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Analyse connie character in where are you going
Analyse connie character in where are you going
Analyse connie character in where are you going
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Abbie Zvejnieks
October 13, 2014
The word identity is defined as the set of personal and behavioral characteristics which define an individual. In written works, identity is closely related to a character’s relationship with other people and the ideas around them. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, the main character is a young, innocent teenager named Connie who struggles with maintaining an identity of her own. She possesses general characteristics of any teenager searching for his or her own identity such as disobeying her parents boundaries and having two personalities-one for home and one when she is with friends. Oates uses Connie’s person point of view, allusion to fairy tales, and the title to emphasize
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Connie’s transition from naivety, due to her unstable identity, to maturity and total awareness of things going on around her. The story is narrated through third person limited point of view so that the reader can understand all of Connie’s thoughts and feelings.
The reader goes through the process as Connie does from feelings of confusion to disturbed to fear. The story begins with Connie being a typical teenage girl, disobeying her parents instructions, and going to the drive-in to flirt with boys. This is an innocent action, and Connie is looking only for attention not anything sexual. “One night in mid-summer they came across, breathless with daring, and right away someone leaned out a car window and invited them over” (379). Connie does not realize how dangerous this could potentially be because she is just caught up in the idea of the being “where the older kids hung out” (379). She sees her identity as her physical attractiveness, so Connie uses these flirtatious nights to seek validation of this false identity. When Arnold Friend shows up at Connie’s house, she is confused but not yet scared. He is very charming at first and tells Connie she is cute. Connie thrives from this and “blushed a little....she couldn’t decide if she liked him or if he was just a jerk” (381). Here, Connie is still stuck in her naive teenager mentality that this is nothing dangerous, and Arnold Friend is harmless. As the story progresses, Connie begins to realize that Arnold is not actually a teenager at all. “She could see then he wasn’t a kid, he was much older--thirty, maybe more. At this knowledge her heart …show more content…
began to pound faster”(383). The reader, through Connie, now understands the seriousness of the situation, and this marks the first step of Connie’s transition to full awareness. Connie tries to call the police, but she is unable to because “a noisy sorrowful wailing rose all about her and she was locked inside it the way she was locked inside the house” (387). The is powerful because the reader is confused but can also see how Connie is literally trapped inside her ownself. Connie gives in and goes with Arnold. “She felt her heart pounding...but just a pounding, living thing inside this body that wasn’t really hers either” (388). By the time she surrenders to Arnold, he has so undermined her sense of personal will that she is left with the sense that her body is no longer her own. Connie has no clear identity which makes her extremely vulnerable and susceptible to be taken advantage of. She now knows that this is not an innocent car-ride, but she is going to be sexually exploited and maybe even murdered. Point of view is especially important in portraying this transition because the reader only knows information such as Arnold’s age and motivation once Connie realizes it when it is too late. Another important element is the allusion to fairytales throughout the story.
The story of “The Three Little Pigs” is used to depict Arnold as the villainous “Big Bad Wolf” and Connie as an innocent, helpless pig. Arnold says to Connie as she tries to lock the door, “But why lock it...I mean, anybody can break through a screen door and glass and wood and iron or anything else if he needs to, anybody as all and specially Arnold Friend” (386). This alludes to the wolf huffing and puffing and blowing down the house of the little pigs. Not only is this incredibly creepy, it shows how Arnold Friend is not a “friend” but an actual villain. Arnold refers to the house as a “cardboard box I can knock down anytime” (388). He wants to get inside this house and get to Connie just how the wolf wanted to get inside to get the pigs. In the presence of a villain, Connie’s flirtatious and naive personality becomes a fatal character trait. Because she doesn’t have a clear, centered identity, she is susceptible to Arnold’s manipulation and is led to her own
ruin. The title of the story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” also contributes to the development of Connie’s naivety and lack of identity. Parents generally ask these questions “Where are you going?” and “Where have you been?” when you come home or leave the house. This sets up the story so that the reader understands that Connie is just a rebellious teenager who prides herself in thinking that she knows everything and can handle every situation. The title can also relate to how Connie got herself into her situation and what is going to happen in the future. When she first realizes that Arnold is not an innocent threat, she says “if my father comes and sees you” (384). She is aware of the seriousness of her situation, but she still has no identity to rely on to help her so she turns to her father. Arnold says, “The place where you came from ain’t there anymore, and where you had in mind to go was cancelled out” (388). Once she leaves the house, everything she has is left in her naive, familiar world, and she transitions to maturity and awareness. Oates uses point of view, allusions, and metaphor in the title to develop Connie’s character transition from naivety to maturity. Connie’s lack of a true identity, only a false identity based on physical appearance and foolishness, leds to her demise as she is easily influenced and controlled by Arnold Friend.
First of all, Connie was not happy at home. The story says that her father "was away at work most of the time," and "didn't bother talking much to them," so Connie didn't have love from him and had to find male attention somewhere else. Connie found her happiness in escaping with her friend to the drive-in restaurant and daydreaming about boys. But the happiness she found in both of these things had nothing to do with actual events; it is based on a fantasy. When she was out at the drive-in with a boy, her face gleamed "with the joy that had nothing to do with Eddie or even this place; it might have been the music." When she daydreamed about boys, they all "fell back and dissolved into a single face that was not even a face, but an idea, a feeling mixed up with the urgent pounding of the music..."
Arnold Friend imposes a devilish and menacing pressure upon Connie, who ultimate gives in, like a maiden entranced by a vampire's gaze. His appearance, sayings, and doing all combine to form a terrifying character that seems both reasonable and unlikely at the same time. There are people like Arnold Friend out there, not as incoherently assembled, and still he seems an extraordinary case of stalker. A small and even insignificant aside about his name, Arnold Friend, is that with the R's his name would read A'nold F'iend, or "An Old Fiend" i.e. the devil. But, regardless, Arnold Friend is very precisely portrayed as a corrupter of youths and a deflowerer of virgins. Without his useless sweet-nothings or his strange balance problem, he would come across less dangerous and alluring.
Arnold Friend takes advantage of Connie’s teenage innocence for something of a much more sinister purpose. Connie thought she had it all figured out until Arnold Friend came into her life and up her driveway on one summer, Sunday afternoon and made her realize how big and scary the world can be. Arnold embodies everything that Connie has dreamed about in a boy, but is in the most malevolent form of Connie’s dream boy. She always wanted to get away from her family because she has always felt as if she didn’t belong and Arnold can make this possible just in the most predatory way. She always thought sex would be sweet (and consensual) and that she would be in charge of how it progressed, Arnold strips her of the authority she’s held in any other encounter with a boy. The moral of the story is always be careful what you wish
In Joyce Carol Oates's short story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" the protagonist introduced is Connie, who is an interesting and strong character. Just like every other teenager, she is searching for a purpose and trying to find her place in society. Although Connie seems to be an incredibly self absorbed teenage girl, there is a part of her personality that is different than the rest. She lives a double life, having one personality around her house, with her family, and the other when she is hanging out with friends in public. Due to this double personality, the reader can't help but become intrigued and question which girl she truly is.
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...
Joyce Carol Oates intrigues readers in her fictional piece “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by examining the life of a fifteen year old girl. She is beautiful, and her name is Connie. Oates lets the reader know that “everything about her [Connie] had two sides to it, one for home, and one for anywhere but home (27). When Connie goes out, she acts and dresses more mature than she probably should. However, when she is at home, she spends the majority of her time absorbed with daydreams “about the boys she met”(28). This daydreaming behavior is observable to the reader throughout the story. From theories about dreams, theories about subconscious thought, and the clues that Oates provides, the reader is lead to believe that Connie’s experience with Arnold Friend is a nightmare used to awaken her to the consequences that her behavior could result in.
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”
A mysterious car pulled into Connie’s driveway and the driver proceeds to get out of his vehicle, showing that he belonged there, not recognizing the car Connie opens the door to her house and leans out it. “She went into the kitchen and approached the door slowly, then hung out the screen door,” (2). Without even knowing who or why this person has come to her house, Connie opens her door and leans out to possible talk to the driver, who would turn out to be Arnold Friend and wants to take her on a “date”. Connie’s ignorance towards Arnold and his arrival almost immediately puts her in a vulnerable state without her even realizing it, this vulnerability would be the first event to foreshadow Connie’s inevitable kidnapping. After greeting and talking to Arnold for a little, he proceeds to ask Connie if she wants to go for a ride in his car. Instead of turning down the offer since she barely, if at all, knew Arnold, Connie somewhat debates it. “Connie smirked and let her hair fall loose over her shoulder,” (3). Though she lacks any information about Arnold, Connie kind of debates taking up his offer to go for a ride, further letting her ignorance towards the entire situation usher her into an even more vulnerable
Joyce Carol Oates' short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" written in the late sixties, reveals several explanations of its plot. The story revolves around a young girl being seduced, kidnapped, raped and then killed. The story is purposely vague and that may lead to different interpretations. Teenage sex is one way to look at it while drug use or the eerie thought that something supernatural may be happening may be another. The story combines elements of what everyone may have experienced as an adolescent mixed with the unexpected dangers of vanity, drugs, music and trust at an early age. Ultimately, it is up to the reader to choose what the real meaning of this story is. At one point or another one has encountered, either through personal experience or through observation, a teenager who believes that the world is plotting against them. The angst of older siblings, peer pressure set upon them by their friends, the need for individualism, and the false pretense that at fifteen years of age, they are grown are all factors which affect the main character in this story.
During the teenage years they no longer want to be labeled the “child; matter of fact, they have a strong desire to rebel against the family norms and move quickly into adulthood. This transition and want for freedom can be a very powerful and frightening thing as there are evils in this world that cannot be explained. Most parents try to understand and give their teens certain freedoms, but at what expense? Joyce Oates gives us a chilly story about a teenager that wanted and craved this freedom of adulthood called “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”. This is a haunting story of a young girl by the name of Connie who gives us a glimpse of teenager transitioning from childhood with the need for freedom and the consequences of her actions. Connie is described as a very attractive girl who did not like her role in the family unit. She was the daughter who could not compare to her older sister and she felt her Mom showed favoritism towards her sister. Connie is your average teen who loves music, going out with friends, and she likes the attention she receives from boys. During this time, Connie is also growing into her sexuality and is obsessing with her looks as she wants and likes to be noticed by the opposite sex. Her sexual persona and need to be free will be what is fatal to her character’s life and well-being.
Oates takes us to a journey of rebellion as the protagonist sorts through self-created illusion in order to come to terms with her own sexual inexperience. Connie’s desires for attention from the opposite sex, her vanity and immaturity blind her to think of the real intentions of guys, in this case Arnold Friend. A character that many critics argue is real, yet, others argue it was created by Connie’s mind.
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
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
Rubin attempts to convey the idea that Connie falls asleep in the sun and has a daydream in which her “…intense desire for total sexual experience runs headlong into her innate fear…” (58); and aspects of the story do seem dream like - for instance the way in which the boys in Connie’s daydreams “…dissolved into a single face…” (210), but the supposition that the entire episode is a dream does not ring true. There are many instances in which Connie perceives the frightening truth quite clearly; she is able to identify the many separate elements of Friend’s persona - “… that slippery friendly smile of his… [and] the singsong way he talked…” (214). But because of the lack of attachment with her own family, and her limited experience in relating deeply to others, “…all of these things did not come together” (214) and Connie is unable to recognize the real danger that Arnold Friend poses until it is too late.
At first, the reader might think that this short story is about a stereotypical teenage girl but there are a few symbols that hint at a more gothic, or grotesque nature. For example, after the main antagonist, Arnold Friend, shows up at Connie’s home unannounced and uninvited, he gives her a secret code. The passage states, “He read off the numbers 33, 19, 17 and raised his eyebrows at her to see what she thought of that, but she didn’t think much of it” (Oates 328). But why was this code given? Arnold was unsuccessful with his hidden innuendo to Connie. If the numbers that were given are added up they make the number 69. This is a sexual act, so therefore Arnold Friend is dropping hints of wanting to perform sexual acts with Connie. With her consent, or without it. The antagonist’s name and physical characteristics can be seen as a hidden message of danger. "Arnold Friend", if one were to take out the “R's”, the reader is left with is "An Old Fiend". This is a reference to the