Narrator and point of view

The short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates is a third-person account of a narrator who is outside the action (plot) and who might as well be a literary persona of Joyce Carol Oates.

In the story, the narrator has extensive knowledge on Connie’s character and uses her perspective most of the time: “His whole face was a mask, she thought wildly, tanned down to his throat but then running out as if he had plastered makeup on his face but had forgotten about his throat.” (p. 171, ll. 30-33)

Using Connie’s perspective on the events limits the narrator’s knowledge to what the girl knows and observes. We do not get any insight into the other characters’ thoughts, intentions or past unless they reveal it. For instance, we do not know what the magic numbers on Arnold’s car mean: “"Now, these numbers are a secret code, honey," Arnold Friend explained. He read off the numbers 33, 19, 17 and raised his eyebrows at her to see what she thought of that, but she did...