Connie's Identity

Joyce Carol Oates begins “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by illustrating for us Connie’s concededness as she looks at herself in the mirror. Oates tells us why Connie is so eager to explore her limits as a young teen; she is unaware of her own identity. For a child, parents are their way of interpreting their own identity as an individual and Connie lacks a father figure and the affection of a mother. This short story tells how Connie felt her beauty gave her power and how it was her weakness.
Connie’s addiction to her beauty reflects upon her current life time trend. She believed her “mother preferred her to June because she was prettier” (Oates 235), which in her world beauty is everything to a woman. Self absorption is a major factor in the lives of teens world-wide, and Connie is an example of it. Oates describes her life to be two sided; one way at home and one way when out with friends (Oates 234). Since, Connie had no source of guidance or rules from either parent, this led her to live a secret life outside her home, where she explores the variety of emotions from older boys.
This lack of authority allowed Connie to venture into society, in search of her identity as well as her independence. She purposely tries to seduce

Arnold’s explicit sexual images of them two together causes Connie to collapse near the phone and yell for her mother; not her friends or the boys she has met, but her own mother who she thought she hated. Her grief is a product of her own loss of innocence and her fear of who she is during the last moments of her life. Connie has been living a fantasy for so long that she cries for her mother and when she does not come to aid, she becomes alienated from herself as a person. This causes Connie to question if she belongs to herself or someone else, which demonstrates her submissiveness to Arnold’s