Everything is not always what it seems when you are inexperienced. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates (1966) is a short story about a character’s coming of age event. In Joseph Campbell’s monomyth “Hero’s Journey” he describes the hero’s departure, or separation, from childhood and into adulthood marked by an occurrence. This stage transpires when the main character, Connie, is faced with a petrifying situation when two men, Arnold and Ellie, try to abduct her. Connie goes from inexperienced to experienced by force. The story is written in third person limited point of view. Connie is referred to as she, however, the reader knows her feelings, thoughts and what she observes. For example, “At this knowledge her …show more content…
heart began to pound faster” (Joyce Carol Oates page 5). The reader is still able to connect with the fear she is experiencing throughout the story even though it is written in third person point of view. Many superficial appearances exist in the story that turn out to be different once inspected. This includes Connie’s detestation for her mother, Arnold’s facade and Connie’s exterior persona. To begin with, everything is not always what it seems when you are inexperienced because Connie loathes her mother until she is in danger. Connie is young and attractive. Her mother could be viewed as envious at times because she is constantly trying to make Connie feel less than and mocks her. In the story it says “Connie's mother kept picking at her until Connie wished her mother was dead” (Joyce Carol Oates page 1), this demonstrates the bad relationship between the mother and daughter. This changes once Connie is in a life threatening situation. “She began to scream into the phone, into the roaring. She cried out, she cried for her mother” (Joyce Carol Oates page 8). Even though Connie disliked her mom when she was inexperienced, she calls out for help from her mother during the menacing situation. In spite of the fact that Connie is only 15, she always believed she was mature. This shows her transition to adulthood because Connie gets the rude awakening that she must be mature now and her mother can not save her. Secondly, everything is not always what it seems when you are inexperienced because of Arnold’s facade. In the beginning of the story, Connie goes to the drive-in and Arnold catches her attention because he is older and mysterious. Arnold charmed Connie, although she was reluctant, with music and his sweet-talking. The author uses dialogue to paint the picture of Arnold being a smooth and appealing man. Connie describes the way he spoke as “a fast, bright monotone” (Joyce Carol Oates page 3). However, what use to attract Connie about him, such as his appearance and confident manner, is what ends up alarming her. She quickly notices that he is pale and has exterior abnormalities. Then he brings up information about her family and friends which Carrie finds interesting yet frightening. Nevertheless, that all changes once Arnold becomes inappropriate and aggressive with Connie. His assertive and threatening tone, such as “If the place got lit up with a fire, honey, you'd come runnin' out into my arms, right into my arms an' safe at home” ( Joyce Carol Oates page 7) reveal his true hostile nature. Arnold is the villain of the story. He represents the evil reality of adulthood metaphorically and a vicious stalker literally. The coming of age theme is conveyed because she sees through innocent flirting and recognizes Arnold’s true intentions. Finally, everything is not always what it seems when you are inexperienced because of Connie’s exterior persona.
Connie conveyed herself as attractive, youthful, promiscuous and mature. She loved attention from boys and loved being able to reject them. She found enjoyment in deceiving her parents, flirting with boys and gussying herself up. Because this is a story about Connie, she is the hero. Although she ends up submitting to the villain, Arnold, she can be viewed as heroic for her obedient personality in order to ensure her family’s safety. Her childish and immature manner is revealed when she is confronted by Arnold and adulthood. This is demonstrated in her reactions to sex, “She put her hands up against her ears as if she'd heard something terrible, something not meant for her. "People don't talk like that, you're crazy,"“(Joyce Carol Oates page 6). The topic of sex is casual for adults but Connie finds the topic vulgar and felt completely out of place having a conversation about sex with an older man. She also does not realize how normal the topic of sex is because of her age. This implies she is much more childish than she perceived herself to be. Since the forceful experience she went through with Arnold, Connie now knows she was never too
mature. To conclude, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” makes a great coming of age story because it shows a young girl’s journey during a time where women were becoming much more sexually liberated. Despite the fact Connie was boy-crazy, she was in no way prepared for men. Connie was transforming from an inexperienced girl to an experienced woman. Readers can empathize with Connie’s coming of age moment because of her deviance from her parents and the event that ended their innocence, even if it wasn’t as violent or forceful as Connie’s. Many teenagers have a false-sense of maturity because they know the glamour of adulthood yet do not anticipate solitariness. Even though the ending to the story is puzzling, one can assume Connie will never be the same girl she was before the confrontation. Once you cross the threshold to adulthood and become experienced, you will have better judgement. Connie’s lack of judgement was due to her inexperience.
Julius Caesar is mentioned throughout the book, A Long Way Gone, many times. In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael would be reading Julius Caesar or a soldier would be reciting some of the speeches in the play. In Chapter 12 of A Long Way Gone, Ishmael is called over to talk with Lieutenant Jabati. Then, Lieutenant Jabati showed Ishmael the book he was reading, which was Julius Caesar, and asked Ishmael if he had ever heard of the book. Ishmael had read the book in school, and began to recite a speech from the book. After this happened, Lieutenant Jabati and Corporal Gadafi used emotional arguments to motivate the people in the village to stay there and support the military. Also, Lieutenant showed all the people in the village dead bodies to help
That’s right. Come over here to me… Now come out through the kitchen to me, honey, and let’s see a smile, try it, you’re a brave, sweet little girl’”(Oates 7). “She put her hand against the screen. She watch herself push the door slowly open as if she were back safe somewherein the other doorway, watching this body and this head of long hair moving out into the sunlight where Arnold Friend waited”(7). What had gotten into Connie, why would she go out with Arnold knowing that all he is going to do is hurt her. Readers may think she is a state of shock and the only thing she can do to protect her family is by going with Arnold.
By doing that, it also gave Arnold Friend a hint that she was easy to manipulate. Then, concerning the dialogue element, the explanation for both the movie and the short-story will be the same since I use the passage between Arnold Friend and Connie at her house. Since Connie is responding so naively at the very beginning of their conversation, it is almost certain that Arnold would succeed to manipulate her. In fact, the biggest mistake she made was to actually get out of the house and start the conversation with him: "She went into the kitchen and approached the door slowly, then hung out the screen door, her bare toes curling down off the step" (314). Through this action, it already gave Arnold Friend the idea that she is innocent and vulnerable; the only thing left was to seduce her with his words. Finally, I believe the movie would better suits the theme because we can visually observe how innocent she is with her mimics, her behaviour, her clothing. Although Oates’ short-story is very descriptive, the message behind this story doesn’t have the same effect on us than the
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 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...
Connie's character plays a big role in what ultimately happens to her. Connie is a vain girl that thinks the way you look is everything. She plays the stereotypical part for girls in today's society. She thinks that as long as you are pretty and dress a certain way then you are everything. This comes across when Oates writes "Connie thought that her mother preferred her to June because she was prettier" (980). By flaunting her looks she could easily give a guy like Arnold Friend perverted ideas about her. It could make them see her as easy, which he did.
This short story is about a girl trying to be an adult while still being a child. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, Connie tries to grow up too soon. Through setting Connie’s true self is revealed by characterization and figurative language through the house as a metaphor.
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
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’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.
The Cure's decisions in the beginning of their life set them up for the rest of their lives. The Cure, formed their band in 1976, two years after they issued their first song. The Cure has five members, but four of them have a history with each other, the fifth member joined in 2012. The four members are Robert Smith, Roger O'Donnell, Simon Gallup, and Jason Cooper. Roger Smith was born on April 21st, 1959 and was the guitarist for The Cure. Roger O'Donnell is a musician and a composer, he was raised in a musical family. When Roger O'Donnell was a child both his parents and his brother knew how to play the piano. When O'Donnell was 12 years old his brother taught him how to perform blues music on the piano. O'Donnell's parents encouraged
due to her family leaving to attend a barbeque. Like Chet, Connie also has to rely on herself to overcome her obstacles, such as the threatening Arnold Friend. Stegner and Oates both use this plot point in order to establish that their characters cannot rely on their family for help or protection, which emphasizes their transition to adulthood. In Stegner’s depiction, the purpose seems to be the successful overcoming of obstacles that a child, specifically a boy, has to go through in order to become a man.