Joyce Carol Oates’s Story, Essay Example

Joyce Carol Oates’s Story depicting, ‘Where have you been and where are you going” connotes the plight of every teenager who feels that life is passing them by unnoticed and  they need to grasp it in their own hands at their time. On many occasions it is to our own detriment when we walk away from home.

My desire as a child has always been to become pregnant at fourteen and a grandparent at twenty eight. This was my childhood fantasy and I worked hard at having it become a reality. Many times I repeated my intentions so often to the extent of becoming very rebellious. Definitely I hated school.

Many times I would think of how I can get away from home where I would not have to attend school every day. The urge to be an adult; get married; have children; a husband to take care of us was impending. I would day dream about it and make plans on how all the scenes can come together.

As such, my parents tried to institute measures of social control. I could not play with other children and they watched me every moment with boys my age in my neighborhood. But no matter how much policing parents do if a child wants to do something one day the opportunity would appear for it to happen and they will grasp it, fully.

Until one day my best Friend Lucie who has some similar ideas since her parents were never there when she arrived home from school on the school bus; explained to me how we can run away from home. She was tired and disgusted coming home having to take care of herself without seeing her parents until the next morning before leaving for school.

So the very next afternoon instead of taking the school bus we took a train and were going to another state far away. We dressed like adults and booked into a hotel the first night. The proprietor did not ask us for ID so we spent the first night planning what we will do the next day.

By that time my phone kept ringing incessantly. We decided not to answer any telephone calls. There was enough money for food to last us a week by which time we were going to look for jobs and husbands to take care of us. It would appear that my parents had reported me missing, but Lucie parents might have just been discovering that she was gone.

To our surprise after browsing the county taking bus rides site seeing and not attending schools a cop visited our hotel and began questioning us. He was very intimidating reporting that the proprietor was suspicious that we were get away girls and wanted us out.

We were afraid and told the truth not because we wanted to get back home but we were afraid of being arrested. We were driven back to out parents house with a very stick warning had we done this again we would be arrested and put in foster care.

My parents were very supported; embraced me and did not scold me much since they were glad for my return. This incident helped me to understand and identify with Joyce Carol Oates’s story because we always need parents and the system in which we operate would never allow teenagers to get away with rebellion.