Horrific Dialogue

              In the story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” a lot of the tension and uneasiness comes from the dialogue. Whenever a character in the story speaks it is either a critical comment or a negative question. The type of conversations that go on in the story adds to the dark theme and uneasy feeling that it radiates. The story starts off with the mother asking questions that criticize the main character’s traits, which also informs the reader about each person’s traits. Many of the mother’s questions are actually rhetorical and comment on the main character, Connie’s, own personality faults. Even Connie’s so-called friends are fairly critical of her own actions and frequently critique her every move. By the time the main conflict in the story occurs it is already saturated with negativity.  As the tale progresses further and eventually moves on to the group of creepy boys pulling into the driveway, the dialogue takes over full control of the story’s progression. Not only does the questioning move the story forward, but it increases the tension by altering the pacing. The questions and answers are kept short and sweet for the sake of ramping up the pressure, which adds to the tension. The increasing tension is also due to the fact that many of the unanswered questions are eventually answered by the following inquiry. The rapid pace of the dialogue also helps move the unfolding series of events forward without giving the reader time to breathe. The frequency of the question adds a lot to the story’s tone that is quite horrifically uncomfortable. Once the rapid-fire questions are over the story finally takes the time to stop and expand on what has happened, but by then the tension has reached peak levels. What makes the story as creepy and uncomfortable is mainly due to the large amount of tension created by the dialogue.