The Virgin Suicides

Almost everyone has a point in their lives where they are trying to figure out exactly who they are. Sometimes they even sneak around and do things that their parents wouldn't dare let them do. In "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates, Connie was a teenager anxious to grow up and she was living one way when she was with her parents, and a separate way when she was out with her friends. Similar in "The Virgin Suicide" by Jeffrey Euginides, Cecilia, Lux and the other sisters were also teenagers living one way when with their parents and a separate way when they were not with their parents. Although "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" and "The Virgin Suicides" seem like different stories, they both have a lot of things in common.

Connie was not happy at home. The story says that her father was away at work most of the time and "didn't bother talking much to them," so Connie did not have love from him and had to find male attention somewhere else. Connie found her happiness in escaping with her friend to the drive-in restaurant and daydreaming about boys. But the happiness she found in both of these things had nothing to do with actual events; it is based on a fantasy. When she was out at the drive-in with a boy, her face gleamed "with the joy that had nothing to do with Eddie or even this place; it might have been the music." When she daydreamed about boys, they all "fell back and dissolved into a single face that was not even a face, but an idea, a feeling mixed up with the urgent pounding of the music."

Like Connie, Therese, Mary, Bonnie, Lux, and Cecilia was not happy at home and did not have a lot of freedom.

Each of us experiences transitions in our lives. Some of these changes are small, like moving from one school semester to the next. Other times these changes are major, like the transition between youth and adulthood. In Joyce Carol Oates' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", the author dramatizes a real life crime story to examine the decisive moment people face when at the crossroads between the illusions and innocence of youth and the uncertain future as well as in "The Virgin Suicide" by Jeffrey Euginides.