Analysis Of Joyce Carol Oate's Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

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In Joyce Carol Oate’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, the coming of age message is to avoid living in your childhood fantasies so much that you can’t face the realities of adulthood. Connie is a fifteen years old girl who wants to act mature but constantly living in her childhood fantasies. When it comes to her craving of acting like a grown up, she goes to the Big Boy restaurant with her friends but left them behind when a boy is asking her to go out for dinner. When she gets home, she dreams that ‘the boy’ she met last night whose ‘sweet, gentle’ and just like ‘in the movies and promised in songs’(52). Sweet and gentle are being expressed as imagery to describe the boy that Connie met the night before. The way Connie illustrate

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