Fiction can often provide a short synopsis of some significant element of human development. In Joyce Carol Oates’ story “Where are you going, Where have you been?”, the main character, Connie, can be seen to go through a great deal of growth in a short amount of time. Her innocent-yet-not-innocent use of her growing sexuality as she attempts to discover the pathway to adulthood has the inadvertent effect of attracting the wrong man. Her encounter with this man forces her to take the giant step from innocent child and slightly knowledgeable, self-absorbed teen to greatly disillusioned and sacrificing adult. At the beginning of the story, Connie is characterized as a typical teenager. She is completely self-absorbed on a superficial level, concerned with the way she looks and how others perceive her. “She was fifteen and 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.” Connie’s age presumes a certain degree of innocence, which is supported by her description. Her ideas of good taste are called into question with the mention of the clattering charm bracelets and the hairstyle that involves hair pulled up and puffed on one side of the head. Her interests include boys, fashions, hairstyles, and makeup. Contrasted against this image of innocence, she lives a double life. “Everything about her had two sides to it; one for home and one for anywhere that was not home: her walk, which could be childlike and bobbing, or languid enough to make anyone think she was hearing music in her head; her mouth, which was pale and smirking most of the time, but bright and pink on these evenings out.” In this characterization, Oates illustrates that her character is at once very innocent in her experience, but also rebellious and ready, so she imagines, much more exciting and adult experiences. As an attractive and social girl, Connie is also portrayed as associating her impending adulthood with her blossoming sexuality. This is portrayed through the sense of triumph she experiences as she walks with Eddie to his car. “So they went out to his car, and on the way Connie couldn’t help but let her eyes wander over the windshields and faces all around her, her face gleaming with a joy that had nothing to do with Eddie or even this place; it might have been the music. She drew her shoulders up and sucked in her breath with the pure pleasure of being alive.” The fact that she could get a boy, a ‘cool’ boy, with a car, to spend three hours with her having dinner “and then down an alley a mile or so away.” Even as she enjoys her moment of glory, at some level looking around to see how many people are noticing her conquest, she notices the admiring glance of who she will later learn is Arnold Friend. Although she does not seem to be particularly attached to Eddie per se, more interested in her own abilities to attract a date, Connie does not seem to encourage Arnold’s attention as much as she simply remains a victim to her own vanity. When she first sees Eddie, she thinks of him as somewhat strange in that he has sloppy hair and a strange colored unusual car and behaves in a disturbing way