Free writing journal - Essay Example

Carol Oates’ Where are you going, where have you been was about a young girl’s struggle to find her identity during her adolescent years. Connie, theprotagonist, was a typical teenager. She wanted to establish her own identity but she didn’t want her parents to find out what she was doing outside their home. This indicated that what she wanted was very different from what her parents wanted her to become. Because of this, Connie seemed to have two personas. The Connie at home is a childish Connie.

But away from home, she is the sexy, mature and seductive young woman. Connie’s attempt to become a young sexy woman attracted the eyes of Arthur Friend. And when he approached her at home, she got scared because he was not the young man he told her to be. Also, his calm voice and coaxing seemed to be too powerful for Connie. And when he told her that he will harm his family, Connie’s terror led her to come out of the house and go to him. Oates created a clear picture of one possible scenario of teenager’s fun gone wrong.

Instead of just giving her the excitement of a secret life, her attempt to look and become a more mature and sexy woman led her to harm’s way. This story was in not just a good read for adolescents but it was also a lesson. It may be fiction but it can be real for some teenagers. It evokes images of violence, even rape. Though there were no explicit statements that indicated there was violence or crime that happened, the images that Oates described seemed to suggest that there was something that happened to Connie, something terrifying.

It might have been in her mind only but it suggested that her encounter with Friend destroyed her attempt to delineate her two different sides. The story left us with the lesson that adolescents, same as Connie’s age, need proper guidance to prevent them from going down the wrong path.