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Essays on abusive relationships
Essays on abusive relationships
Essays on abusive relationships
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Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” leaves readers wondering what exactly happens to Connie, the main character, at the end of the story. Connie is a typical teenaged girl who would rather listen to music and flirt with boys than allocate any of her precious time to her family. While Connie is home alone on a warm summer day, a man in a convertible jalopy arrives at her house. She recognizes the man from the night before and he encourages Connie to go for a ride with him. As Connie’s hesitation grows, the man’s tone becomes more threatening, leaving Connie in a panicked state. Indistinct detail used by Oates leaves the ending of the story open to interpretation. The attack on Connie and the events leading …show more content…
Arnold threatens Connie, as well as her family on numerous occasions throughout the story. These threats indicate that something terrible will happen to Connie, hinting that Arnold will kill Connie, if she refuses to obey his demands. To keep Connie from calling for help, Arnold says, “Soon as you touch the phone I don’t need to keep my promise and can come inside. You won’t want that” (Oates). Arnold continues to threaten Connie by saying, “If you don’t come out we’re gonna wait till your people come home and then they’re all going to get it” (Oates). Along with verbal threats, the language used to describe Connie being attacked suggests that she dies in the story. Connie is described as being violently attacked by Arnold Friend. The irregular and panicked breathing of Connie represents Arnold repeatedly stabbing her while she attempts to call for help. Despite Connie’s poor relationship with her mother, she still cries out for her, proving that Connie is in a great deal of danger. It is described that Connie, “Began to scream into the phone… She cried for her mother, she felt her breath start jerking back and forth in her lungs as if it were something Arnold Friend was stabbing her with again and again with no tenderness” (Oates). Another indication that alludes to Connie’s death is when Connie begins to accept her fate shortly after being attacked. Connie comes to a realization that she may not see her family again. She understands that she is dying and accepts the fact that she will never sleep in her own bed again. Connie’s wet blouse corresponds to the stabbing; representing the blood that has began to seep through her clothing. Oates shares, “She thought, I’m not going to see my mother again. She thought, I’m not going to sleep in my bed again. Her bright green blouse was all wet.” In addition to the attack on Connie and
I think in some strange way Arnold becomes to Connie the way to escape into her fantasy. When she learns his true intentions she is scared to death at first but eventually that fear gives way to "an emptiness." Connie thinks, "I'm not going to see my mother again... I'm not going to sleep in my bed again.
"Connie, don't fool around with me. I mean—I mean, don't fool around," he said, shaking his head. He laughed incredulously. He placed his sunglasses on top of his head, carefully, as if he were indeed wearing a wig…” (Oates 6). Joyce Carol Oates’ short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” highlights an altercation, meeting, conflict and dispute between a teenage girl, named Connie, and a psychotic rapist named Arnold Friend. Throughout their altercation, Arnold Friend tempts and encourages Connie to get in the car with him and lead her to a variety of possible dangerous situations, one of which includes her getting raped . There is no doubt that Joyce Carol Oates’ uses Arnold Friend in her short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” to symbolize the Devil and embody all of the evil and sinister forces that are present in our world. This becomes apparent when the reader focuses on how deranged Arnold Friend is and begins to
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
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.
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.
”Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?” is a short story written by Joyce Carol Oates, which explores the life of a teenage girl named Connie. One of the issues this story divulges is the various stresses of adolescence. Connie, like so many others, is pressured to conform according to different social pressures, which displays the lack of respect female adolescents face. The music culture, young men, and family infringe upon young female minds to persuade them to look or act in certain ways, showing a disrespect for these girls. While some perhaps intend their influence for good, when put into practice, the outcome often has a negative effect. Moreover, this can lead young women to confusion and a lack of self-respect, which proves
Oates, Joyce Carol. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”. Backpack Literature. An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. X.J. Kennedy & Dana Gioia. 4th ed. New Jersey: Pearson, 2006. (323-336). Print.
Joyce Carol Oates is known for stories that have an everlasting effect on readers. Oates writing style was explained best herself, “I would like to create the physiological and emotional equivalent of an experience, so completely and in such exhaustive detail, that anyone who reads it sympathetically will have experienced that event in his mind” (Joslin 372). Oates’ short story Where are You going, Where have you been? perfectly fits the description of her work by placing the protagonist of the story Connie in a very uncomfortable situation with the antagonist Arnold Friend. The story focuses the aforementioned Connie and Arnold, Connie is 15 year old girl who loves the spotlight and all the attention that comes with it. Her beauty and vibrant
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
Jackson does not reveal the woman's fate until the end of her story, while in Oates’s story, I Knew from the beginning that the young girl’s situation was not going to end pretty. As Michael Timko of News world Communications would say, “While the author declined to tell what she meant, she does provide the careful reader with some clues. The full impact of the story depends on absorbing the various literary nuances of the story, especially tone, irony, and theme” (Timko). He proves that Jackson gives a few hints but the ending is still in the air until Jackson finally reveals her fate in the end of the story. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” the fate of Connie is clear, As Laura Kalpakian of The Southern Review stated, “She has no volition, no choices, and therefore it's hard to see her even as
Connie Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is told in chronological order with the third person point of view. The story mainly talks about how naive Connnie, the main character grows up and become a mature girl. In the beginning of the story, the writer describes Connie as a confident, pretty, and young girl. Connie does not like her sister June because her mother always compare her with her sister. She even wishes her sister to be dead. Her father only hangs around with family when they are having a dinner, but he only read newspapers and when he is done, he just leaves and go to bed. From here, the exposition of the story ended and the inciting event occurs. She often hangs out with her friends outside and one night, they go out and meet a boy Eddie and a man
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.
Oates, Joyce C. "Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?" Compact Literature. By Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. 8th ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2013. 505-16. Print.
Oates, Joyce Carol. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Backpack Literature. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2010. Print.
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.