Coming of Age in Oates' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"

Introduction: An Initiation Story

Joyce Carol Oates' short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" was first published in the literary journal Epoch in 1966. The story is about beginnings and rites of passage. It is an illustration of a coming-of-age story, also known as an initiation story. In such stories, the protagonist undergoes an important rite of passage — a transformation or experience of transition, usually from childhood to adulthood or from innocence to experience. The story focuses on that turning point, that trial, and the passage from one state to the other.

The story centers on a fifteen-year-old girl named Connie, a pretty girl in the middle of a rebellious adolescence. She alienates herself from her family, preferring to spend her time with friends at the local restaurant looking for boys. She enjoys the popular music of the day and tries to appear older and more sophisticated than her years when away from home. "Everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home: her walk, which could be childlike and bobbing, or languid enough to make anyone think she was hearing music in her head; her mouth, which was pale and smirking most of the time, but bright and pink on these evenings out; her laugh, which was cynical and drawling at home — 'Ha, ha, very funny' — but high-pitched and nervous anywhere else, like the jingling of the charms on her bracelet" (Oates, p. 36).

One evening, while riding in a car with a boy named Eddie, Connie notices another boy with shaggy black hair in a gold convertible staring at her. "Gonna get you, baby," he foreshadows (Oates, p. 37). On a Sunday, while her parents are at a picnic at her aunt's house — a gathering Connie refused to attend — the boy in the gold convertible drives to her house and introduces himself as Arnold Friend.

Despite her reservations, Arnold eventually persuades Connie to leave her house and go with him. "Now come out through the kitchen to me, honey, and let's see a smile, try it, you're a brave, sweet little girl…" (Oates, p. 53). Connie's departure is described as an almost out-of-body experience: "She watched herself push the door slowly open as if she were 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" (Oates, p. 54). Though we never find out exactly who or what Arnold is, he is the catalyst that changes Connie from a child into an adult.

Connie has two personalities in this story — one for home and one for anywhere that is not home. This duality represents the two sides of human nature: good and evil. When she is with her friends, she lets her guard down. She is not guarded in her actions the way she is around her mother, who frequently criticizes her and calls her lazy.

Connie's Dual Personality and Vulnerability

Connie is at a crossroads. She has yet to settle into a self she is comfortable with, leaving her vulnerable. Arnold Friend is representative of evil, temptation, and sin — a figure allied with dark forces. Connie's rebellion from her family and her desire to enhance her sexuality are part of her search for independence. As a teenager, she is dependent on the adults in her life for care and discipline, as well as for enabling her social life. Her friend's father, for example, drives her and her friend to the movie theater.

Though Connie rejects her family — particularly her mother and sister — they represent the only life she really knows. Her experiments with creating a sexy appearance and enticing boys at the local diner serve as her attempts to explore new worlds and a new side of herself. Until Arnold Friend enters her life, Connie's investigations into adulthood have always been without risk. She may go into an alley with a boy for a few hours, but no matter what happens, she will eventually be driven back home to the familiarity of her family.

Arnold's arrival signifies the end of Connie's innocence. He interacts with her as the mature woman she has pretended to be, forcing her out of her childhood fantasies and into the world of adulthood, where there is no safety net. Arnold tells her, "I'm your lover. You don't know what that is but you will" (Oates, p. 47), and, "The place where you came from ain't there anymore, and where you had in mind to go is cancelled out" (Oates, p. 52).

Arnold Friend and the End of Innocence

It is deeply ironic that as Connie comes to accept that her childhood is at an end, she cries out for the very mother she had so thoroughly rejected. She laments, "I'm not going to see my mother again," and grieves, "I'm not going to sleep in my bed again" (Oates, p. 52). Connie's comprehension of the outcome of her search for independence is both heartbreaking and brutal.

The final page of the story shows Connie's coming of age happening before the reader's eyes. Oates depicts Connie splitting into two persons: the childhood Connie watches as the grown woman departs with Arnold Friend.

At the start of the story it is evident that Connie is eager to become an adult. She frequently tests limits by pretending to shop or watch a movie with her friend when she is actually out meeting boys. "Sometimes they went across the highway, ducking fast across the busy road, to a drive-in restaurant where older kids hung out" (Oates, p. 36). This shows Connie's desire to engage in adult behaviors and experiences.