Joyce Carol Oates' short story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have you Been?", is about entering new uncertain future. Within only a short time Connie, the protagonist of the story, has to grow up, learn to take responsibility and face the cruel and hard reality of life.
             "My sweet little blue-eyed girl," he said, in a half sung sigh that had nothing to do with her brown eyes but was taken up just the same by the vast sunlit reaches of the land behind him and on all sides of him, so much land that Connie had never seen before and did not recognize except to know that she was going to it."
             This paper will show that Connie develops from a superficial and dreamy teenage- girl into a more rational woman. The first paragraphs will deal with Connie's life as the young careless teenager. Her behavior and attitudes towards her family and with her peers will be looked at. The actual encounter with Arnold Friend will be examined in the succeeding sections.
             According to Christiana Marsden Gillis the:
             " very title of the story calls attention to duality: A future (Where Are You Going) and the past (Where Have You Been). The tale catches its main character at a passage point where, it is implied, the future may depend precipitously on the past."
             Connie's past consists of her family life and her experiences with her peers. She has already distanced herself from her parents and her sister. Connie believes that her mother has ambiguous feelings towards her. Connie is very much aware of her beauty and considers it to be a reason for her mother either to be jealous of her or to prefer her to her sister June. To Connie both mother and sister appear pathetic.
             Being acquainted with some snapshots which show her mother at a younger age, Connie assumes that she used to be fairly similar to her and that this loss of youth and beauty makes her badger herwith complaining about her vanity and laziness.
             On the other hand her sister June ...