The archetype in the story depends on who and what is discussed in Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”

If Connie is the focus, the archetype might revolve around the vulnerable and curious young girl. This is a common trope in literature and culture, and it arguably dates back to Genesis and the story of Adam and Eve—Eve being, in the eyes of the serpent, a susceptible female. Other examples include Maggie, the beset heroine in Stephen Crane’s novella Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. A more recent example is the narrator in Eimear McBride’s novel A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing. Like Connie, McBride’s character confronts the fraught terrain of sexuality.

If one wants to spotlight the relationship between Connie and her mother, then the archetype centers on generational conflicts between women, as Connie and her mother don’t get along. The tribulations between mothers and daughters is featured in novels like Rita Williams-Garcia’s One Crazy Summer and Mona Simpson’s Anywhere But Here and in fairytales such as “Snow White” and “Cinderella.”

Perhaps one wants to write about Arnold. His archetype links to the rebellious, mysterious, predatory male. This type pops up throughout Western culture. There’s the vicious Heathcliff in Emily Brontë’s Victorian novel Wuthering Heights, the brutish Stanley in Tennessee Williams’s play A Streetcar Named Desire, and the James Dean rebel archetype established in the film Rebel Without a Cause.

In general, Oates’s story plays on normative archetypes of male and female, with the passive female, Connie, ultimately yielding to the forceful male, Arnold. It also connects to archetypes around innocence and experience, with Connie representing the former and Arnold symbolizing the latter.