Joyce Carol Oates’ short story is a complete fiction in the sense that it utilizes all its elements without deemphasizing one for the other. Oates uses point of view, setting, conflict, character, and symbol equally well to convey her theme. Oates applies these elements of fiction to give readers a better understanding of the American teenager and to show how a girl is psychologically manipulated by predators.
It is evident from the first line that the narrator is using a third person point of view: “Her name was Connie. She was fifteen…” (Oates 51). Although the narrator tells or implies to readers how Connie feels, he or she does not describe how all the other characters think or feel and thus it means that the narrator has a limited perspective.