Oates, Joyce Carol. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” 21 Sept. 2007
I don’t think I’ve ever met a shallower group of people. Connie is obsessed with how she looks,
her mother is obsessed with decorum, and everyone else except Arnold is too flatly developed
to be anything but shallow. Strangely, that leaves Arnold as the character to be admired??
“Everything about her had
two sides to it, one for home
and one for anywhere that
was not home” (1064).
Like many teenagers, Connie seems all about extremes
(“two sides”) rather than anything in between. But even
further, Connie sees herself as so complex that she is 2
complete people, while those around her are less than 1
full person.
They “listened to the music
that made everything so
good: the music was always
in the background like music
at a church service, it was
something to depend on”
(1064). And Connie was
“bathed in a glow of slowpulsed joy that seemed to
rise mysteriously out of the
music itself” (1066).
Music is clearly important in the story (dedication, lines
from songs throughout). In the first quote, music is like
God. Not only does Oates refer specifically to church here,
but music is what makes “everything…good,” an
omniscient power we usually associate with God, as well
as being “something to depend on,” like those who depend
on God. While music in the second quote is much less
spiritual and much more sensual, it still has God-like
qualities (“joy” and “mysteriously”), but the words
“bathed” and “pulsed” add a sexual connotation.
“’My sweet little blue-eyed
girl,’ he said, in a half-sung
sigh that…was taken up…by
the vast sunlit reaches of the
land behind [Arnold] and on
all sides of him, so much
land that Connie had never
seen before and did not
recognize except to know
that she was going to it”
(1075).
Since we have been inside Connie’s perspective the whole
time and have seen her terror, the last sentence of the
story is very confusing. Rather than feeling fear, she now
seems hopeful (“sunlit”), and she seems to welcome the
adventure of exploring “so much land that [she] had never
seen before.” But at the same time, this sentence
suggests foreboding; the sunlight is behind Arnold and on
all sides of Arnold, but not touching Arnold—that can’t be a
good sign. Also, for a character who thinks she knows
everything and who only has experienced pleasant things
in life, the “land that Connie had never seen before and
did not recognize” can only be bad land, a signifier of
unpleasant experiences to come.