Literary Analysis "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates

    In the short story,  "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", Joyce Carol Oates depicts the story of a fifteen year old girl named Connie struggling with family acceptance, who becomes a victim to a local psychopath. Through comparing Connie's various family and depicting the fear invoked within Connie by her stalker, Arnold Friend, Oates testifies the balance between perception and reality when examining one's inward and outward personality. 

     When depicting Connie's appearance, Oates portrays Connie as having a split personality, appearing "one way when she was at home and another way when she was away from home. Everything about her had two sides to it" (469). This contradiction reveals that Connie attempts to break away from her family, trying to appear mature and sophisticated away from home because her family forces her into a childish, superficial girl. By developing the split in Connie's personality, Oates solidifies Connie's reaction when faced with danger. After being approached by Arnold Friend and recognizing the threat he poses, Connie feels as though she is "living inside this body that wasn't really hers" (479). By including this, Oates reaffirms her purpose, indication that even though Connie may appear to be a mature woman, when faced with adversity, she loses her artificial confidence and reveals her inner hopeless child. Furthermore, Oates unveils the thin line between how one acts to alter other's perception and the inner, true reality. This, in turn, is proving that often, people falsify their actions to hide their true person.