The short story “Where Are you Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates brings a dark transition of a child to an adult. Connie, the main character, is a young girl with all the care-free worries of someone her age. She day-dreams about romance and love through the popular songs on the radio, spends evenings with friends at the local shopping mall and dive diner, and flirts with boys. Like many girls her age, Connie seems to sleep-walk through life, dancing to a tune that only she can hear or understand. But this is cut away when she meets a stranger named Arnold Friend. Arnold Friend’s sudden appearance in Connie’s life takes her from childhood to adulthood in the blink of an eye and she ultimately becomes a passive victim. Not many fifteen-year-old girls are considered mature at that age and Connie is certainly no exception to that. She is presented as quite vain in her views of herself and those around her. Her mother, once a beauty herself, is constantly nagging at her and telling her to stop gawking at herself in the mirror. Connie considers her older sister June to be somewhat of a spinster who is described as “plain and chunky” (Oates …show more content…
One evening after sneaking to the diner across the high-way from the shopping plaza, Connie and her best friend meet a boy named Eddie. Charmed by his flirtations, Connie agrees to leave her friend for a few hours in favor of spending time with Eddie. When the two are walking to his car, they pass by a gold jalopy in the parking-lot. It is here that Connie first lays eyes upon Arnold Friend. He stares at her, grins, and as Connie is walking away from him she can’t help but look back at him again. Her curiosity gives way to caution when he says deviously, “Gonna get you, baby” (Oates 2). As she hurries away, Eddie notices nothing abnormal and they spend the evening together. To her, the night is a success when she judges the attention received from