Of Connie's And Arnold Friend In Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

In the story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, Connie (protagonist) is a fifteen-year-old teenager who physically attempts to behave like an adult by tampering with her appearance and participating in activities habitual to adults (going to restaurants and theaters with boys). As an adolescent, she’s morally ambiguous and thus safely explores adulthood. Arnold Friend, an ingenuine and strange character, pulls Connie away from her infantile fantasies to the grave reality of being an adult woman. The author uses the motif of a bilateral persona evident in Connie’s and Arnold Friend’s characters to illustrate the theme that entails the abrupt transition that Connie’s rebellious and childish spirit is forced

She fools herself into thinking she is an adult because she assumes the appearance of one when she is not home: “She wore a pullover jersey blouse that looked one way when she was at home and another way when she was away from home” (396). Through her dressing and going out with several boys, she strives to present herself as a sexually attractive mature woman. Only realizing the sexual aspect of maturity, Connie is not prepared for the responsibilities associated with independence. She is careless as an adolescent, as she spends a different night with a different boy: “All the boys… dissolved into a single face that was not even a face, but an idea, a feeling” (397). The word “dissolve” provides an image of a distant blur of a teenager’s insignificant relationships and not concrete and meaningful relationships that an adult would engage in. This demonstrates how her act of enticing boys and exploring with them is voluntary; she is safe and can stop as she desires. Connie vaguely experiments with sexuality but always has a familiar ground towards which she can return. However, Arnold Friend forces her to step over her