,
family society,
attracted flirtatious,
role family,
connie's physical appearance,
role family society,
connie's physical,
|
Acceptance Essays
