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Who Brings The Little Connie To The Dead End?

Joyce Carlo Oates is an active writer in the age between 60s' and 80s'. Her novel, "Where are you going, Where have you been?", tells a story about the indocile girl, Connie. She doesn't like to be guided by the elders and develops characters which are finally made use of by a bad guy and lead her to a dead end. This story tells us how important the parents' guidance will be during the children's growth. I think the main purpose of this novel is associated with Joyce’s role as a teacher in college. In this story, Connie is a pretty girl and lives in a common family. She is spoiled by herself and her family, especially by her mother. Her superficialness, disrespect and daydreaming are fostered under this circumstance and she doesn’t believe she ever needs anyone’s help or suggestions. Finally, she finds herself really in a situation that she can’t handle without other people’s help. In the story of "Where are you going, Where have you been?" Joyce Carlo Oates exhibits immature characters on Connie whose superficialness, disrespect, and daydreaming bring her to a terrifying situation.
First of all, Joyce shows us that Connie is a superficial girl. Her action is very laughable. She had a quick nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was all right. This behavior tells Connie has a very strange and ridiculous habit. It looks like she always lives for other people’s attention, not herself. Also, her friend and she often went to a shopping plaza, they often leaned together to whisper and laugh secretly if someone passed by who amused or interested them. This behavior will always let other people think them as uneducated people. They might not recognize it but the action was totally impolite and might hurt other people. Another thing we want to notice is her family thought the girls only walk in the shopping plaza but the truth is “Sometimes they did go shopping or to a movie. But sometimes...