Author: Joyce Carol Oates
Release Date: 1966
Genres: General Fiction, Thriller
Themes: Loss of Innocence, Feminism, Sexuality, Violence
Word Count: 7000 words, 9 pages
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Synopsis
This twisted short story follows 15 year old white girl, Connie. Connie believes she’s pretty, is confident in the way she dresses and walks, and like any other fifteen year old, in midst of an adolescent rebellion. Three pages in, after a morning of laying in the sun, there’s a man, or a figure, or a spirit, outside trying to lure her. Connie has to make the decision to follow or to risk it all. In this 9 page short story, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? is direct in telling a story and indirect in interpreting it.
Spoilers Without Context
Quotes
Connie couldn’t do a thing, her mind was all filled with trashy daydreams.
But all the boys fell back and dissolved into a single face that was not even a face but an idea, a feeling, mixed up with the urgent insistent pounding of the music and the humid night of July
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