An Explanation Of Innocence In Connie's Short Story

To begin, innocence is represented through Connie’s character in both versions. As a matter of fact, Connie is only 15 years old which means it is the period where she is searching for her own identity. Consequently, many of her actions will be innocent due to a lack of knowledge. In the movie, we can see that she is always dressing up in a provocative manner to seduce any boy that comes in front of her. For instance, when Connie and her friends are at the mall for the first time in the movie, we can see that Connie is dressed up with a tight overall and a cleavage that reveals her shapes. While they are taking the escalator, some boys come from the other way. Connie then bend over to show them her "assets". This is a proof of innocence. She

By doing that, it also gave Arnold Friend a hint that she was easy to manipulate. Then, concerning the dialogue element, the explanation for both the movie and the short-story will be the same since I use the passage between Arnold Friend and Connie at her house. Since Connie is responding so naively at the very beginning of their conversation, it is almost certain that Arnold would succeed to manipulate her. In fact, the biggest mistake she made was to actually get out of the house and start the conversation with him: "She went into the kitchen and approached the door slowly, then hung out the screen door, her bare toes curling down off the step" (314). Through this action, it already gave Arnold Friend the idea that she is innocent and vulnerable; the only thing left was to seduce her with his words. Finally, I believe the movie would better suits the theme because we can visually observe how innocent she is with her mimics, her behaviour, her clothing. Although Oates’ short-story is very descriptive, the message behind this story doesn’t have the same effect on us than the