where are you going where have you been How does music work in the story? Does music seem to affect the way that Connie acts and thinks?

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.