Oates \'Where Are You Going\'

Oates 'Where are You Going' & Brooks "We Real Cool"

Adolescent False Confidence within Works by Joyce Carol Oates and Gwendolyn Brooks

The uneasy, restless feeling of being an adolescent and therefore not a child anymore but not yet an adult is captured in two separate and very distinct literary pieces: Joyce Carol Oates's short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" And Gwendolyn Brooks' poem "We Real Cool." Oates's main character Connie and Brooks' 'cool' school dropouts are teens who all feel and like adults (or think they do) but whose actions show they are not.

Within "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" teenage Connie is fetchingly pretty but much more innocent than she realizes or would ever admit. Connie likes to feel and act older than she is, especially when she and her friends are around a "drive-in restaurant where older kids hung out" (Oates). But since she is not really an adult and lacks adult experience Connie's beauty is both a lure and a danger. The story's villain Arnold perceives Connie's true naive self and uses that to plant terrifying thoughts in her mind.

Had Connie truly been an adult she would neither have panicked nor allowed herself to be lured outside. She might have just one-upped the pair with a terse, clever one-liner and seized the psychological power; or if not that called the police to remove the pesky pair from her property. Instead when Arnold and Ellie begin terrifying her all she can think of is how she wants adults to return home early to protect her. Within minutes after Arnold's gold jalopy roars up, Connie goes from seeing herself as mature to feeling like a helpless child and longing once again for the adult protection children need.

In Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool" the shared voices of a group of late-night pool-playing high school dropouts nonchalantly (this tone shows their immaturity) describes various unwise decisions they have already made (e.g., leaving school) and others they are making now, like staying out all night drinking and playing pool.

For example within the poem this group of speakers "left school" (line 2) it is implied, because they had more "adult' things to do, like "Lurk late" (line 3), play pool, and hang out drinking through the night. Moreover, in this same tone these speakers just as nonchalantly predict (that as a result of their past and present actions combined) they will also "die soon" (line 8). It is as if death itself is no less casual than playing a game of pool together.

But in fact the lifestyle decisions they have made are the opposite of the adult self-discipline and willingness to delay gratification it takes to stay in school instead of drop out, study instead of stay out with friends all night, and be responsible instead of reckless. Just as Joyce carol Oates's protagonist Connie does not take seriously that the wolfish Arnold might indeed come over to her house, Brooks' subjects in "We Real Cool" seem not to take seriously the idea that the decisions they have made and make now could also truly lead them to "die soon." This final line of the poem is stated with the same lack of gravity as the rest.