¶ … Worried about You," by Joyce Carol Oates. Specifically, it will summarize the story, and the characters in the story. "We Were Worried about You" is a story of family, but it is also a story of what people ignore in their lives, and how it affects them.

WE WERE WORRIED ABOUT YOU

The characters in Oates short story are seemingly a normal and happy middle class family. They identify with their shiny new cars, the father works hard, and they all attend church on Sundays. They could be any family anywhere in America. Even more so, they ignore those less fortunate on the side of the road, and here they epitomize something deeper, the way American society's upper classes ignore the poverty and hunger of those less fortunate. These are not cruel or unfeeling people, but they are afraid of what they do not know, and so, they pass by these people on the side of the road, and even run one down in the end. These hitchhikers do not or should not exist, and so they must be ignored and passed by at all costs. Interestingly enough, many times when they ignore the pathetic hitchhikers on the side of the road is when they are leaving church, yet they cannot connect their religious teachings with their own prejudices. Instead of showing Christian pity and solace for the hitchhikers, they ignore them, and ultimately it is this which causes such misery in their lives. At each major juncture in their lives, a hitchhiker has been there, from the father's two heart attacks, to the end of the Sunday drives when the children drift off to their own lives. The hitchhikers, who represent every oppressed and hungry person in the world, are pivotal in the family's life, but they cannot recognize it, any more than they recognize the hitchhikers by the side of the road. They are blind to the needs of others, they are blind to humanity, and the only people it harms are they themselves. Thus, they pay dearly for ignoring those who are less fortunate.

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