Princess Connie

Connie, the protagonist in the story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, is the only aspect of the story that doesn’t represent fairytales and bedtime stories. Connie represents a, “generation of young people who have grown up…without the help of those bedtime stories” (Schulz and Rockwood 116). She relies on the songs and thinks that her life will eventually become “sweet, gentle, the way it was in the movies and promised in songs” (Schulz and Rockwood 116). According to the author of, “In Fairyland Without a Map: Connie’s Exploration Inward in Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?””, life doesn’t always have to be perfect and it can be just as grim as in folk fairy tales.

            Schulz and Rockwood make many connections with our everyday fairytales and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”. Connie sees herself as the “fairest of them all” and her mother always notices everything, “as though with the wicked queen’s magic power” (Schulz and Rockwood 120). Arnold’s sunglasses were also, “metallic and mirrored everything” (Oates 3). Connie is like Cinderella when she changes from being a child at home to a woman whenever she steps out of her house. Her going out to restaurants with loud music is like Cinderella’s ball, where she meets her “Prince Charming”, or Arnold Friend (Schulz and Rockwood 122). Since Arnold is portrayed with long, black her, he is compared to the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood. His inability to walk also hints that he may have four legs. Oates also mentions in the story how he was, “sniffing as if she were a treat he was going to gobble up” (Oates 4).

            In Connie’s mind, Arnold Friend is both frightening and distracting to her. She attributes him with death but at the end, because of her emotions, she gets trapped by Arnold’s soothing voice that sounded just like a song to her (Oates 5). Her life is surrounded by music and a fairytale ending but she doesn’t realize that even fairytales don’t always have a happy ending. She is always thinking about how she will meet her “prince” and how to be the fairest of them all. When Arnold comes, he gets her out of the locked tower and takes her away to their future. Her belief in a fairytale world caused her to not see the real Arnold as a beast but rather as her Prince Charming and persuaded her to go with him at the end.

Works Cited

Oates, Joyce Carol. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Print.

Schulz, Gretchen, and R.J.R Rockwood. "In Fairyland without a Map: Connie's Exploration Inward in Joyce Carol Oates's "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" Journal of Narrative Technique 5, 1995. Print.