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Feminist criticisim essay in literature
An introduction to the criticism of Feminist Literature
Feminist criticism in literature paper
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Movies that are derived from books are never exactly as the book was originally written. The screenwriters of the movie have to tweak the story to make it more interesting for the audience, and in some cases they either leave some important things out, or they add in other details that were not mentioned in the original text. In “Riding in Cars with Boys: Reconsidering Smooth Talk”, Peter Dickinson writes about the differences between the movie adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Chopra called “Smooth Talk”, and the actual text written by Oates. Dickinson relays the differences between the suspected meanings of the original story and how it was portrayed in the film. He notes how it is hard …show more content…
to relay the textual meanings Oates intended for the story in a film (Dickinson 203). To understand the text from the story, it took me several times to read it and break down what the author wanted to portray, so I can understand how the author of the film took certain parts of the story into the script. Oates herself spoke on the complicated task of the screenwriters to portray the story accurately (Dickinson 203). Dickinson starts by noting that Chopra has been “ignoring the story's symbolic register in favor of depicting an admonitory and moralistic "coming-of-age story" that serves as a "didactic pronouncement about the perils of promiscuity" (Dickinson 202).
I understand the critique if the film focused more on Connie’s promiscuity. The original text isn’t just about her wanting to be older than she is and flaunting it, but on her journey or coming of age after the events that occur with her leaving with Arnold (Oates 6). I agree that Connie was trying to become more mature than she actually was, especially when she was on a date with …show more content…
Eddie Perhaps the biggest difference that Dickinson notes is that when Connie steps past the screen door when Arnold arrives. The text never suggest Connie leaves the safety of her own home, but as for the film, she almost immediately crosses the door and walks to Arnold’s car. Though she still goes back inside for part of the scene, she still walked outside in the beginning (Dickinson 205, 209). I believe that Oates did that on purpose. Even though she did not have a good relationship with her family, she felt safe in her home, which would be why she never crossed though the door when Arnold was begging her to come out. Connie thought she was safer inside even though there was just a screen door in-between her an Arnold (Oates 3-4). Dickinson contrasts the film scene where Connie is sitting on the floor holding the phone to a horror film “Scream” as for the virgin being the last one standing in a fight scene, unlike the story where it portrays Connie to be a young girl coming of age and scared for her and her family’s life (Dickinson 205). I agree that the story represents Connie as an innocent child who matures as the story goes on and that Arnold is the one who takes that away from her as she leaves her house (Oates 5-6). Dickinson notes that ending of the two is quite different.
Oates leaves the final parts of the story up to the reader’s imagination to interpret what happened when Connie left her house with Arnold. In the text, Arnold was threating her and her family if she touched the phone (Oates 5). Chopra has a different ending by showing Connie slowly walking out of the house to leave with Arnold by making it look like it was her own decision (Dickinson 206). Dickinson adds that the screen door acts as a symbolic representation to a line between childhood innocence and the harsh reality of the world (Dickinson 206). I agree that the screen door is a spilt in the story. It represents how Connie acted innocent with her parents when she is inside her home, and the real Connie who snuck across the highway to act older than her actual age and meet guys. Then once inside the house again, she pretends she saw the movie and never went to the diner with her friends (Oates 1). The situations that Connie was in differed dramatically once she passed her house door. Especially when she left to go to the “movies” and when she would come back to being on bad terms with her mother (Oates 1). Then again when she left her house with Arnold (Oates 6). Dickinson notes how the film depicts sexual violence that is occurring to Connie and how in the text it is not as straightforward as Chopra made it out to be (Dickinson 210). I agree because Oates leaves a lot more to the reader’s interpretation of what happened
to Connie. There are more options that could have happened to her than just her being raped by Arnold. Especially since in the text she never comes out and says that Arnold comes inside the house when Connie tries to call for help on the phone (Oates 5). When Connie looking out at the land while walking away from her house noticing that there was “so much land that she had never seen before”, she has probably seen that land across her house multiple times before, but this time was different (Dickinson 212, Oates 6). She is with a stranger going somewhere and has no idea where that will be, I believe she knows her life will never be the same when she gets home, or even if she will get home to see her family again. I could only imagine how troubling and traumatizing that would be.
Where Are You Going, Where have You Been by Joyce Carol Oates is a tale of a naive young lass taking her first steps into the illusion of the teenage dream. For the regular viewer of the film Smooth Talk, one would not pick up on the elaborate history behind the movie. Dating back to the 1960’s, the written story sheds very little light on the true sadistic nature of the means and intentions of Arnold Friend. Going back even further, the written tale is based on Life Magazine's article “The Pied Piper of Tucson” the true story of a middle aged man who preys on adolescent girls, getting away with devious sexual acts and sometimes murdering said adolescents. Without this previous knowledge, both the story and the movie seem for the most part innocent, with only a tad of creepiness generated
This paper will compare and contrast the short story written by Joyce Carol Oates, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” and Joyce Chopra’s very popular film, Smooth Talk, which is based upon the short story.
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).
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...
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...
“He wagged a finger and laughed and said, “Gonna get you, baby.” The quote foreshadows future events in the story because of the fact that Arnold says, “Gonna get you, baby.” There’s no actual reasoning behind why he chooses her, but it states he might try something later on. Oates also uses small wording to kind of hint at the readers. “Her mind was filled was all filled with trash daydreams.” (Oates 1). This quote tends to shape the short story. This quote leads readers to the possibility that Connie’s experience with Arnold could have all been a foreshadowing to a trashy daydream. In the article “Oates’s Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by David K. Gratz, he also points out the quote. “Both Rubin and Winslow note that seems to be falling asleep just before he arrives, and Rubin points out the nightmare quality of her being unable to act in the end.” (Gratz). This article more or less solidifies the fact that Connie might of fell asleep and dreamed up the whole encounter. In all, Oates uses multiple accounts of foreshadowing to further the possibility of the encounter being all just a bad dream of
...tomy between reality and dreams quite well throughout her piece. She provides the reader with two ways to experience the story: either as reality or as reality that turns into a nightmare. This dichotomy that Oates creates “allows the reader to escape this story, and allows this story to end” (Hurley 374). The end of the story shows Connie entering the new world of experience, and Oates wants the reader to sense her fear. Oates intricately provides the reader with clues that help see why Connie’s experience with Arnold is just a nightmare. She also allows the reader to see how this nightmare is meant to scare Connie into making the realization that her decisions have consequences. I hope that anyone reading this learns from Connie that not everything we do is good for us, and we have to think about the consequences of our actions, whether good or bad, before we act.
Connie's personality also had two sides to it. The side she displayed at home is mocking and sneering, and the side she displayed in public made her look trashy. It seemed that she didn't know who she was or what she wanted to be. All she let us know is that she wanted "the caress of love," she wanted someone to be "sweet, gentle, the way it was in movies and promised in songs" (Oates 980). This could have been why she did not put up much of a fight at the end and walked straight into Arnold's arms. It seemed almost like this was what she wanted and what she had been dreaming about.
In the short story, Connie is a young, naïve, sassy, little girl who hates her mom and sister. According to Oates, “Connie wished her mother was dead” (324). Connie enjoys going out with her friends and going to a drive-in restaurant where the older kids hang out. Connie is innocent, but thinks about love and sex. She is desperate to appeal to boys and succeeds at it when a boy with shaggy black hair says to her, “Gonna get you, baby” (325). Her encounter with this boy will change her life forever, because he is the antagonist that influences Connie’s loss of innocence. On a Sunday afternoon, the boy, Arnold Friend, visits Connie and asks her to come for a ride, which she declines. But, Arnold Friend won’t take “no” for an answer and threatens to go in the house. For example when Connie says she will call the cops, Arnold says “Soon as you touch the phone I don’t need to keep my promise and come inside”
Being sexualized by the boys around her, Connie is self-conscious and finds her worth in beauty. The story even states, “She knew she was pretty and that was everything” (Oates 422). She is concerned about her appearance and what others think of her because she has been taught that she lacks any value outside of physical beauty norms. Arnold Friend, even tells Connie, “...be sweet like you can because what else is there for a girl like you but to be sweet and pretty and give in?” (Oates 432). Between this coaxing and the consistent message about the importance of beauty, Connie is nearly forced to conform to this mentality, which displays the lack of respect for young females as human beings. This in turn leads women to self-degradation as they are consistently viewed as sexual
...d dresses differently than she does when she is home. She wants attention and affection which unfortunately works a bit too well when Arnold sees her. The doorway goes from being a form of freedom and escape to Connie to being a type of cage keeping her safe from Arnold that she cannot leave if she wants to stay safe and away from Arnold. In the end it does not succeed in keeping her safe for long when she ultimately decides to leave to protect her family from Arnold Friend.
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
Another example is when Chance watches television. In the book, the narrator explains that when Chance changes the channel, he feels like he is changing himself. As he changes the channel, he gets caught up in all the different images he sees. In the movie, all you see is a man watching television, which doesn't explain too much. In the movie, the only time we find out what Chance thinks of television is when he is talking to someone else.
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).
Connie’s narcissistic behavior and her knowledge that she is very popular causes her to pretend a self-confident, mature woman who follows the aim to be in a relationship and who enjoys every single moment of attention (Oates 120). Connie almost plays with different personalities to perfect her attractiveness because "[E] everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home: her walk, which could be childlike and bobbing, [...] her laugh which was cynical [...] at home [...] but highpitched and nervous anywhere else [...]" (Oates 119-20). Through this charisma, she consciously attracts boys’ interest, but unconsciously, she also provokes men’s sexual desires (Oates 120-21). In other words, this false pretence naturally causes men to develop concre...