Joyce Carol Oates' short story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have you Been?", is about entering new uncertain future. Within only a short time Connie, the protagonist of the story, has to grow up, learn to take responsibility and face the cruel and hard reality of life. "My sweet little blue-eyed girl," he said, in a half sung sigh that had nothing to do with her brown eyes but was taken up just the same …showed first 75 words of 1872 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1872 total…only persuades her into coming with him, he also persuades her into adulthood. Now that her sense of responsibility has been appealed to she gives up her self-centered attitudes. Furthermore the final leaving of the house gets a deeper meaning after Dessommes: " She then crosses over into the other world o adulthood: into so much land that Connie had never seen before and did not recognize except to know that she was going to it."