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
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serious and suspenseful tone of voice, and the maturity of Connie’s dynamic character to develop the theme of the struggle of searching for independence and individuality. Throughout the story, Connie’s home is a place where her naïve and adolescence still partially remains. Connie is described as having two different sides, “Everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home” (627). Inside her home, Connie appears almost childish, but outside of her home Connie tries to act like a sophisticated and seductive woman, “her walk that could be childlike and bobbing, or languid enough to make anyone think she was here music in her head” (627). As Connie searches for her individuality, she becomes caught between adolescence and adulthood, resulting in the two different sides Connie portrays in the story. Not only does Connie’s home symbolize her less mature and naïve side, it also symbolizes protection and safety. Her home was the place Connie could be her true self and feel comfortable. When Connie first hears the sound of Arnold Friend’s car coming up the drive, she immediately turned to her home as her source of protection, “She went into the kitchen and approached the door slowly” (629). Outside of her home, Connie carries herself as confident and fearless, but inside her home she is less confident and fearless, and instead she is cautious and suspicious. Connie’s home is where she is able to let her guard down and not pretend to be someone she is not, but when Arnold Friend arrives, that all quickly comes to an end. Connie instead is thrown into adulthood by having to figure out how she will escape the nightmare she is living. As Connie is leaving her house to go with Arnold Friend, she does not recognize the place she once called home, “so much land that Connie had never seen before and did not recognize” (637). Before, Connie’s home was her safe place and her protection, but now it is unrecognizable to her. She came to the realization that even in her home there can be danger. The symbolism of Connie’s home allows the readers to see just how much Connie’s home affects her struggle to become independent and an individual. Through the author’s tone of voice, the readers are better able to understand the theme of the struggle of searching for individuality and independence. Oates begins the short story by using a serious and descriptive tone to emphasize important concepts. For example, the first sentence of the story is, “Her name was Connie” (626). Oates wastes no time and jumps directly into describing Connie. The sentence is also short in syntax, thus supporting that Oates’ tone is very serious and to the point. She does not include any humor or lightness in her descriptions, “It was a boy with shaggy black hair, in a convertible jalopy painted gold” (628). Throughout the story, Oates remains direct and deliberate in her choice of words to support that Connie is in the process of finding herself. Towards the middle of the story, Oates begins to add suspense into the story when describing Arnold Friend’s character, “He laughed as if she had said something funny. He slapped his thighs. He was standing in a strange way” (630). Immediately after describing Arnold Friend, readers get an eerie feeling that something is not right with him, “he had shaggy, shabby black hair that looked crazy as a wig and he was grinning at her” (629). Not only do the readers suspect something bad is about to happen, but Connie does as well. She begins to feel dizzy and sick when she realizes he is not a teenager. The suspenseful tone leaves the readers wanting to read more to find out what happens to Connie. Oates also uses a suspenseful tone to exemplify the change as a character Connie is transitioning into. Connie transitions into a carefree and confident teenage girl into a cautious and worried woman, “The watched herself push the door slowly open as if she was were safe back somewhere in the other door way” (637). This shows the transition Connie has made due to her encounter with Arnold Friend. Throughout the story, Connie slowly begins to change and mature from a self-centered and naïve girl into a cautious and caring adult.
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
her mother know just what she thought of it” (628). Connie chooses to stay home alone instead of spending any time with her family, which supports the statement that Connie does not care about her family. However, this statement is ultimately proven wrong by the end of the story when she sacrifices her own life for the safety of her family. At the end of the story, Arnold Friend says, “You don’t want them to get hurt. Now get up, honey” (636). Connie stands up right away and does not second guess what she is choosing to do. She willingly goes with Arnold Friend in order to save her family from harm. Connie was forced to mature and become independent all at once because of Arnold Friend. Through Oates use of symbolism of the home, serious and suspenseful tone of voice, and the characterization of Connie, Oates is able to support the main theme of “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” which is the search for independence and individuality. Connie was forced to transition from a confident and self-centered girl into a terrified and realistic adult. The transition from adolescence to adulthood is one that takes place in every person’s life, but the details of how and when this transition happens is different for every person. For Connie, her transition to be independent and an individual was caused by her traumatic experience with Arnold Friend.
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.
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.
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.
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' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" is about a young girl's struggle to escape reality while defying authority and portraying herself as a beauty queen; ultimately, she is forced back to reality when confronted by a man who symbolizes her demise. The young girl, Connie, is hell- bent on not becoming like her mother or sister. She feels she is above them because she is prettier. She wants to live in a "dream world" where she listens to music all day and lives with Prince Charming. She does not encounter Prince Charming but is visited by someone, Arnold Friend, who embodies the soul of something evil. Arnold Friend symbolizes "Death" in that he is going to take Connie away from the world she once knew. Even if she is not dead, she will never be the same person again, and will be dead in spirit. With the incorporation of irony, Oates illustrates how Connie's self-infatuation, her sole reason for living, is the reason she is faced with such a terrible situation possibly ending her life.
In her famous short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” Joyce Carol Oates shows the transition from childhood to adulthood through her character Connie. Each person experiences this transition in their own way and time. For some it is leaving home for the first time to go to college, for others it might be having to step up to a leadership position. No matter what, this transition affects everyone; it just happens to everyone differently. Oates describes Connie's unfortunate coming of age in a much more violent and unexpected way than the typical coming of age story for a fifteen year old girl.
As I began reading “Where are you going, where have you been?” by Joyce Carol Oates I found myself relating the experiences of Connie, the girl in the story, to my own personal experiences. She spoke of going to a friend’s house and having her friend’s father drive them to the shopping mall so that they could walk around and socialize or go see a movie. I found that this related very closely with my own experiences of being fifteen years old because it was always someone else’s parents driving my friends and I to the movies or to the mall.
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
In the story “Where are you going, Where have you been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, the main character, Connie, experiences life not having an actively participating mother or father. Most adolescents struggle with the transition from teen-age years to adulthood. For many, this is where the parents step in. Parents are meant to support and help an adolescent when needed, especially during this difficult transition; however, this is not always true. In Connie’s case, her parents allowed her to make the change alone and endure hard times. As a result, she lacked the values needed to survive. Such values are used to equip a young person for the real world and the tragedies that come with it. As seen in “Where are you going, Where have you been?”, Connie was a victim of poor guidance and empty judgment. The dysfunctional family’s behavior was reflected in Connie. Her mother envied her, and her father was not an active figure in her life. Connie 's
In the short story “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?”, by Joyce Carol Oates, the use of the symbolism of Connie’s clothes, her fascination with her beauty, Arnold Friend’s car and Arnold Friend himself help to understand the story’s theme of evil and manipulation. The story, peppered with underlying tones of evil, finds Oates writing about 15-year-old Connie, the protagonist of the story, a pretty girl who is a little too into her own attractiveness, which eventually gets her into trouble with a man named Arnold Friend. The story is liberally doused with symbolism, from the way Connie dresses to the shoes on Arnold Friend’s feet. In “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?” the reader can pick up on some of the symbols very easily, while others need deeper thought. The subtle hints of symbolism throughout the story create a riveting tale that draws the reader in. Connie finally succumbs to Arnold Friend at the end of the story, it then becomes obvious that he represents the devil and the symbolism of her clothing and Arnold’s car all tie together to create a better understanding of the story.
Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” tells the tale of a fifteen year old girl named Connie living in the early 1960’s who is stalked and ultimately abducted by a man who calls himself Arnold Friend. The short story is based on a true event, but has been analyzed by many literary scholars and allegedly possesses numerous underlying themes. Two of the most popular interpretations of the story are that the entire scenario is only dreamt by Connie (Rubin, 58) and that the abductor is really the devil in disguise (Easterly, 537). But the truth is that sometimes people really can just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Connie, a victim of terrifying circumstance will be forever changed by her interactions with Friend.
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...
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'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
In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, the story of a young girl involving her life style, family and friends. Connie is a typical girl that many of us could relate to, outgoing, friendly and a pretty but, she didn’t have the best relationship with her family. In the story a doorway is being used to represent Connie leaving behind the known to what could be her worst fear. Arnold Friend, comes to put in a valance Connie’s believes and the love for her family.