Arnold Friend is innocent because all he was doing was trying to get to know Connie better. He is innocent because you can’t judge a book by its cover Mr. Friend is wrongfully accused of stalking Connie, but all they were doing was just being kids and hanging out together. In this paper will show that Arnold Friend will proven innocent of stalking Connie since he was trying to get to know Connie better. Connie meet Mr. Friend at the plaza and the hung out together for sometime at this place and was seen by many people with Connie including Connie's friend Nancy Pettinger. The second time Connie and Mr. Friend meet up was at Connie’s house in which Connie came out of her house willingly and to get into a vehicle with Arnold and his Friend Ellie …show more content…
First, Connie was constantly going to hang out with her friend Nancy Pettinger, she was unsupervised a lot while she was with her friend. To the knowledge of Connie’s Mother she had no parental supervision well at the plaza, so this could mean that the girls could be doing anything while being alone together there. Second, Connie is know to be never home nor with her Family at events. She was constantly hanging out with her friend and known for being with boy. Third, Connie is known for having two sides of her home side was very different when she is away from home. Connie was very different from her home life to when she was out and about with her friends because she had a different walk, laugh, and even her color of her mouth was very different. Connie isn't a innocent child she is always doing things with her friend outside of her house and she was very different person to according to Connie’s …show more content…
For instance, at the dinner is where the waitress saw Connie and Arnold which is the first met each other and with Arnold's gold car that had some symbols on it. She said she saw Arnold’s gold car on the parking lot of the dinner and a lot of kids go there to hang out since there were a bunch it would be hard to tell if she saw Connie and Arnold Friend. Another instance ,Connie’s neighbors live a far distance away from Connie’s home since she lives in rural area. It is rough for them to say what exactly what was going on at her house at this time of Arnold was at her house with Ellie. They can't say they could hear what was happening there but they could see possible the gold car and the figures of the people that were there. Last instance, The Neighbors should have saw a vehicle in Connie's driveway if Arnold friend and Ellie were at there her home. They saw a car that was gold in the driveway of Connie's and the Golden Vehicle had some writing on if they look very carefully. The Car hop and the neighbors of Connie are not a credible witness to prove Arnold Friend Guilty for many
Throughout “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Arnold Friend is a very intimidating and mysterious character that is hard to figure out. Arnold knows everything about Connie, a teenage girl that he has never met before. He is very persistent with getting Connie to run away from her awful teenage life at home with him. Arnold’s appearance adds even more mystery to who he actually is. Arnold has a roughed up look to him, a secret code painted on his car that can be interpreted as a Bible verse, and he can not stand steady on his feet, because of all of these attributes Arnold appears that he is possibly Satan.
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.
It is mentioned multiple times that Arnold knows “‘lots of things’” (Oates 3). Not only does he know Connie, but he is able to list off a number of kids even though he himself is not from around there. Arnold is even able to call Connie on her bluff and confidently state that Connie’s family will not be coming back for her, and that they are at “‘Aunt Tillie’s sitting around drinking’” (Oates 6). The only way Arnold would be able to know exactly where and what Connie’s family is doing would be that he has supernatural powers— abilities that are commonly associated with the Devil. This theory is even more feasible when you realize that author stated that “‘Arnold Friend is a fantastic figure: he is Death, he is the 'elf-knight' of the ballads, he is the Imagination, he is a Dream, he is a Lover, a Demon, and all that.’” (Coulthard
My definition of evil is in its most general context, is taken as the absence of that which is ascribed as being good. Often, evil is used to denote profound immorality. In this situation I would have to say Arnold’s friend most exemplifies evil. Arnold Friend could be an allegorical devil figure, the protagonist who lures Connie into riding off with him in his car, or, in the contrary, far more a grotesque portrait of a psychopathic killer masquerading as a teenager. However, he has all the traditional, sinister traits of that arch deceiver and source of grotesque terror, the devil, with his painted eyelashes, shaggy hair, and stuffed boots. In the story, Oates does make Arnold out to be a psychopathic stalker, but never objectively states the diabolical nature to his character.
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).
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).
Arnold Friend’s layers of deception. Connie’s blindness is the pretext of her loss of innocence
Mother always blames the girl because Connie very often admires in front of a mirror. Also, mother constantly puts the older sister June as an example for Connie and it leads to alienation of the girl. Connie's father spends not enough time at home because he is busy on the work and when he returned to family, he just had supper, read newspapers and went to sleep, as a result, Connie feels a lack of parental attention. There is not enough love and care about each other in their family; therefore, they are
The mysterious Arnold Friend goes to Connie’s house. He tries to convince Connie to take a ride in his car. Most people will deny the offer, but seeing as though Connie is unruly, she is easily persuaded by Arnold . Arnold deceives Connie with his charm and ride. He takes her to a place where she does not know. We find that Mr. Friend is not so friendly, but a sick soul with a loose tongue. In addition to this I agree with author Christina Marsden Gills of “Short Story Criticism, vol.6” when she explains that:
At home Connie would listen to her Mom talk or gossip about other teens and what they were doing, but Connie never led on to her mother as to what she and her friends were doing. Connie would act very differently at home when she was around her family as if she was still in the childhood stage of being good, innocent, and obeying of her parents. Connie would day dream a lot about how life would be if ...
Arnold Friend is a demonic antagonist whose name is symbolic of the devil, having an allegorical meaning, when you drop the r’s you get “An old fiend” giving it affiliation with one of the devils many names, who met in the beginning of the story with Connie at a local teenager hangout spot. He creates tension and makes an X sign with his hand in the air marking Connie as his victim, while she is on a date with another teenager. Arnold Friend shows up to Connie’s house and tries to entice her outside of her house so he can take her innocence away and make her an adult. “Yes, I’m your lover. You don't know what that is but you will.” Arnold Friend comes to take Connies innocence and life into adulthood as Arnold Friend but, there are plot elements throughout the story pointing towards Arnold Friend being a demonic adversary of Connie. Arnold Friend has a dark complexion but not from being tan, his boots do not fit correctly pointing at the fact that he doesn't have real feet, and he could not come into the house to get connie without being invited in like the devil.
Arnold Friend is an important character in Connie’s story because he is one of the main reasons she goes undergoes a change. In short, while Connie is going through a teenage phase of exploring sexuality, he comes to Connie’s house to take her with the intention of raping her. More importantly he is portrayed with some of devilish appearances and behavior, to stress the idea of the situation Connie has gotten into and the meaning of her transition. The devil archetype is seen as an evil character that embodies devil characteristics as well as tempting the protagonist with things that will ruin their soul. Thesis Statement!!!! Some evidence that Arnold Friend is the devil incarnate are the facts that he does not cross threshold, he seems to be all-knowing and he has to tempt and persuade Connie to leave with him.
Connie first encounters Arnold in a parking lot while she is out with her friends, but she does not yet know who he is. She notices him standing near his car, a gold colored convertible jalopy, staring at her. When she walks by he says he is going to "get" her, but Connie does not think anything of it and just turns away.
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