For her, the past is blurry, and the future is of no consequence. Connie is always in the moment with no regard for what got her there or where the moment will lead. The story, despite its use of past tense, reveals to us where Connie is. For almost the entire duration of her story, Connie is locked in the present, a present that has no sense of the past, a present that is wholly uninformed.ģIn the story’s title, the present is conspicuously missing, yet this is the only state of mind and state of existence with which Connie appears to be in touch it is the only part of the human condition and human experience that she understands.
(133)ĢHowever, what is most interesting about Connie’s story is that although the title makes reference to the future and past, although the story’s verb tense emphasizes the past and the story of initiation framework that organizes the plot relies on a move from a past “self” to a future “self,” Connie herself has no sense of the past or future. The account of fifteen-year-old Connie’s encounter with a mysterious stranger named Arnold Friend, a man who leads his victim not to a promising new world, but, rather, to a violent sexual assault, is a tale of initiation depicted in grotesque relief. Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is a story about beginnings and passage points and it is a story about endings: the end of childhood, the end of innocence. And certainly we do see that many critics have pointed out the story of initiation pattern in this short work. Add to that the first part of the title “Where Are You Going” which calls to mind the future, and the reader can discern that perhaps the story will reveal a journey from past to future for this person who was named Connie. Of course, the title of the work mentions the past also-“Where Have You Been?” Seemingly, then, the past, or at least some recognition of past actions, past times, past experiences will play a part in this story. 1The opening line of Joyce Carol Oates’s frequently anthologized 1966 masterpiece of short fiction “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” immediately draws the reader into the past: “Her name was Connie” (25).
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