Adolescence is the stepping stone from youth to adulthood. In this confusing period, teens endure vast physical and psychological development. This is the time where teenagers learn about love, maturity, and expression. In the stories Hills Like White Elephants, Astronomer’s Wife, A&P, Where Are You Going Where Have You Been, the topic of adolescence is explored.The authors in these stories are trying to convey that the transition from adolescence to adulthood is ignited by a catalyst that represents danger and controversy. The transition induces longing for family, comfort, and a simpler time. In conjunction, the young adult feels guilt for taking their adolescence for granted and their previous naivety.

In Where Are You Going Where Have You Been, Connie’s vain life, abruptly changes when she meets Arnold Friend. The story quotes, “They must have been familiar sights, walking around the shopping plaza in their shorts and flat ballerina slippers that always scuffed the sidewalk, with charm bracelets jingling on their thin wrists; they would lean together to whisper and laugh secretly if someone passed who amused or interested them”. This shows that Connie wasted her youth worrying about irrelevant pursuits. She only cared about her appearance, going out, and watching boys. This idea can also be seen from the quotes, “ she knew she was pretty and that was everything” and “ she had a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people's faces to make sure her own was all right”. Connie later comes to regret her vanity, because she put so much focus onto her looks that she forgot one of the most important things; her family. While she could have been spending her time mending her broken relationship with her mother and sister, Connie instead was fixing her hair. Later Connie, “She thought, I'm not going to see my mother again. She thought, I'm not going to sleep in my bed again.”. The author is telling us that Connie is seeking the comfort of her mother and home. Connie did not realize how easy she had it before suddenly she is thrown into a world of the unknown and comes to miss her old life. Even though she always complained about her family, once Connie reached adulthood she realized how great they were and how she should have treated them better. Connie’s mother, and adolescence, provided her stability and security, which was ripped away by Arnold or adulthood. In this situation, Arnold Friend is the catalyst that invoked Connie’s adulthood. Oates states,” She watched herself push the door slowly open as if she were back safe somewhere in the other doorway, watching this body and this head of long hair moving out into the sunlight where Arnold Friend waited”. Arnold is a psychotic man, and it is the danger he carries with him that triggered the onset of Connie’s maturity. Due to her realization of the severity of the situation, Connie grasped the source of the meaningful matters in life.  Arnold Friend bred Connie’s adulthood, which produced her sorrow for her poor relationship with her family and her shallowness.

Similarly, in Hills Like White Elephants, the girl’s adulthood is generated by a “dangerous” situation, which in turn precipitated a reevaluation of her life and longing for the past. To begin with, the setting of a train station leading to a foreign land,represents the journey of adolescence into adulthood. When the man is discussing getting an abortion with her, she states, “Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?". Her reaction demonstrates her immaturity, yet it also shows how tired she is. She was catapulted into a world she wasn't ready for. She experiences a range of emotions that have drained her and had to contemplate over a hard, life changing decision. In just a short period of time, she was thrown into adulthood and it seems she has aged years. Just like Connie, the girl realized how great her life was before and that she took it for granted. She says, “"And if I do it you'll be happy and things will be like they were and you'll love me?". The girl misses the ease of her relationship before. Now, both the man and her are unhappy and everything is complicated. She will never be the same again, her youth is over and she will never be able to forget the pain she felt. Furthermore, a conversation between Jig and the man cites,

"What did you say?"

"I said we could have everything."

"We can have everything."

"No, we can't."

"We can have the whole world."

"No, we can't."

"We can go everywhere."

"No, we can't. It isn't ours any more."

"It's ours."

"No, it isn't. And once they take it away, you never get it back."

This dialogue exemplifies that the baby is the catalyst for the girl’s adulthood. Before, she could go anywhere and do anything, but the prospect of having a child has forced her to mature. Having a child is “dangerous” because it would be considered sinful in an unmarried couple and would ruin the girl’s easy, uncomplicated relationship. The danger of the child make her recognize that she is aging and has to become serious. Instead of traveling to new places and drinking she wants to focus on her future. Jig is remorseful that she has to leave her old life behind and will miss the fun and happiness it brought her, but she realizes it is time to grow up. The discovery of her pregnancy spawned Jig’s adulthood and the longing for her relationship before the incident.

In A&P Sammy’s innocence and youth is ended by the discovery of the harsh discrimination in the world. Sammy witnesses three girls being kicked out of the store he works at for being dressed “inappropriately”. The girls only stopped in to get one item in their bathing suits at a store a few miles from the beach. Sammy thinks,” but remembering how he made that pretty girl blush makes me so scrunchy inside”. This controversy provoked the transition to adulthood in Sammy. Seeing the injustice the girls faced makes him regret whining about his jobs, when other people are experiencing much more serious issues. By viewing the incident, Sammy more greatly appreciates his life as a male. His newfound maturity compelled him to regret his naivety on the discrimination of girls and wonder if it had always been going on behind the curtains and if there had been something he could have done. Due to this Sammy quits his job, because he doesn’t agree with how his manager embarrassed the girls. The author expresses,” ‘You'll feel this for the rest of your life,’ Lengel says”. Sammy has to deal with the consequences for his rash decision and he now wishes for the stability and simplicity of his life before.  He says, “my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter”. Sammy did not appreciate his his adolescence enough before, with a job secured by his parents and easy cash. Sammy’s adulthood was invoked by witnessing the discrimination of girls, which made him regret being naive and taking his job for granted.

The Astronomer’s Wife also tells a tale of an adolescence ended followed by remorse. A woman marries a man too young and becomes quickly unsatisfied with the marriage. Boyle quotes,”She was a youngish woman, but this she had forgotten.  The mystery and silence of her husband's mind lay like a chiding finger on her lips. Her eyes were gray, for the light had been extinguished in them.” The quote demonstrates that the astronomer was the leading cause in her transition to adulthood. Before she was youthful and full of life, but his neglect causes her to age. The “danger” in this situation is the likelihood that Mrs. Ames will be stuck in a loveless marriage with a husband who pays no attention to her. Furthermore, Boyce says, ”The day would proceed from this, beat by beat, without reflection, like every other day.  The astronomer was still asleep, or feigning it, and she, once out of bed, had come into her own possession. Although scarcely ever out of sight of the impenetrable silence of his brow, she would be absent from him all the day in being clean, busy, kind”. The astronomer's wife follows the same monotonous routine everyday. She misses her life before she was plunged into adulthood, probably a time before her marriage where her husband interacted with her or when she could be young and crazy with friends. The comfort and stability she seeks during the transition into adulthood is provided by the plumber. The author states,”his eyes were fastened on her face in insolence, or gentleness, or love”. Unlike the astronomer, the plumber listens to the woman and shows her he cares for her. He does not have his head up in the clouds, but rather he is down to earth, which the astronomer's wife enjoys. Due to the pain adulthood has inflicted on the woman, she is longs for the love and security brought by another person, which she is able to get from the plumber. The astronomer’s wife is brought into adulthood by the neglect of her husband, which causes her to seek out comfort and stability from the plumber.

All of these stories tell us similar woes. Adulthood is provoked by a catalyst of danger or controversy. This newfound adulthood causes a person to long for the simpler times of their adolescence which provided family, comfort, and stability. Additionally, the transition from adolescence to adulthood makes a person regret their naivety and taking their youth for granted. Even though adolescence is a time marked with confusion and embarrassment, it will be sorely missed when it is replaced with the unforgivingness of adulthood.