Conformity In 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been'

Merriam-Webster defines conformity as, “action in accordance with some specified standard or authority” (Merriam-Webster). With this definition in mind, one may discover that it is quite easy to conform into a society ridden with cliques of people and individuals that have similar interest as oneself. Although it may be easier to conform, conformity prevents the surrounding society from growth, inevitably making the society and its people horrendously boring and incapable of being a working individual in the stated society. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s “Harrison Bergeron”, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” written by Joyce Carol Oates, and “Musée des Beaux Arts” by W.H. Auden all vaguely discuss the necessity of individualism, understanding

Now, if one looks at Joyce Carol Oates’ short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”, biblical references play a very prominent role. In the short story, Oates writes about a girl named Connie, who wants nothing more from life than to escape her home of conformity and rebel against her mother. Connie saw her dreary life as nothing more than something to leave behind and grow from. Although the individual tempting her out of this life happened to be the devil himself, she saw this opportunity as a possible outlet to take advantage of. Oates explains,

“Connie sat with her eyes closed in the sun, dreaming and dazed with the warmth about her as if this were a kind of love, the caresses of love, and her mind slipped over onto thoughts of the boy she had been with the night before and how nice he had been, how sweet it always was, not the way someone like June would supposed but sweet, gentle, the way it was in movies and promised in songs; and when she opened her eyes she hardly knew where she was, the back yard ran off into weeds and a fence-like line of trees and behind it the sky looked perfectly blue and still”