Fifteen-year-old Connie's acquiescence to Arnold Friend's threat-ridden seduction is an appropriate finale to Joyce Carol Oates's "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" in a narrative which, upon careful analysis, suggests existential allegory. Many critics have classified Oates's work as realistic or naturalistic, whereas Samuel J. Pickering categorizes her short stories as subjective romanticism to a fault [see CLC, Vol. 6]. Most, however, agree she is writing in the tradition of Dreiser, Faulkner, and O'Connor, but few have acknowledged the allegorical nature of her work. Veiling the intent of "Where Are You Going …" in realistic detail, Oates sets up the framework of a religious allegory—the seduction of Eve—and with it renders a contemporary existential initiation theme—that of a young person coming to grips with externally determined fate. (p. 200)

From the outset of the narrative, members of Connie's family recognize their powerlessness and thus their difference...