In this story the main characters name is Connie. From reading the story and getting to know who Connie is I feel that she had the mind of a girl and tried to act like a grown woman for attention, she knows how she acts away from home would be inappropriate and disapproved by her mother, she used her looks and clothes to attract boys and get attention in the wrong way, and a grown woman would have known that Arnold was bad news. I think if Connie got more attention at home that she'd act more like a teenage girl who likes guy around her age, want to be with her family more often, and focus more on living life. She is just looking for someone to love her, but she has been emotionally abandoned.
Connie knows how she acts away from home would be inappropriate and disapproved by her mother. In the story it says how her mother envies her and is always after her. If her mother could have been a better woman herself Connie wouldn't have turned out the way she was. At the beginning of the story it says “She wore a pull-over jersey blouse that looked one-way when she was at home and another way when she was from home.”(627) I know most teenagers are sneaky and private at this age, but Connie almost lived two separate lives because she can't feel comfortable at home. Even though her parents wouldn't think they've done anything to her, they have. Yes, they have given her a roof over her head, food, water, and all the other essentials; but they forgot to love her. ” Abandonment represents core human fear. We have all experienced it. When a relationship ends, the feelings harken all the way back to our lost childhoods when we were helpless, and dependent. Our adult functioning temporarily collapses. We feel shattered, bewildered, condemned to...
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...s bad news. If she had done things differently like reporting Arnold the first night she saw him with Eddie or Calling the police when she saw the unfamiliar car she would probably still be with her family.
Works Cited
Bacon, Dan. "What Do Modern Women Want in a Man?" The Modern Man. N.p., 9 Oct. 2010. Web. 24 Apr. 2014. . (Bacon)
Anderson, Susan. "Frequently Asked Abandonment Questions Answered By Susan Anderson." Abandonmentnet RSS. N.p., 3 Aug. 2011. Web. 24 Apr. 2014. . (Anderson)
Paul, Margaret. "Relationships: Why You Attract Who You Attract." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 15 May 2012. Web. 24 Apr. 2014. .
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.
Arnold Friend takes advantage of Connie’s teenage innocence for something of a much more sinister purpose. Connie thought she had it all figured out until Arnold Friend came into her life and up her driveway on one summer, Sunday afternoon and made her realize how big and scary the world can be. Arnold embodies everything that Connie has dreamed about in a boy, but is in the most malevolent form of Connie’s dream boy. She always wanted to get away from her family because she has always felt as if she didn’t belong and Arnold can make this possible just in the most predatory way. She always thought sex would be sweet (and consensual) and that she would be in charge of how it progressed, Arnold strips her of the authority she’s held in any other encounter with a boy. The moral of the story is always be careful what you wish
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
Connie's actions also played a big role in her abduction. Connie liked to go out and hang out with guys. She liked to hang out with different guys, not the same one every night. Guys talk about girls like this and spread nasty rumors about them. These rumors probably did not escape the ears of Arnold Friend. So even before he saw Connie for the first time he probably had the idea that she was easy. He said as much towards the end of the story when he started naming people she knew and telling her that they told him things about her (Oates 983).
that she omnisciently sees herself walk out to Arnold Friend and her inevitable ruin. Connie steps
Joyce Carol Oates' short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" written in the late sixties, reveals several explanations of its plot. The story revolves around a young girl being seduced, kidnapped, raped and then killed. The story is purposely vague and that may lead to different interpretations. Teenage sex is one way to look at it while drug use or the eerie thought that something supernatural may be happening may be another. The story combines elements of what everyone may have experienced as an adolescent mixed with the unexpected dangers of vanity, drugs, music and trust at an early age. Ultimately, it is up to the reader to choose what the real meaning of this story is. At one point or another one has encountered, either through personal experience or through observation, a teenager who believes that the world is plotting against them. The angst of older siblings, peer pressure set upon them by their friends, the need for individualism, and the false pretense that at fifteen years of age, they are grown are all factors which affect the main character in this story.
Connie was tired of the life she was living and, she was ready to make decisions for herself and to deal with the consequences for them. She knew that if her parents found out about her going to the diner that she would be in trouble. Connie did not care about the consequences for her actions. She felt like it was time to grow up and be a woman. She wanted to start to experiment with her sexuality. Connie wanted boys to start to notice her and talk to her. Connie thinks that guys could be her savior by helping deliver her from the pressure and anxieties from her sister and mother. Her going out on her own makes her realize that she does not have to please anyone, only herself. When Connie and her friend went to the diner she met this guy Arnold. Obviously being with Eddie for three hours in a dark alley and diner was not the best first move for her. This is the one decision that will change her life forever. This was probably the first guy that gave Connie some attention. So obviously she is going to soak him up and just...
Where Have You Been?”, Connie’s self-absorbed and narcissistic behavior is abandoned when she is faced with a life-threatening decision that could determine the safety of her family. Connie starts as a self-absorbed and acutely superficial teenage girl who does her best to portray only her most positive characteristics to the world. In actuality, she has a dysfunctional home, her mother is constantly comparing Connie to her worse-looking but more well-kept sister, and she has virtually no relationship with her father. These are all signs of a severely dysfunctional family. In the narrator's words: “Everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home” (Oates 320). In Connie’s mind, perceived perfection is of the utmost importance, and she leaves all of her grievances behind in social interactions. Specifically, her beauty is what she values most about herself,. Connie believes that “ … she was pretty and that was everything” (Oates 331) It is clear that Connie views things from a very shallow perspective, failing to understand the greater attributes that a person may have. However, when faced with a life-altering threat, Connie’s values abruptly change. When Arnold, a man who claims to be Connie’s age and is later hinted at to be a sexual predator, arrives at her door, Connie begins to understand the now higher stakes at hand and the values she must embrace. When Connie feels threatened and claims that her
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).
Barstow explains, “Connie shuts the door on childhood. Oates seems to suggest that if either one of them had made the effort to communicate, Connie might have remained safely a child until old enough to choose the future,” (P:6). This quote is particularly interesting because it is referencing directly to Connie’s childhood and bringing in that nurturing aspect that is being studied. Barstow is directly explaining that because her and her mother did not communicate, Connie is led to grow out of her childhood stage at a younger age, yet she is still very immature and vain in many ways and is not ready to grow out of it yet. Throughout the story of Where are you Going… Connie is caught in between that middle stage of childhood and adult and she thinks she has got life all figured out, but in reality, her actions of vanity and disobeying her parents prove otherwise. By over-nurturing and not communicating with her child more, Connie’s mother has provided this framework for her to be an ‘adult-child’ therefore causing her to be vain make wrong decisions; Connie wasn’t born this way, it was the negative over-nurturing that made her the way she
A mysterious car pulled into Connie’s driveway and the driver proceeds to get out of his vehicle, showing that he belonged there, not recognizing the car Connie opens the door to her house and leans out it. “She went into the kitchen and approached the door slowly, then hung out the screen door,” (2). Without even knowing who or why this person has come to her house, Connie opens her door and leans out to possible talk to the driver, who would turn out to be Arnold Friend and wants to take her on a “date”. Connie’s ignorance towards Arnold and his arrival almost immediately puts her in a vulnerable state without her even realizing it, this vulnerability would be the first event to foreshadow Connie’s inevitable kidnapping. After greeting and talking to Arnold for a little, he proceeds to ask Connie if she wants to go for a ride in his car. Instead of turning down the offer since she barely, if at all, knew Arnold, Connie somewhat debates it. “Connie smirked and let her hair fall loose over her shoulder,” (3). Though she lacks any information about Arnold, Connie kind of debates taking up his offer to go for a ride, further letting her ignorance towards the entire situation usher her into an even more vulnerable
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 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
Since Connie is a teenager, she relies on her parents to take care of her and provide for her. Even though she fights against her family, they are still the foundation of the only life Connie knows. Her constant need of approval from men becomes a habit for Connie because she doesn’t get approval at home, instead she gets disapproval. “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.” Because of this criticism, she isolates herself from her parents. For her, her only way of getting approval is to be independent from her parents and those who are trying to protect her. Connie’s search for independence only comes to her but only in a harsh
Parent/Child relationships are very hard to establish among individuals. This particular relationship is very important for the child from birth because it helps the child to be able to understand moral and values of life that should be taught by the parent(s). In the short story “Teenage Wasteland”, Daisy (mother) fails to provide the proper love and care that should be given to her children. Daisy is an unfit parent that allows herself to manipulated by lacking self confidence, communication, and patience.