where are you going, where have you been theme

Connie’s world depends upon and revolves around men. Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select. She resents her matronly sister June and engages in constant, petty fights with her jealous mother. Arnold Friend, the antagonist, attracted by her innocence and beauty, ruins Connie’s world when he comes to her house, being afraid to make an extra move “She was hollow with what had been fear but what was now just an emptiness” (Oates n.p.). As a teenager, she is dependent on the adults in her life for care and discipline as well as for enabling her social life. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? At the story’s beginning, Connie plays with asserting her will: she lies about her plans with friends and refuses to go to a family barbecue, upsetting her mother. Teran, Adriana. (1969, December 31). Visit BN.com to buy new and used textbooks, and check out our award-winning NOOK tablets and eReaders. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” fifteen-year-old girl Connie is confronted—and it’s implied, raped and killed—by a sinister stranger named Arnold Friend. “I’m your lover. Mistaking him for the type of boy she frequently attracts, she thinks she recognizes him from the sound of his car's horn, his clothing and physical appearance, and the line of banter with which he attempts to lure her into his car. This realization of some facts makes her a dynamic character. Likewise Arnold Friend’s identity is ambivalent. Connie’s desire to meet with boys to have their appraisal of her appearance is one more expression of her desire for independence. Mike Tierce and Larry Rubins have respectively suggested that he is a rock-and-roll messiah and a figment of Connie’s imagination (Gale 269, 272). Connie has the nervous habbit of craning (or stretching out) her neck to glance in mirrors. Lots of Essays. For example, he says, “I’m your lover. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Connie finds her potential future reflected in her mother, a wife who spends the day “scuffling around the house in old bedroom slippers” (3). You can use them for inspiration, an insight into a particular topic, a handy source of reference, or even just as a template of a certain type of paper. As the story unfolds, Friend manipulates and terrorizes Connie to such an extent that he becomes an embodiment of evil. When Arnold first arrives at Connie’s house, Connie believes that he is just another boy and only realizes later in the conversation that he is at least thirty, a fact he tries to camouflage with tight jeans, leather boots, and sunglasses. In LotsofEssays.com. He tells her that he doesn’t like fat women but instead “like[s] them the way” Connie is. Teenagers gather at strip malls to listen to pop music, increasingly alienated from tradition and their parents. IvyPanda, 30 Dec. 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/character-analysis-of-connie-a-girl-who-wants-independence/. 30 December. Yet it is also noted that “everything about [Connie] had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home.” While Connie presents herself as sexually alluring in public, at home she walks in a “childlike” manner and has “pale” lips. Her experiments with creating a sexy appearance and enticing boys in the local di… With the arrival of Arnold Friend, the already blurred line between fantasy and reality becomes even more confused and disturbing. You don’t know what that is but you will” and “The place where you came from ain’t there anymore, and where you had in mind to go is cancelled out.” Arnold, a strange and ambiguous character, embodies all the confusions, doubts, and fears that accompany any adolescent’s quest for independence. Perhaps she is being controlled completely. The passage’s explicit language suggests a sexual attack, but a couple lines later Arnold Friend is back outside the house. She may go into an alley with a boy for a few hours, but no matter what happens there, she will eventually be driven back home to the familiarity of her family. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Although Connie often fights against her family, particularly her mother and sister, they constitute the only life she really knows. Connie was not as well. In conclusion, it should be mentioned that we never know whether Connie accepts Arnold’s invitation for sure, but the final words of the story give us food for thinking. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Both Arnold and Connie contribute to these erroneous first impressions. Her friend’s father, for example, drives her and her friend to the movie theater. No one in Connie’s family “bother[s] with church” (3). Teenagers gather at strip malls to listen to pop music, increasingly alienated from tradition and their parents. His physical appearance makes him seem both human and less than human, and Oates never makes explicit whether he is reality or fantasy. Joyce M. Wegs argues in a widely cited essay that Arnold Friend is, in fact, the devil incarnate (Wegs 66). Arnold shows her that freedom is not as sweet as she thought and that she has to answer for the consequences. How old is Connie in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Connie is a teenager, and being fifteen years old, she feels that she is old enough to become independent, but she still has to be under parental control. ", A Fiend in Disguise in Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, View Wikipedia Entries for Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?…. He is manipulative, calculated, and clear in his... eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. In Connie’s case, her search concludes in the story on a dark, ominous note. Copyright © 2020 - IvyPanda is a trading name of Edustream Technologies LLC, a company registered in Wyoming, USA. Arnold assumes a role as a teenage Romeo although he is much older, and Connie accepts his facade because of her fondness for the "trashy daydreams" her mother accuses her of subscribing to. Bitter relationships between women extend beyond Connie: her mother and aunts spend hours on the phone complaining about one another. She is careful with the details of her appearance, such as carefully crossing her legs at the ankles, to present herself as fully alluring.

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