There is a young woman name Connie she is very vibrant and confident. Connie big sister June was talked about all the time, so Connie was living under June shadow. Connie and her mother never got along and her dad did not even pay her attention. Connie just wanted attention from her family and someone to talk to her, but she starts drawing the wrong attention. In the passage Connie either a helpless victim or a hero saving her family. Connie is a young girl that just wants to have fun, but in the end it was no fun at all. Connie is a young-minded, but her sister was more appreciated then she was. Connie mother and sisters would talk about all the good June does. Connie mother would say “why don’t you keep your room clean like your
sister?” (Oates 1) Connie mother would criticize Connie and make her feel like she is nobody. Connie mother would keep bugging her till she wished one day her mother was dead and her as well. Connie would let her parents know that she going to the movies, but in reality she is really in a restaurants talking to boys. When Connie would come home from the movies, her family would ask her how was the movie and she would answer with a brief statement. Her mother did not really pay attention she just went with what Connie said and left it at that. Connie mother did not hate Connie she just did not approve of the things she did; Connie is just a teenager that wants to have fun and want to feel important. Connie parent’s let her make her own decisions, but on this particular day they should have put their foot down and put her in her place. Connie and her family are going to a family Davis 2 gathering and Connie said she did not want to go, so she stayed at home. There was a man who came over Connie house, but she did not know who he was. His name was Arnold Friend; he had came to her house without her consent. Arnold is trying to smooth talk her, he smiles at Connie and said “just for a ride, Connie sweetheart” (Oates 4). Arnold is a guy that has been watching Connie moves and knows things about her family that she never told him. Arnold knows that Connie family is not home, so he is taking advantage of that. Connie is a young girl that her family sort of abandon, and all she wanted was for someone to care. So, at the end Arnold made Connie choose between leaving with him to save her family or stay inside and he will harm her family. Is Connie a hero or a victim based off of her decision. Connie is a hero and a victim, because she saves her family even though she did not appreciate them; she is a victim because she had to learn on her own with no one to help. Connie parents did not pay her any attention. Connie is a pretty, innocent, and vulnerable girl so she is easy to take advantage of. Despite what her family did not do for her, she loves them deep down; all she every wanted from her family was attention, for them to care, and to treat her like the daughter she is.
Using the block method I will illustrate the differences and similarities of Connie’s character verses her sister June’s character from the story where are you going, where have you been. The story is about a protagonist fifteen year old girl called Connie who is living in her rebellious adolescent stage. She does not enjoy the fact that she is living with her family and most of the time she lets her mind wander into daydreaming spending time with the boys. Connie’s tenacious nature makes her almost argue with her mother about every little issue. Her older sister June who is twenty four on the other hand gets along well with her mother and she is considered the better of the two, June is an obedient hardworking lass who works as the secretary at Connie’s high school . She is tranquil in nature and does her chores with no fuss at all. Connie’s mother plays an important role on the story to bring out Connie’s character, she is envious of Connie’s beauty and her youthful nature. Connie’s dad on the other hand is more of a workaho...
I think Connie opened the screen door because she wanted to escape from her life with her family into some kind of fantasy. I think there were other reasons also, but the story points to this one in many places.
...en-year-old girl”. She has now changed mentally into “someone much older”. The loss of her beloved brother means “nothing [will] ever be the same again, for her, for her family, for her brother”. She is losing her “happy” character, and now has a “viole[nt]” personality, that “[is] new to her”. A child losing its family causes a loss of innocence.
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.
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.
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...
In the story ‘Where are you going, Where have you been?’ by Joyce we can get an insight into Connie's relationship with her mom using the first description we see about Connie's mother and she “noticed everything and knew everything”(4). Here we
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”
The heroine, Mrs. P, has some carries some characteristics parallel to Louise Mallard in “Hour.” The women of her time are limited by cultural convention. Yet, Mrs. P, (like Louise) begins to experience a new freedom of imagination, a zest for life , in the immediate absence of her husband. She realizes, through interior monologues, that she has been held back, that her station in life cannot and will not afford her the kind of freedom to explore freely and openly the emotions that are as much a part of her as they are not a part of Leonce. Here is a primary irony.
Mrs. Mallard’s repressed married life is a secret that she keeps to herself. She is not open and honest with her sister Josephine who has shown nothing but concern. This is clearly evident in the great care that her sister and husband’s friend Richard show to break the news of her husband’s tragic death as gently as they can. They think that she is so much in love with him that hearing the news of his death would aggravate her poor heart condition and lead to death. Little do they know that she did not love him dearly at all and in fact took the news in a very positive way, opening her arms to welcome a new life without her husband. This can be seen in the fact that when she storms into her room and her focus shifts drastically from that of her husband’s death to nature that is symbolic of new life and possibilities awaiting her. Her senses came to life; they come alive to the beauty in the nature. Her eyes could reach the vastness of the sky; she could smell the delicious breath of rain in the air; and ears became attentive to a song f...
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).
tragedies that befell her. She is an example of a melancholic character that is not able to let go of her loss and therefore lets it t...
The passage portrays a power struggle in Laura’s upbringing and a young girl's attempt to establish her own identity. Laura is a caring and sensitive young person who struggles with her own and her family's perceptions of class difference. It is evident that Laura is self-consciousness regarding her own youth and inexperience with her encounter with the workmen, it brings a sense as that she has no or little control of the situation in the passage, soon loses her composure and the workmen become frustrated.
When first reading this short story the character of an older woman comes to mind only to find later in an important passage “She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength (Clugston, 2010, sec 2.1). This passage finally gives the reader a detailing idea of the woman in this story and defines her as a younger woman rather than an older one. This may l...