A classic film, Gran Torino, which was released on December 12, 2008 and directed by award winning director Clint Eastwood, displays an emotional yet drama filled story based in the outskirts of Detroit, Michigan, in a rundown town. This film shows a multiplicity of similarities to a short story written by author Joyce Carol Oates in the year 1996 titled, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? This short story primarily focuses on a 15-year-old girl named Connie who is obsessed with herself and her appearance. One day Connie finds herself in a less than pleasing situation after a man that she does not know very well, named Arnold Friend, shows up to her home and pressures her into leaving with him; which she complies to leave everything behind in order to protect her family from any harm.
The film Gran Torino displays an act of sacrifice by main character Walt Kowalski. Walt’s recently moved in next door neighbors are the Lor family, whom are Hmong’s: an ethnic group derived from the mountains of Southeast Asia. Originally, Walt is not too fond of his new neighbors, because Walt was in the Vietnam war, so those type of people bring back bad memories for him. Eventually, Walt begins to
…show more content…
The main character Connie, at first didn’t like family at all and was always bothered by them just like Walt and the Lor family. Connie eventually is put into a situation where the man trying to take her named Arnold Friend threatens her family if she doesn’t go with him. Connie then realized what her family means to her and how much she loves them, just like Walt eventually caring for the Lor family. Connie eventually gives in to Arnold Friend and goes with him leaving everything behind and not knowing what will happen to her. Connie sacrificed herself for her family to be safe and not have to deal with the consequences just like Walt did in the film Grand
In “The Big Burn” by Timothy Egan, the story centers around the wildfire of 1910 and the people who were involved. Many people made sacrifices for the big fire. However, the sacrifice of Pulaski was the biggest and most frightening. Pulaski became a ranger at age forty and had several previous jobs as a firefighter, miner, and inventor. Pulaski was a great assistant since he helped each and every person at his own expense.
In the story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oats the overall theme is maturing as a woman. With this theme comes different experiences that main character Connie has experienced. Connie is a fifteen year old girl who is maturing and trying to step into womanhood as a teenager. Connies confidence is always debunked by her mother, she always scorns Connie insisting that she stops always looking at herself and being overly confident in herself. While Connie sneaks a date an older guy hits on her, this older man named Arnold Friend comes to Connie's home and insists that Connie comes outside for a ride or her family will get hurt.
Have you imagined how the post-apocalyptic world will look like and will you choose try hard to survive or to die? In the book, The Road, written by McCarthy, the sky is dark. It’s cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. Everything has gone, only except some human beings who try every way to survive even by hurting and killing people.
Connie in Joyce Carol Oates’s story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” desperately wants to be independent from her family, while Gregor Samsa in Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” pathetically yearns for inclusion. In this story, Oates pays special attention to the mother-daughter relationship and the lack of meaningful communication between them. Connie's mother is an image of the future Connie doesn't want – the life of a domestic housewife. Connie has a love-hate relationship with her mother, with whom she identifies, but at the same time she has to distance herself from her mother in order to establish her independence. On the other hand, The Metamorphosis, a story by Franz Kafka, is about a man who has been transformed into a giant beetle
He loses a good friend along the way, that alter him into making better decisions. He meets a couple of girls that affects him remarkably in choosing what he must do with his life. With the help of his grandparents, specifically his grandma, he is given reassurance that guide him home. Through
In “The Flowers”, Alice Walker explores the woods through the eyes of a little girl named Myop, but she soon realizes the world isn’t as nice as flowers. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”, Joyce Carol Oates follows a young girl named Connie who is focused on others and her own appearance, until she is introduced to the world in a unexpected way. Both Walker and Oates use young girls to show the harsher sides of the world and how their childhood changes to adulthood in different ways. The main thing that Myop and Connie have in common is that they are both females, but their looks and the way the live are totally different.
The short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” was written by the author Joyce Carol Oates in 1966. Oates describes her idea for the story after briefly reading an article about the real-life murderer, Charles Schmid, who lured and murdered three teenage girls (Kirszner & Mandell 523). She uses this idea to create the character, Arnold Friend, and his victim, Connie. Connie is a typical teenage girl portrayed as naïve and self-centered. The short story appears realistic, given that the conflict in the story is based off of real events.
Home is where the heart is, but what if home is no longer safe? Joyce Carol Oates explores this concept in her 1966 short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”. On surface level, this story appears to discuss a rebellious young girl named Connie and her confrontation with Arnold Friend, a stalker. The ending leaves the reader to assume that Arnold Friend plans to sexually assault the young girl.
Despite having the trappings of a hard sci-fi adventure story, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is a deeply humanist and spiritual film exploring philosophical and emotional issues in a complex way (Dean, 2015). Central to this are the concepts of bravery and sacrifice: as Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) and the rest of his crew take great risks and travel vast distances to save humanity from a dying Earth, the characters all display varying aspects of the human condition, especially related to these very big, complex ideas. As the characters of Interstellar go about their mission and weigh the risks and rewards of each and every decision, they each find their own definitions of bravery and sacrifice, weighing their own personal decisions against
In her short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", Joyce Carol Oates utilizes a variety of literary devices to strengthen the story in its entirety. This short story is essentially about a 16-year-old girl named Connie and the conflict between her desire to be mature and her desire to remain an adolescent. Throughout the story, the audience sees this conflict through her words in addition to through her behavior. The audience is also introduced to Arnold Friend, a rather peculiar man, who essentially kidnaps her. This short story by Joyce Carol Oates functions and is additionally meaningful because of her usage of literary devices.
The short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates is about a teenage girl named Connie who is in the mist of her adolescent rebellion. She wants to prove her maturity to others and herself. In the story, Oates describes that Connie always lets her mind flow freely in between her daydream. She even creates and keeps dreaming about her ideal male figure in her mind to make her happy and satisfied. Oates allows the reader to step into Connie’s “dream world” through the appearance of Arnold Friend.
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” is about a teenager named Connie who is trying to come to terms with her transformation from childhood to adulthood. Through this process, Connie attempts to act older than she is an tries to gain the attention of boys. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” Joyce Oates portrays Connie as obsessed with men to symbolize how one’s obsession and narcissistic attitude can cause danger to seem surreal. In the short story, Carol Oates describes Connie as having two different personalities, one being a narcissistic attitude.
She finally forgets about him when she finds out he is not even her biological father. The terrible family she came from is no longer her family. She now has finally cut of all of the bad family, except for Mr. ____. Later on, she finds out that Pa has died. The bond is completely broken, making way for others to replace it.
I watched Gran Torino for the Food Culture Film assignment. I visited the Tehran Market in Santa Monica for the Ethnic Market assignment. I was at the market for about 40 minutes and 10-12 shoppers came in during that time. Only three were American. The rest of the customers were Persian and spoke to the Persian staff in Farsi.
Gran Torino Walt Kowalski is a widower who holds onto his prejudices despite the changing of his neighborhood in Michigan and the world around him in general. He's a old tough minded grumpy war veteran whose prize posession is a 1972 Gran Torino he keeps in mint condition. Then when his neighbor Thao, a young Hmong teenager under pressure from a gang that his cousin runs cons him into trying to steal the Gran Torino, Kowalski sets out to reform the youth. Basically setting foot into the lives of Thao's family, in another word taking actions daily to protect them from the infest of bad people in the neighborhood. Nonverbal communication comes to mind instantly at the moment when Walt is invited over to Thao's house by his sister Sue on the