Definition of Tone
The tone of “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” shifts over the course of the story. In the beginning, it is carefree though slightly moody (in a classic teenager-like way), as the narrator stays close to Connie’s perspective while she rebels against her mother, goes to the mall, and has low-stakes sexual experiences with boys her age. The following passage captures this particular tone:
There was one good thing: June went places with girl friends of hers, girls who were just as plain and steady as she, and so when Connie wanted to do that her mother had no objections. The father of Connie's best girl friend drove the girls the three miles to town and left them at a shopping plaza so they could walk through the stores or go to a movie, and when he came to pick them up again at eleven he never bothered to ask what they had done.