"Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?

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Character Analysis In Joyce Carol Oates “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Connie is simply a young girl who is lost in a state of insecurity, rebellion, and narcissism. These were caused by a disapproving mother, an emotionally distant father and the burden of living in a sibling shadow. The only result is a young girl who leads a second life of promiscuity and Shallow attention seeking. The time she finally learns of consequences of going to strange places and not being aware of her surrounding’s, utterly sealed her fate . It’s not easy for Connie to live with her mother, who constantly harps on the way Connie looks and how she doesn’t live up to her sister reputation. “If Connie’s name was mentioned it was in a disapproving tone.”[453]. Every time Connie’s mother comments anything about June’s profile, it pushed Connie unconsciously to be nothing like her sister. Mother usually complained about her about habit of looking into a mirror. The narrator states the mother’s resentment of Connie’s beauty because “her looks were gone and that was why she was always after Connie.”[451]. Connie doesn’t make the situation between the two any better by instigating her mother with curt answers and rude responses. “Her parents and her sister were going to a barbecue at an aunt’s house and Connie said ‘no’, she wasn’t interested, rolling her eyes to let her mother know exactly what she thought.”[453]. the only time Connie fully admits that she truly did love her mother was when she was crying in the phone for her. Connie’s father is a quiet bystander when it came to his wife and daughter heated arguments. He never asks about what Connie does with her friends, or where they even go. “Their father was away at work most of the time and when he came home he wanted supper and he read the newspaper at supper and after supper he went to his bed.” [451] June on the

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