Joyce Carol Oates effectively presents the plot of "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" to the reader with help of foreshadowing techniques and attention to detail. Early on in the story, I knew that the main character Connie would get into some kind of trouble because of the detailed description of which Oates gave. She made sure to inform the reader to foreshadow an ominous danger of some sort. "Sometimes they did go shopping or to a movie, but sometimes they went across the highway, ducking fast across the busy road, to a drive-in restaurant where older kids hung out..." (251). "She spent three hours with [Eddie], at the restaurant where they ate... and then down an alley..." (252). We learn here that Connie is not honest about what she does in her free time and she has a reputation for spending lots of time with strange boys. This foreshadowed a potentially dangerous encounter later in the story, which also kept me consumed in the plot. The most obvious detail in the plot that foreshadowed at the later plot was the description of Connie's first encounter with Arnold Friend at the diner. "He stared at her and then his lips widened into a grin... He wagged a finger and said, 'Gonna get you baby,'" (251). Arnold's mannerisms and statements are just simply creepy. I knew this character would not go away for long.
POINT OF VIEW
This story is told in third person point of view. Connie is the main character in which the narrator knows everything about. This was the best point of view to use for this story. If first person had been used, many details about Connie would have been left out, as she the character would find them unnecessary to reveal. As a result, many of the foreshadowing events would not be indicative of anything at all because the reader would be lacking the knowledge of the kind of danger Connie puts herself in. Because of the unknown narrator, the reader knows that "Everything about her had two sides to it," (250), which indicates far more about the upcoming plot than would a first person story.
CHARACTERIZATION
Connie is the protagonist of the story. Oates gives pages of descriptive information about her. "She was fifteen and she had a nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors... to make sure her [face] was alright," (249). She shows much rebellion and anger towards her family as a result of her vanity, which ultimately causes her to put herself in harms way. Her actions of being where she is not supposed to be show her naivety and her lack of awareness for how the world actually is around her. She is solely aware of her beauty, her love of music, and her love of fun. She never weighs the consequences of her actions, but rather moves on with her life in the same careless pattern. She finally gets her wake up call when Arnold Friend shows up at her door, but by that time it may have been too late.
Connie's mother was a stock character in this story. As the mother she "noticed everything and knew everything," (249), which drove her daughter mad. Most mothers are presented in this way when a story is told from more of the child's point of view. However despite her habits and ideas of Connie, she remains the one true stable character in her daughter's life. "Their father was away at work most of the time and when he came home... he didn't bother talking much to them," (250). Without a father or a sister that she could get along with, Connie only had her mother and obviously regarded her as a stable parental figure, as in the last scene, it is her mother that Connie shouts out to for help. "She began to scream into the phone, into the roaring. She cried out, she cried for her mother," (265).
SETTING
This story does not come outright and state the exact location or time period in which Connie lives. The only locations we see are Connie's home, the shopping plaza in town, and the drive-in diner. These places indicate a possible small town setting. It would have to be small in order for Arnold to have found out so much about Connie in such a short period of time after seeing her that first night at the diner. "'But I know what it is. I know your name and all about you, lots of things,' Arnold said. 'I took special interest in you, such a pretty girl, and found out all about you-like I know your parents and sister are gone somewheres and I know where and hoe long they're going to be gone...'" (257). The time period is also not given exactly, but it can be inferred based on at least one essential detail. "He lifted his friend's arm and showed her the little transistor radio the boy was holding," (255). According to PBS (http://www.pbs.org/transistor/background1/events/tradio.html), the first transistor radio was made in 1954. This leads me to believe that it is likely that this story took place in the 50's or early 60's when these radios were most popular. The small town atmosphere and the time period ultimately play a role in Connie's lack of awareness about the world. She was sheltered in her small town and a situation like her's with Arnold Friend was not a common event that was discussed during that time. Things were usually kept "hush-hush" so to speak, which made Connie far more unaware of danger than she would have been living in today's world.
THEME
I believe the theme of this story has a lot to do with a search for independence. Connie choosing to rebel enforces her desire to be free and do what she wants and go wherever she wants. She meets up where "the older kids hung out," (251), and wants to be accepted as an adult, or rather older than she is. What is ultimately learned in the end is that Connie was not near ready for complete independence at all. When put to the test, Connie was "so sick with fear that she could do nothing but listen to it - the telephone was clammy and very heavy and her fingers groped down to the dial but were too weak to touch it. She began to scream into the phone, she cried for her mother" (265). Of course it was understandable why Connie would be so frightened, but because she was still a child lacking a readiness for independence, her fear paralyzed her thoughts making her indecisive. She called for help from her mother, as a young child would. Once she received no help, she did nothing for herself. She merely let herself fall into Arnold's trap. "She put her hand against the screen. She watched herself push the door slowly open as if she was back safe somewhere in the other doorway, watching this body and this head of long hair moving out into the sunlight where Arnold Friend waited.," (266).
bonus transistor radio information!
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