The story "Where are You Going, Where Have You Been" written by Carol Oats is about a girl that flaunts her beauty which ultimately leads to her abduction. After the story is read the question is, was the author trying to show Connie's situation as fate or free will? The situation she got herself into was caused by free will. Connie's character played a big role in what ultimately happened to her. Her actions could give people bad ideas about her, and she left her house without physical force.
Connie is a vain girl that thinks the way she looks is everything. She plays the stereotypical part for girls in today's society. She thinks that as long as she has her looks and dresses a certain way then she is everything. This becomes apparent when Oates says, "Connie thought that her mother preferred her to June because she was prettier" (980). By flaunting her looks she could easily give a guy like Arnold Friend perverted ideas about her. It could make them see her as easy, which he did.
Connie's personality also had two sides to it. The side she displayed at home is mocking and sneering, and the side she displayed in public made her look trashy. It seemed that she didn't know who she was or what she wanted to be. All she let us know is that she wanted "the caress of love," she wanted someone to be "sweet, gentle, the way it was in movies and promised in songs" (Oates 980). This could have been why she did not put up much of a fight at the end and walked straight into Arnold's arms. It seems as if this was what she wanted and what she had been dreaming about.
Connie's actions also played a big role in her abduction. Connie liked to go out and hang out with guys. Because of her history with boys, there was bound to have been rumours about her and they probably did not escape the ears of Arnold Friend. He probably had the idea that Connie was easy before even laying eyes on her. He proved that he knew of her at end of the story when he started naming people she...