where are you going where have you been

Music forms the background of Oates short story: it constantly pours out of speakers and radios and restaurants. This “perpetual music” is described in mystical, almost religious terms. Connie listens to pop songs in a “sacred” (2) burger joint and experiences a kind of religious ecstasy lying by her radio; Oates describes the girl as “bathed in the glow of a slow-pulsed joy that seemed to rise mysteriously out of the music itself” (3). Music connects teenagers to each other and to a larger popular culture; Connie’s ideas about love and relationships are derived from bubble-gum pop songs. Arnold exploits music in order to appear connected to the younger teenagers he preys on.