There is an old saying "there is a thin line between love and hate." Well, there is an even thinner line between maturity and immaturity. Immaturity verses maturity, a battle that has been fought since the beginning of time, and teens. In "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" Joyce C. Oates brings us to the battle-front of that war. Oates' portrayal of immaturity designs a house of cards, built on a foundation of conceded qualities, resentment, and misguided emotions that inevitably fails.

Initially, Oates portrays Connie as an extremely conceded young woman. "She was fifteen and she had a quick nervous habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people's faces to make sure her own was all right." Oates set the tone for Connie's character by that...