SOURCE: Slimp, Stephen. “Oates's ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’.” The Explicator 57, no. 3 (spring 1999): 179-81.

In the following essay, Slimp contends that what the character of Connie experiences physically in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” “leads her to an increasing awareness of the horrors of human existence and a resulting growth of her spiritual nature.”

One of the most arresting features of Joyce Carol Oates's short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is the way in which the story's powerful theme about the spiritual condition of late-twentieth-century American culture is conveyed with an almost palpable intensity. One can visualize the squalid hamburger joint, hear the blaring of Ellie's radio and the touch of Arnold's finger on the screen door. Most amazing, the reader experiences, even with multiple readings, a tightening of the stomach and quickening of the pulse as it...