Sara Durkin
Mrs. Leonard
Accelerated Composition II
18 Sept. 2015
From Adolescence to Adulthood
At some point in every teenager’s life, they begin to rebel and distance themselves from their family in order to find their true self and begin transitioning into adulthood. In the short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, the main character, Connie, is a stereotypical and self-centered teenage girl, who appears to care about nothing but herself. Connie thought everything was perfect and great, but little did she know things would soon take a turn for the worst when a mysterious man named Arnold Friend appears. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Oates uses the symbolism of Connie’s home, the author’s
…show more content…
For the majority of the story, Connie appears to be a static character who remains the same. The first sentence of the story immediately portrays Connie as someone who is very vain and conceited, “She was fifteen 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 alright” (626). It is clear that Connie’s appearance is something extremely important to her. If she is not looking at herself in mirrors, she is looking for other people’s approval of how she looks. As Connie is trying to discover herself, she feels the need to constantly check her appearance. Connie’s static and vain character changes once she realizes the danger she is in, “He ran a fingernail down the screen and the noise did not make Connie shiver, as it would have the day before” (636). The narrator openly tells the reader that there has been a change in Connie. Previously, she would have shivered when hearing the sound, but now she no longer shivers. Also prior to her confrontation with Arnold Friend, Connie appeared to be someone who did not particularly enjoy her family’s presence. Connie also disliked the way her sister, June, was praised all the time by her other family, “Connie had to hear [June] praised all the time by her mother and her mother’s sisters” (626). Based on the negative tone of Connie’s voice, she feels hostility towards her family. Connie wants to be her own person which is why she disapproves of being compared to her sister. Not only does the way Connie speak lead to the inference that she does not like her family, but also her actions. When Connie’s family is going to a barbeque, Connie opts to stay home alone instead, “Her parents and sister were going to a barbeque at an aunt’s house and Connie said no, she wasn’t interested, rolling her eyes to let
Connie, from “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”, wants to rebel against her family. She uses her attractiveness to flirt with boys at the local restaurant behind their backs as a form of rebellion. She feels as though her family does not appreciate her; her father does not pay any attention to her and her mother constantly compares her to her sister, criticizing her every move and asking why she cares so much about her appearance. On one of her outings she sees a boy who she vainly chooses to ignore. Later he shows up at her house posing as her friend, calling himself Arnold Friend, and talking to her as though he is another boy she flirts with down at the diner and pretending to be her age. She subtly flirts with him at first, only realizing the danger when it is too late.
Arnold Friend, one of the two main characters in the short story “Where Are You Going Where Have You Been” written by Joyce Carol Oates, is looked upon as a controversial character. Friend has many distinct character traits, but it is often argued whether those traits are good or bad. Some view Friend as a savior figure, while others see him as a satanic representation. Throughout the story, Oates uses many symbols to convey Friend’s character. Arnold Friend is portrayed as a savior through the symbolic usage of music, cars, and clothing.
In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates, Connie is a normal teenage girl who is approached outside her home by a guy named Arnold Friend who threatens to harm her, and she obeys, if she does not get in the car with him. Connie is the main character in this story who teaches us that sometimes we might search for adult independence too early before we are actually ready to be independent and on our own. Connie is so focused on her appearance that she works hard to create a mature and attractive adult persona that will get her attention from guys. This search for independence conflicts with Connie’s relationship with her family and their protection of her. Connie’s insecurity and low self-esteem is triggered by her fear of intimacy. Connie confuses having the attention of men with actually having them pursue her in a sexual way.
Joyce Carol Oates’s short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” clearly illustrates the loss of innocence adolescents experience as they seek maturity, represented by Connie's dangerous encounter with Arnold Friend. Connie symbolizes the many teens that seek independence from their family in pursuit of maturity. Connie’s great desire to grow up is apparent from the beginning of the story, as she experiments with her sexuality. However, it is clear that Connie is not interested in pursuing a relationship, but relishes the maturity she feels after being with the opposite sex. After following a boy to his car, she was “gleaming with a joy that had nothing to do with Eddie or even this place” (2). This suggests that Connie's exploits
Connie is only concerned about her physical appearance. She can be described as being narcissistic because "she had a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirror or checking other people's faces to make sure her own was all right" (Oates 148). Connie wants her life to be different from everyone else's in her family. She thinks because she is prettier, she is entitled to much more. She wants to live the "perfect life" in which she finds the right boy, marries him, and lives happily ever after. This expectation is nothing less than impossible because she has not experienced love or anything like it. She has only been subjected to a fantasy world where everything is seemingly perfect. This is illustrated in the story when Connie is thinking about her previous encounters with boys: "Connie sat with her eyes closed in the sun, dreaming and dazed with the warmth about her as if this were a kind of love, the caresses of love, and her mind slipped over onto thoughts of the boy she had been with the night before and how nice he had been, how gentle, the way it was in movies and promised in songs" (151).
When approached by Arnold Friend at first, she was skeptical but was still charmed by him. As she began to feel uneasy, Connie could have used her intuition to realize that he was trouble. Once she had been engaged by Arnold, her life was over. The influences on Connie and her lack of instilled reasoning led to her down fall. Her family’s fragmented nature was echoed in her actions; consequently, she was unable to communicate with her parents, and she was never was able to learn anything of significance. She felt abandoned and rejected, because no one took the initiative to teach her how to make good decisions. Connie was unable to mature until she was faced with death and self sacrifice. In the end, her situation made it difficult for her to think and reason beyond the position she was in. By not being able apply insight, she fell into Arnold Friends lure. Misguidance by the parents strongly contributed to Connie’s
Oates drew the character of Connie very well - she possesses many of the qualities that teenaged children share. According to developmental psychologists, adolescents become highly critical of siblings, and peer relationships take precedence over familial ties during these years (Feldman, 455). These traits are apparent in Connie’s unflattering description of her older sister June, “…she was so plain and chunky…” (209) and the fact that Connie spends many nights out with friends, but refuses to attend an afternoon picnic with her family (211).
The overuse of biblical allusions throughout the story helps to expose the naive nature of Connie that reveals her as a victim of evil which shows that lust often transgresses on an individual’s identity. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” Joyce Carol Oates expressed the subjective ideas by symbolizing Arnold Friend as a devil that tempts a clueless teenage girl Connie, who wanted to experience love.
By the second sentence Oates’s sets up Connie's vanity, “[Connie] 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” (469). By the very beginning Oates’s lets the readers into Connie’s vanity and insecurities about herself, a characteristic most teens have, but usually, do not act on. Connie’s mother was always after her for checking herself out, to which Connie believes is jealousy because her mom “had been pretty once too” (469). Connie puts her looks before her own safety when Arnold Friend shows up one Sunday when her family is not home. As Arnold Friend’s car pulls up the first thing Connie does is “snatched her hair, checking it, and she whispers ‘Christ, Christ’, wondering how badly she looked” (473), not that there is someone she does not know in her driveway like a normal teenager. Not only does this show a raw version of Connie’s vanity, but she also uses the Lord's name in vain all because her hair was not
Connie has the need to be viewed as older and as more mature than she really is, all the while still displaying childlike behavior. She shows this childlike behavior by “craning her neck to glance in mirrors [and] checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was all right” (Oates 323). This shows that Connie is very insecure and needs other people’s approval. Although on one side she is very childish, on the other side she has a strong desire to be treated like an adult. This longing for adulthood is part of her coming of age, and is demonstrated by her going out to “bright-lit, fly-infested restaurant[s]” and meeting boys, staying out with those boys for three hours at a time, and lying to her parents about where she has been and who she has been with (Oates 325, 326). “Everything about her ha[s] two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home” (Oates 324). Even her physical movements represent her two-sided nature: “her walk that could be childlike and bobbing, or languid enough to make anyone think she was hearin...
Connie’s clothes and infatuation with her own beauty symbolize her lack of maturity or knowing her true self, which in the end enables her to be manipulated by Arnold Friend. Connie was enamored with her own beauty; in the beginning of the story Oates states that Connie “knew
In her home life Connie is very dissatisfied. First, Connie's mother continuously nags everything she does. Connie is always being compared her to her older sister June who is twenty-four and still living at home. It seems everything Connie does is followed by a spiteful remark from her mother. At one point Connie's mother states, 'Why don't you keep your room clean like your sister? How've you got your hair fixed- What the hell stinks? Hair Spray? You don't see your sister using that junk'(153). The fact that this is written in the second paragraph of the story gives the reader immediate insight into Connie's behavior when she is with her friends later on in the story. At home she lives in her...
Connie's actions from being at home too with her friends or being in the house alone as is if she were three different people. Connie is depressed and wishes death upon her mother as she sits home and listens to all her mother's rules. She feels like she needs to rebel constantly against her mother making it hard for her and her mother to get along. Connie’s mother had lost her good looks and Connie thinks she is just jealous of her. While Connie is with her friends she is promiscuous and sexualized. Showing she can be an ‘adult” like her sister Jane she dresses older and shows more skins and Connie can't help but to feel like a little kid and cry for her mother when Arnold is in her house wanting to take her away. Although Connie is promiscuous
However, as I continued to read the story I began to wonder if maybe Connie’s life was not in any way parallel to my own. I have a younger sister where she has an older sister, but that is where the similarities end. Her mother is always telling her that she should be more like June, her older sister. It seemed to me that June living with her parents at her age was unusual, but the fact that she seemed to enjoy this and was always doing things to h...
I see it as what could be Connie’s worst fear, “And Connie paid close attention herself, bathed in a glow of slow pulsed joy that seemed to sire mysteriously out of the music itself and lay languidly about the airless little room, breathed in and breathed out with each gentle rise and fall of her chest.” In this part I started to believe that Connie was having a dream, she started to describe what she was afraid of, and how her family wasn’t involved enough in her life to protect her from it. As well, her innocence demonstrated to what she believes is the evil, a monster cover up as a man. We can also appreciate the love that Connie has for her family, even though they didn’t have the best relationship she preferred to give herself to protect them. “She thought for the first time in her life that it was nothing that was hers, that belonged to her, but just a pounding, living thing inside this body that wasn’t really hers either.” meaning that she gives herself to “Arnold