Have you ever encountered a time while driving in which the street looks completely clear and everything is hunky dory but all of a sudden you hit an unexpected speed bump? We’ve all done that at least once in our lives. After the speed bump, it may take some time to recover or understand how the whole thing happened.

As I was reading ”Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates, everything in the beginning was great. I took notes over how the story compared and contrasted to the 50’s even though it was written in a different time period. The first thing I took note of was the way Connie acted. She did a great job of demonstrating the role of a 50’s teenager and reminded me of Judy from ”Rebel Without a Cause.” Like Judy, Connie would not spend much of her time at home and instead was rebellious toward her parent’s desires for her. Connie would sneak out of the shopping center to the restaurant where all of the ”cool kids” went. This corresponds with 50’s conformity and seeing more people, especially teens, enjoying themselves at restaurants with nearly the same outfits. ”Connie liked the way [Arnold] was dressed, which was the way all of them dressed: tight faded jeans stuffed into black, scuffed boots, a belt that pulled his waist in and showed how lean he was, and a white pull-over shirt that was a little soiled and showed the hard small muscles of his arms and shoulder” (Oates 5). The 50’s seems to be the year that trends started and social insecurities began. When we are first introduced to Connie, we notice that she is insecure and seems to have two sides to her personality. She’s fashionable and bubbly in public but much more reserved at home. She definitely fits the role of a teenager perfectly. She tries to find the easy way out of the house by using her friend’s indifferent father and is not very considerate to her best friend. She showed little to no sympathy for poor Betty who was left in the restaurant for three hours while Connie went out with Eddie.

Going back to my speed bump analogy, I thought everything in this story was normal up until the point Arnold Friend appeared. Friend seemed to be sane in the beginning but once Connie asked him how old he was, there was a huge plot twist. It turns out that Arnold Friend is a little bit over friendly and way over the age of Connie. Some of the things he says to Connie are extremely strange and resemble the words of pedophiles. He keeps calling her honey and telling her that she is ”the one.” I have to admit, I was a little bit uncomfortable reading the last portion of the story. Friend is purposely trying to lure Connie in by sweet talking but he has obviously done his research already. He knows everything about Connie and her family. He knows where her family is, who they are with, and what they are doing. It’s all extremely creepy and hard to understand. It seems like Friend is treating Connie like a little girl. Little kids are easy to convince because they believe everything they hear. By telling Connie that he loves her and that he will be there for her forever, he is persuading Connie to go on a ride with him. For all Connie knows, she could be on a ride to her grave.