In Joyce Carol Oates story, Connie is, at first, a
stereotypical teenage girl, superficial, self-centered, vain, and deceitful. As she
makes the transition from girlhood to womanhood, she detours into her "trashy daydreams"
and her duality of nature:
She wore a pulover jersey blouse that looked one
way when she was at home and another way when she was away from home. Everything about
her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home: her walk
that could be childlike and bobing, or languid enough to make anyone think she was
hearing music in her
head....
The music that "made
everything so good" is always in the background of Connie's head, as she feels it is
like the music at a church service, "something to depend
upon."
Finally, however, Connie's trashy daydreams and
music materialize in the shape of Arnold Friend, who drives up to her house where she is
alone, having refused to accompany her family to a barbeque at her aunt's. In a vehicle
suggestive of the "magic whirling ship" of Bob Dylan's song, "Mr. Tambourine Man,"
Connie finds herself reflected in the "tiny metallic world" of Arnold's sunglasses.
Without the rs in his name, the man who is older than he at first
appears is An old Fiend, the embodiment of her trashy daydreams
to extreme. Faced with the psychological horror dealt her by Arnold, Connie shakes
herself from her hedonism and becomes, as Oates herself states in an article, capable of
"a heroic gesture": She sacrifices herself and gets into Friend's car so that her
family will be unharmed upon their return home. As she rides away, Connie faces the
existential question of the story's title, perhaps in a new order: "where have you
been, where are you going?"
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