Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Connie leads a small town life and dreams of falling in love with a bad boy. In "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates, music and boys are the controling force in Connie's life, music especially. "The music was always in the background like music at a church service, it was something to depend on." (632). Her life is so greatly effected by the media that bad boys are glorified into being what every girl wants in a boyfriend. She loves to go out and look for boys that could be the perfect one. However, her dream rebellious man wasn't what she expected. In the end Connie's fantasy turns into her worst nightmare.
Connie often spent hours lying outside listening to music on the radio. Sometimes she would go to the mall or the movies and even at times went across the highway to the diner.
Fund drive time at community supported radio stati...
The owner and news editor of Radio Syd in The Gamb...
Black Water (novella)The diner was where more of the older and mature kids hung out. The music was everywhere in the story, it is what kept everything in order.
There are many other times where the importance of music in her life was seen. As Connie basks in the sun while the rest of her family gets ready to go to her aunts barbeque, she daydreams about "the boy she had been with the night before and...how sweet it always was...the way it was in movies and promised in songs." (633). After a little while of sitting around in the sun, soaking its warm rays into her damp hair she "turned on the radio to drown out the quiet." (634) Connie wants to break from her mother, sister and father and runaway with a cute boy in a leather jacket,