Arnold Friend Character Analysis
Madilyn Ferguson
Professor Jukes
English 1B
10 September 2010
Decisions, Decisions
The short story by Joyce Oates, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” leaves many readers uncomfortable with the actions of “Connie” the main character who is in the midst of adolescent rebellion. Connie is a character who argues with her mother and sister, neglects family life in favor of scoping out boys at the local restaurant, does everything she can to appear older and wiser than she is, and has a mind filled with daydreams and popular music that feed her unrealistic ideas of love and romance. When the stranger, Arnold Friend, arrives at Connie’s house, she must confront the harsh realities of adulthood, which bear little resemblance to her fantasies. …show more content…
The approach known as psychological criticism has readers focus their attention on a literary work by analyzing the presentation after they have interpreted the actions and conflicts that determine the outcome of the character within the story. To accomplish that goal, not only must one magnify the text closely in order to obtain an effective psychological profile of the character, but they must also delve into the psyche of a character such as Connie in order to have a better perception of her actions. There are many approaches to psychologically analyzing an individual. The best approach is a multifaceted one that can look at the many different aspects of the person’s background, social life, family life, hobbies, and their view of self.
The importance of parental guidance and support is pertinent in growing up through the adolescent years, as they can be the most chaotic, unsure, and insecure stages in the transition from childhood to adulthood and identification of self.
Connie definitely lacks parental support, and even though she may not have made it easy for her parents to communicate with her, they could have at least regulated her extracurricular activities and done their basic parental duties to make sure that she was safe from harm. This view of Connie comes from a behavioral perspective. Behaviorism sees behavior as being a result of conditioning and reinforcement that we have learned in the development process (McGill and Livingston Welch 101). The perspective claims that humans are born “tabula rasa” or as a blank slate proving that Connie’s parents had a big impact on her behavior which fueled her self-identification, or lack thereof, in her early childhood experiences. The theory also argues that personalities result from experiences, reinforcements, and conditioning. Ivan Pavlov theorized that all behavior is learned through operant learning; the result of having received reinforcement or reward, and classical conditioning; association of certain stimuli with a particular reaction within our emotional or physiological self. The lack of real presence of parental structure has a lot to do with Connie’s lack of individuality, her actions show a great deal of emptiness and a deficiency of self …show more content…
esteem which contribute to the decision she makes with Arnold Friend. The rebellion that showed in Connie’s personality had a lot to do with her dysfunctional family life. Not only does Connie live with her mother and father, but also her sister June. Connie’s relationship with her mother was dysfunctional because her mother always considered Connie as prettier and younger, even though she “had been pretty once too, if you could believe those old snapshots in the album, but now her looks were gone and that was why she was always after Connie” (An Introduction to Literature 484). Connie’s mother was one who “hadn’t much reason any longer to look at her own face, always scolded Connie about it, “Stop gawking at yourself, who are you? You think you’re so pretty?” (An Introduction to Literature 484). The relationship between siblings was unstable as Connie was very envious of the relationship her parents had with her older sister June. Connie’s mother was always praising and favoring June, and because of this, a great deal of resentment develops between Connie and her sister. Not only does jealousy build up, but also lack of self-esteem heightens as Connie subconsciously feels like she isn’t good enough for her family and that she will never fit in. Literary critic, Tom Quirk, scratches the surface of Connie’s psyche by believing that “there is a fire inside Connie’s brain” to rebel against the “American Dream” of “hearth and home and innocent youth” and that she leaves with Arnold to rebel against the norms of society (88). The rebellion that Quirk speaks of and Connie expresses is that of someone whom her family hasn’t accepted. The feeling of being alone fuels the fire in her brain. According to Family Relations, the preliminary investigations of adolescent family life satisfaction found that adolescents who are more satisfied with their families engage in greater emotional disclosure with their parents (447). If Connie had had more confidence in her family, she would have been more likely to reveal her feelings and actually wanted a healthy relationship with them. Instead, Connie reaches out to her peers and makes bad choices such as going to the drive in, hanging out with older men, and spending time at food joints late at night. All of these actions, coming from a fifteen year old, are risky traits that would very likely attract a serial killer/child molester (which Friend could have quite possibly been!) Connie seemed to have a surplus of self-confidence. Her confidence was so strong that it led to a false sense of security and a bad reputation. Many teenagers are overcome in their physical appearance and beauty. In Connie’s world, her beauty was the only thing she had. She felt that if she stayed beautiful, everything would be fine. The author even says, “She knew that she was pretty, and that was everything.” (Introduction to Literature 484) Just because someone is overcome by their physical appearance does not mean that they have any kind of self worth or self-respect. Connie was a lost child in a young adults body. The fact that she had no parental support and nurture created a huge void in her life. The few ways she filled that void were by grooming her appearance 24/7 in order to get attention by boys and other peers, and by listening to music. Music was such a huge part of the story and of Connie’s life. She identified herself in the music she listened to. She and her friends “listened to the music that made everything so good: the music was always in the background like music at a church service, it was something to depend on.” (Introduction to Literature 485) Connie relied on music to make her feel safe and happy when nothing else would. Promises of love and romance in the songs filled her head and gave her a false picture of the way life is. When Friend comes along, her whole world and everything she thinks she knows about it changes, there is no more innocence, the harsh reality of the real adult world she had been pretending to be living in was at her door and she had no choice but to face it.
The first time Connie crossed paths with Friend, she was with one of her boy friends in the parking lot of a restaurant.
Friend looked up at her from his car and said, “Gonna get you baby” (Introduction to Literature 485). She thought nothing of the event and just kept going on with her friend. A short time later in the story, while Connie was sun bathing and listening to music, Friend shows up at her house. The first thing to shoot through Connie’s brain was her wondering how bad she looked. There is something wrong with that picture, that there was a stranger at her door that literally told her that he is going to get her. Most normal teens would be afraid of this kind of behavior and probably report it, not Connie. Friend starts talking about how he wants her to come with him, and bribing her with the music that he knew she loved. With his smooth talk, Friend tells her “I know my Connie”…”I took a special interest in you, such a pretty young girl, and found out all about you like I know your parents and sister are gone somewheres, and I know who you were with last night, and your best girl friend’s name is Betty. Right?” (Introduction to Literature 488). Friend goes on in detail about all of the things he knows about Connie and as he does this, Connie starts to panic. The harsh realization that she is only fifteen and that she isn’t really experienced or old enough to know what to do in this kind of situation. She then went inside to be protected by the screen door.
Friend commanded her to come outside with him and told her that if she did not and her family came home, that they would be in trouble. He made a reference back to the old woman down the road and Connie told him that she is dead and he almost hinted that he had something to do with it. “Now you be a good girl…” he had said. Connie asked him what he is going to do and he responded “…Just two things, or maybe three…” “...But I promise it wont last long and you’ll like me the way you get to like people you’re close to. It’s all over for you here, so come on out.” After hearing that, Connie ran to the phone and could do nothing but pick it up, listen to the dial tone, and cry. He persuaded her to put the phone down and told her that all she can do is be nice and give in because he had the ability to do terrible things to her and her family. There was then a breaking point in Connie where she realized while placing her hand over her pounding heart that “it was nothing that was hers, that belonged to her, but just a pounding, living thing inside this body that wasn’t really hers either. Friend used his tactics to get her to think that she had nothing and that going with him gave her an opportunity to experience new things. He made her think that she didn’t have a choice or reason to stay because he wanted her and he was willing to do and say anything to persuade her to come with him. At this point, the reader notices that Connie really just gives up in the end. The author talks about how she just gets up and walks out the door without a fight and looks to the horizon and accepts the fact that that’s where she’s going (495). In the last paragraph of the story, Friend refered to the song “Baby Blue” by Bob Dylan. Again, Friend was taking advantage of the influence that music had over her, and was hoping those particular words would provide her with the sense of security that he considered necessary. At the start of the song, Dylan states that “You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last / But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast.” In response, Connie followed his advice and ventured into the unknown because she believed he had a better place available for her. Young men and women, whether they are adolescents or adults, often leave home for an adventure, a new life, or merely to disappear from society as they understand it. Connie leaves home to pursue a new life for the simple reason that her family does not fulfill her need for a loving and affectionate relationship. Not only did she want to gain her parent’s trust, but she also needed their guidance throughout those unsure, unstable years of adolescence. When Friend entered her life, things changed because he was persuasive, knowledgeable about the world around them, and was aware of the fact she badly wanted someone to love her. This awareness assured Connie that her void, her emptiness and longing to be held and loved, would be filled. She had experienced the images of love and sounds of romance through music for quite a while and probably thought that she could handle what Friend was bringing to the table. Connie’s dream of being an adult is made possible by Friend in that she had to make the adult decision to leave with him and leave her whole world behind her.
Professor Jukes
English 1B
10 September 2010
Decisions, Decisions
The short story by Joyce Oates, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” leaves many readers uncomfortable with the actions of “Connie” the main character who is in the midst of adolescent rebellion. Connie is a character who argues with her mother and sister, neglects family life in favor of scoping out boys at the local restaurant, does everything she can to appear older and wiser than she is, and has a mind filled with daydreams and popular music that feed her unrealistic ideas of love and romance. When the stranger, Arnold Friend, arrives at Connie’s house, she must confront the harsh realities of adulthood, which bear little resemblance to her fantasies. …show more content…
The approach known as psychological criticism has readers focus their attention on a literary work by analyzing the presentation after they have interpreted the actions and conflicts that determine the outcome of the character within the story. To accomplish that goal, not only must one magnify the text closely in order to obtain an effective psychological profile of the character, but they must also delve into the psyche of a character such as Connie in order to have a better perception of her actions. There are many approaches to psychologically analyzing an individual. The best approach is a multifaceted one that can look at the many different aspects of the person’s background, social life, family life, hobbies, and their view of self.
The importance of parental guidance and support is pertinent in growing up through the adolescent years, as they can be the most chaotic, unsure, and insecure stages in the transition from childhood to adulthood and identification of self.
Connie definitely lacks parental support, and even though she may not have made it easy for her parents to communicate with her, they could have at least regulated her extracurricular activities and done their basic parental duties to make sure that she was safe from harm. This view of Connie comes from a behavioral perspective. Behaviorism sees behavior as being a result of conditioning and reinforcement that we have learned in the development process (McGill and Livingston Welch 101). The perspective claims that humans are born “tabula rasa” or as a blank slate proving that Connie’s parents had a big impact on her behavior which fueled her self-identification, or lack thereof, in her early childhood experiences. The theory also argues that personalities result from experiences, reinforcements, and conditioning. Ivan Pavlov theorized that all behavior is learned through operant learning; the result of having received reinforcement or reward, and classical conditioning; association of certain stimuli with a particular reaction within our emotional or physiological self. The lack of real presence of parental structure has a lot to do with Connie’s lack of individuality, her actions show a great deal of emptiness and a deficiency of self …show more content…
esteem which contribute to the decision she makes with Arnold Friend. The rebellion that showed in Connie’s personality had a lot to do with her dysfunctional family life. Not only does Connie live with her mother and father, but also her sister June. Connie’s relationship with her mother was dysfunctional because her mother always considered Connie as prettier and younger, even though she “had been pretty once too, if you could believe those old snapshots in the album, but now her looks were gone and that was why she was always after Connie” (An Introduction to Literature 484). Connie’s mother was one who “hadn’t much reason any longer to look at her own face, always scolded Connie about it, “Stop gawking at yourself, who are you? You think you’re so pretty?” (An Introduction to Literature 484). The relationship between siblings was unstable as Connie was very envious of the relationship her parents had with her older sister June. Connie’s mother was always praising and favoring June, and because of this, a great deal of resentment develops between Connie and her sister. Not only does jealousy build up, but also lack of self-esteem heightens as Connie subconsciously feels like she isn’t good enough for her family and that she will never fit in. Literary critic, Tom Quirk, scratches the surface of Connie’s psyche by believing that “there is a fire inside Connie’s brain” to rebel against the “American Dream” of “hearth and home and innocent youth” and that she leaves with Arnold to rebel against the norms of society (88). The rebellion that Quirk speaks of and Connie expresses is that of someone whom her family hasn’t accepted. The feeling of being alone fuels the fire in her brain. According to Family Relations, the preliminary investigations of adolescent family life satisfaction found that adolescents who are more satisfied with their families engage in greater emotional disclosure with their parents (447). If Connie had had more confidence in her family, she would have been more likely to reveal her feelings and actually wanted a healthy relationship with them. Instead, Connie reaches out to her peers and makes bad choices such as going to the drive in, hanging out with older men, and spending time at food joints late at night. All of these actions, coming from a fifteen year old, are risky traits that would very likely attract a serial killer/child molester (which Friend could have quite possibly been!) Connie seemed to have a surplus of self-confidence. Her confidence was so strong that it led to a false sense of security and a bad reputation. Many teenagers are overcome in their physical appearance and beauty. In Connie’s world, her beauty was the only thing she had. She felt that if she stayed beautiful, everything would be fine. The author even says, “She knew that she was pretty, and that was everything.” (Introduction to Literature 484) Just because someone is overcome by their physical appearance does not mean that they have any kind of self worth or self-respect. Connie was a lost child in a young adults body. The fact that she had no parental support and nurture created a huge void in her life. The few ways she filled that void were by grooming her appearance 24/7 in order to get attention by boys and other peers, and by listening to music. Music was such a huge part of the story and of Connie’s life. She identified herself in the music she listened to. She and her friends “listened to the music that made everything so good: the music was always in the background like music at a church service, it was something to depend on.” (Introduction to Literature 485) Connie relied on music to make her feel safe and happy when nothing else would. Promises of love and romance in the songs filled her head and gave her a false picture of the way life is. When Friend comes along, her whole world and everything she thinks she knows about it changes, there is no more innocence, the harsh reality of the real adult world she had been pretending to be living in was at her door and she had no choice but to face it.
The first time Connie crossed paths with Friend, she was with one of her boy friends in the parking lot of a restaurant.
Friend looked up at her from his car and said, “Gonna get you baby” (Introduction to Literature 485). She thought nothing of the event and just kept going on with her friend. A short time later in the story, while Connie was sun bathing and listening to music, Friend shows up at her house. The first thing to shoot through Connie’s brain was her wondering how bad she looked. There is something wrong with that picture, that there was a stranger at her door that literally told her that he is going to get her. Most normal teens would be afraid of this kind of behavior and probably report it, not Connie. Friend starts talking about how he wants her to come with him, and bribing her with the music that he knew she loved. With his smooth talk, Friend tells her “I know my Connie”…”I took a special interest in you, such a pretty young girl, and found out all about you like I know your parents and sister are gone somewheres, and I know who you were with last night, and your best girl friend’s name is Betty. Right?” (Introduction to Literature 488). Friend goes on in detail about all of the things he knows about Connie and as he does this, Connie starts to panic. The harsh realization that she is only fifteen and that she isn’t really experienced or old enough to know what to do in this kind of situation. She then went inside to be protected by the screen door.
Friend commanded her to come outside with him and told her that if she did not and her family came home, that they would be in trouble. He made a reference back to the old woman down the road and Connie told him that she is dead and he almost hinted that he had something to do with it. “Now you be a good girl…” he had said. Connie asked him what he is going to do and he responded “…Just two things, or maybe three…” “...But I promise it wont last long and you’ll like me the way you get to like people you’re close to. It’s all over for you here, so come on out.” After hearing that, Connie ran to the phone and could do nothing but pick it up, listen to the dial tone, and cry. He persuaded her to put the phone down and told her that all she can do is be nice and give in because he had the ability to do terrible things to her and her family. There was then a breaking point in Connie where she realized while placing her hand over her pounding heart that “it was nothing that was hers, that belonged to her, but just a pounding, living thing inside this body that wasn’t really hers either. Friend used his tactics to get her to think that she had nothing and that going with him gave her an opportunity to experience new things. He made her think that she didn’t have a choice or reason to stay because he wanted her and he was willing to do and say anything to persuade her to come with him. At this point, the reader notices that Connie really just gives up in the end. The author talks about how she just gets up and walks out the door without a fight and looks to the horizon and accepts the fact that that’s where she’s going (495). In the last paragraph of the story, Friend refered to the song “Baby Blue” by Bob Dylan. Again, Friend was taking advantage of the influence that music had over her, and was hoping those particular words would provide her with the sense of security that he considered necessary. At the start of the song, Dylan states that “You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last / But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast.” In response, Connie followed his advice and ventured into the unknown because she believed he had a better place available for her. Young men and women, whether they are adolescents or adults, often leave home for an adventure, a new life, or merely to disappear from society as they understand it. Connie leaves home to pursue a new life for the simple reason that her family does not fulfill her need for a loving and affectionate relationship. Not only did she want to gain her parent’s trust, but she also needed their guidance throughout those unsure, unstable years of adolescence. When Friend entered her life, things changed because he was persuasive, knowledgeable about the world around them, and was aware of the fact she badly wanted someone to love her. This awareness assured Connie that her void, her emptiness and longing to be held and loved, would be filled. She had experienced the images of love and sounds of romance through music for quite a while and probably thought that she could handle what Friend was bringing to the table. Connie’s dream of being an adult is made possible by Friend in that she had to make the adult decision to leave with him and leave her whole world behind her.