Essay On Where Are You Going By Joyce Carol Oates

Heroes and villains are defined by the actions and decisions that persuade them to act upon a situation. Those actions and decisions are life-changing from many perspectives, from ending up as the hero of a comic book to the victim of a crazy psychotic clown. It all depends on the motives of the person involved. In the story "Where are you going? Where have you been?" by Joyce Carol Oates, Connie can be considered a victim to the reader because the overall tone of the story is apathetic and ominous, the lack of parental figures around her caused her to be vulnerable toward harm, and a strange person was able to take her without anyone noticing.

According to the story, the reader is first introduced to Connie by the description used by someone

Joyce Carol Oates states, "She was fifteen and she had 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" (Oates #). This description shows the reader how Connie only cares about her physical appearance. An appearance that is imposed on the reader on who Connie is from the beginning of the story. The reader is never given a true insight into Connie's true personality other than her physical appearance and action. This statement also sets the tone to be ominous due to the lack of connection between the reader and the author. Leaving her as not the hero of the story but rather the victim of what could potentially happen next. Later in the story, Connie is given a border description of her characteristics by the narrator. The author states, "She wore a pull-over jersey blouse that looked one way when she was at home and another way when she was away from home. Everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home: her walk, which could be childlike and bobbing, or languid enough to make anyone think she was hearing music in her head”. This description

The reader can infer that this situation was inevitable due to the lack of attention toward Connie. An instance that shows this is when the author states, "The father of Connie’s best girlfriend drove the girls the three miles to town and left them at a shopping plaza so they could walk through the stores or go to a movie, and when he came to pick them up again at eleven he never bothered to ask what they had done". This show the lack of attention Connie's parent and adults put toward what their daughters are doing. Leaving Connie and her friends vulnerable to strangers and creeps to potentially cause harm to them. These occurrences are often made worse when Connie started to go to a drive-in restaurant across the street from the mall. In that restaurant is where the introduction of a strange person watching Connie takes place. The story states, "It was a boy with shaggy black hair, in a convertible jalopy painted gold. He stared at her and then his lips widened into a grin...He wagged a finger and laughed and said, “Gonna get you, baby,” "(Oates). This statement shows how vulnerable Connie is to the point that someone had been watching what she does, but it wasn't until now that it was noticed. Even though the actions of this strange boy were noticed, the author never states that Connie told someone. This reiterates