What Is Connie's Perception Of People

Oates presents to the readers Connie. Using Connie’s thoughts, the author makes it clear that her surface-level perception of those she meets causes her not to care for people on a deep level, but rather what they are to her and only her. The morning after she spent time with her friend at the mall, Connie reflects on what happened. When she thinks about the boys she met last night, “...all the boys fell back and dissolved into a single face that was not even a face,” (657). We see here that Connie, without a second thought, removes the individuality and personality from these boys. Connie doesn’t care for who these people are; she doesn’t even see them as people, “but an idea, a feeling, mixed up with the urgent, insistent pounding of the
Depending so much on what people give her acts as a fill-in for her lack of character and lack of self-ownership; instead of dictating her own decisions, Connie lets others influence what she says, what she does, and how she looks. In another part of the story, Connie complains that her "mother kept pecking at her until Connie wished her mother was dead and the she herself was dead and it was all over” (655). She doesn’t realize that Connie’s mom has taken care of her, trying to guide her and help her become a better person. But Connie would not – and could not – acknowledge her mother’s intentions; she only thinks about what her mother is doing to her on a surface level, not the reason she is doing it. Obsessed with façades and appearances, what she really wants is someone that will tell her that she’s amazing, that she’s perfect and that nothing about her should change, even though it should. Her mother’s words annoy her because they challenge the concept that Connie isn’t perfect and that she can’t improve beyond who she
Connie sits alone in her house not long after she woke up. Without preparation for the eyes of the outside world, she hangs around casually, without any frippery. At this point we already know “she knew she was pretty and that was everything”, but without anyone to appear to, she hasn’t put much effort into her looks. We actually get to see who she is but there’s nothing there. Connie turns on the radio to “drown out the quiet” because she has no thoughts to put in place of it (657). Her defining quality, her looks, is just that; there’s no substance behind her appearance, and the only moment in the entire story where she doesn’t have someone to impress or flatter bores her. Usually worried about how she appears to everyone, Connie does the only thing she can, paying “close attention to herself, bathed in a glow of slow-pulsed joy” (658). Connie’s obsession with appearance is not about being confident, it’s not about how Connie views herself, but about how everyone else looks at her, and – constantly occupied with outside perspectives – it is the only way she can view herself. She doesn’t want to look pretty, she wants other people to think she’s pretty. Suddenly, Arnold’s car pulls up her driveway and “Her heart began to pound and her fingers snatched at her hair, checking it, and she whispered ‘Christ, Christ’,