What kind of person is Connie?

The protagonist of the story, Connie is a pretty fifteen-year-old girl who loves spending time with her friends and flirting with boys. Connie takes great pleasure in her appearance, so much so that her mother often scolds her for being vain.

How does Oates characterize Connie?

In the short story, Carol Oates describes Connie as having two different personalities, one being a narcissistic attitude. Oates states, “Everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home: her walk that could be childlike and bobbing, or languid enough…show more content…

What qualities make Connie attractive in Where Are You Going Where have you been?

She takes great pleasure in the fact that boys and even men find her attractive. Connie has cultivated a particular manner of dressing, walking, and laughing that make her sexually appealing, although these mannerisms are only temporary affectations.

How is Connie a dynamic character?

Connie is a dynamic character and the hero in this story because she changes from a stuck up fifteen-year-old to a better version of herself. She sacrifices herself for the sake of her family’s safety even if it meant she wasn’t returning home when she leaves with Arnold.

What does Connie symbolize?

Many critics have interpreted Arnold Friend as a symbol of some larger idea or force, such as the devil, death, or sexuality. Connie, also, has been said to represent many things: Eve, troubled youth, or spiritually unenlightened humanity.

How would you describe Connie’s relationship with her family Why?

Connie’s relationship with her mother, though nowhere near as distant as the ones with her father and sister, is equally a part of her fear of intimacy. Connie is extremely contemptuous toward her mother for always nagging her and favoring June over her; she even goes so far as to wish that her mother was dead.

Is Connie in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been a dynamic character?

As the character analysis of Connie in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” proves, even if Connie does not leave her house and does not go out with Arnold, she understands that independence is not what she has believed to be. This realization of some facts makes her a dynamic character.

What happened to Connie in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

When Arnold becomes threatening, Connie’s placed in an extraordinary situation that gives her the opportunity to do something exceptional, something she wouldn’t have ever been called upon to do in the course of her average, everyday life: she sacrifices herself and goes with Arnold Friend rather than risk the lives of …

Why is Connie alone in the house when Arnold Friend visits her?

Why was Connie alone in the house when Arnold Friend visited her? She did not want to go to the barbecue with her family.

What is direct characterization?

Direct characterization.

The writer makes direct statements about a character’s personality and tells the reader or viewer what the character is like. Direct characterization tells the reader or viewer.

Is Connie a passive victim?

Connie is more than a passive, deserving victim and Death is less a figure of retributive justice than a friend who is determined to help the girl prepare her soul for the journey beyond the life she has known.

How does Arnold Friend manipulate Connie?

In Joyce Carol Oates’s suspenseful short story, ”Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” antagonist, Arnold Friend, uses faustian tactics such as flattery, fear, and lies to manipulate and overpower the protagonist, Connie. Equivalent to the Devil, Arnold Friend uses flattery to deceive Connie.

Which option best summarizes the way Connie perceives her mother?

Which option BEST summarizes the way Connie perceives her mother? Connie resents her mother’s constant criticism and comparisons to her sister.

Is Connie dreaming in where are you going?

In Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” the reader can conclude that this story is Connie’s realistic dream. Connie’s familiar reaction to Arnold Friend and her “home” are evidence that this encounter is a dream.

How is Arnold Friend characterized?

He is an older, highly sexualized man who offers to take her away from her life as an unhappy teenager. He is incredibly different from Connie’s family and the other boys she knows, which intrigues her. However, any appealing mystery to Arnold quickly dissipates as he begins to make threats and demands.

What does Arnold Friend’s car symbolize?

Arnold’s Car

Arnold Friend’s flashy gold car, with its outdated phrases written on the sides, is an extension of Arnold himself: extreme and not entirely right. The car gives Connie her first clues that there might be something wrong with or dangerous about Arnold.

Why is Connie’s sister June included in the story?

June is “so plain and chunky and steady that Connie had to hear her praised all the time by her mother and her mother’s sisters” (Oates) shows the purpose of why June is included in the short story. June represents the child that Connie’s mother wishes for and the chasm that was created between Connie and her mother.