Where Are You Going Where Have You Been Character Analysis Essay

The Search for Validation In the short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Oates, Connie, the main character, is an adolescence teen who rebels against her family and finds herself in a dangerous situation. Although Connie is young, beautiful, and a little naïve, her home life consist of a combative mother who is hypercritical and intensely jealous and a father who does not actively engage in her life. One summer afternoon, while her family attends a barbeque, Connie is left home alone when a car approaches her drive-way. Inside the car is a man she had seen the night before while out with friends. He is older and appealing to Connie at first, until he begins to make threats and demands. The story communicates that

Her mother was once beautiful, but her looks faded with age, which is a reason why she is always after Connie. In the story, her mother, “who noticed everything and knew everything and who hadn’t much reason any longer to look at her own face scolded Connie about it”(25). She would say to Connie, “Stop gawking at yourself. Who are you? You think you’re so pretty?” (25). The quotes demonstrate her mother’s lack of affection and indicate that her mother was resentful. Connie would raise her eyebrows at the familiar old complaints and look right through her mother. She knows that she is beautiful and that was everything, and because her mother does not acknowledge her beauty she looks for validation

Connie does not have any relationship with her father, which allowed her to be vulnerable to older men. Oates describes the father’s character as, “…away at work most of the time and when he came home he wanted supper and he read the newspaper at supper he went to bed. He didn’t bother talking much to them…” (26). Her parent’s lack of effective communication allowed Connie to seek validation in all the wrong places. Due to her father’s absence, Connie sought other men to compensate for a fatherly