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Analysis Of It's All Over Now Baby By Joyce Carol Oates

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Connie is a typical fifteen year old girl. She is obsessed with her appearance, does not get along with her family and develops emotional issues towards the end of the story. At the end of the story, she becomes an adult when she is face to face with the enemy. Joyce Carol Oates developed this character and story after listening to Bob Dylan's song called It's All Over Now Baby
Blue.
Connie has long dark blonde hair that people were drawn to. When she went out, she pulled some of her hair up and left the rest lying down her back. When she walked, it was considered to be childlike, bobbing and languid. Her mouth was pale and would be smirking most of the time, but it looked pink when she went out. Her wardrobe in the story consists of a …show more content…

Her relationship with her mother is not good in the story. Her mother compares Connie to her sister June. One example is:
"Why don't you keep your room clean like your sister? How've you got your hair fixed - what the hell stinks? Hair spray? You don't see your sister using that junk." (PDF) Connie thinks her sister June is plain, chunky and steady. Connie has to hear her mother and aunts praise her sister.

Psychologically, she rejects the daughter, sister, and the "nice" girl role. Her sexual persona flourishes when she is away from her family. She dreams about the boys she is going to meet in the future. When Arnold Friend tries to coax her out of the house, she revolts back to being a child when she screams out for her mother. In the beginning of the short story Where Are You
Going, Where Have You Been by Joyce Carol Oates, she is craning her neck in the front of the mirror because she wants to make sure her appearance is all right. She had a high opinion of herself when it came to how she looked to other people.

She doesn't believe that

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Connie’s mother wants her to help with painting the house but that’s not what Connie wants to do. The film “Smooth Talk”, By Joyce Chopra takes place during the same time as the story and has similar events as the story. Although both film and the short story has differences

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Connie has a conflict with her mother, presented in the story as they continually fight; her mom generally starts the conflict, "Why don 't you keep your room clean like your sister? How 've you got your hair fixed—what the hell stinks? Hair spray? You don 't see your sister using that junk" (308). Connie has a conflict with June, her sister.

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Another reason why Connie why wants to be independent from her mother is because she does not want to be like her. “Her mother went scuffling around the house in old bathroom slippers…” ( Oates 616). Connie’s mother is an image of the future Connie doesn't want -the life of a domestic housewife. Lastly, you can see that Connie has a love-hate relationship with her other, with whom she identifies, but at the same time she has to distance herself from her mother in order to establish her independence; “Sometimes, over coffee, they were almost friends, but something would come up – some vexation that was like a fly buzzing suddenly around their heads – and their faces went hard with contempt.”

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Connie's choice of life style and attitude shows her lack of morals. Connie constantly has conflicts with her family. She is beginning to break away from them. Because the mother is jealous, she likes to put Connie's self esteem down: " Stop gawking at yourself. Who are you?

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She sees the boys who give her attention as subjugations who “dissolve into a single face that was not even a face but an idea” (Oates 675). But soon enough her dreams and music materialize into the shape of Arnold Friend. Arnold Friend is described as a muscular, older, and mysterious character. He seems to be a work of her imagination as he is ultimately an idea she created that would fit into her perfect fantasy world. Connie is defenseless to Arnold Friend’s manipulations mainly because she has no visible identity of her own.

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Oates’s biography explained her fiction writing as a mixture violence and sexual obsession. The writing style definitely fits the plot point of this story with both of her literary ingredients being present in not only Arnold Friend but in Connie as well. The Protagonist Connie is presented in a very self-centered way. She is obsessed with her looks and often fantasizes about all the boys she meets.

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“But now her looks were gone and that was why she was always after Connie.” (Oates ). Also, there is another opportunity for friendship within the family, between Connie and her sister, however, that is lost in their rivalry and hostility. “Her sister was so plain and chunky and steady that Connie had to hear her praised all the time – by her mother and her mother's sisters.” ( ).

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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.

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Essay #2 Parents play a very important role in the lives of their children. If parents do it in the right way, it positively impacts children’s mental and emotional condition. One of the main characters from the short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, Connie, does not have that kind of relationships with her parents, with who she can share her thoughts or who to get a good advice from. The main reason of all Connie’s mental and emotional problems is that her parents do not play a good role model for her and compare with the older sister. Being parents is far more than just providing children with food and clothes.

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Sunset Boulevard (1950), directed by Billy Wilder, is a black and white film, where Norma Desmond, a famous actress of the silent film era, cannot come to terms with her career’s end. Desmond meets a guy named Joe Gillis, a struggling writer who is in financial trouble. The two come to an agreement that Gillis will polish up her script, which Norma believes will be her ticket back to the big screen, and Norma will take care of Joe financially. The one thing Norma and Joe have in common is that Hollywood has deemed both of them as undesirable. Norma experiences delusions of grandeur, and Joe cannot get his scripts picked up by a studio.

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Connie’s first encounter with Friend was at a diner when he stated to Connie, “Gonna get you, baby”(pg.1142). Because Connie was use to this type of attention, she did not view it as strange that an older man was calling her in such away. However, if Connie had seen Friend as dangerous instead of just another man, her kidnapping might have been prevented. Later in the story when Friend showed up as Connie’s house, she walked outside and talked to him instead of questioning how he knew where she lived or calling the police. Oates described Connie's interaction with Friend by stating,“Connie liked the way he was dressed, which was the way all of them dressed: tight faded jeans stuffed into black, scuffed boots, a belt that pulled his waist in and showed how lean he was, and a white pullover shirt that was a little soiled and showed the hard muscles of his arms and shoulders”(pg.1145).

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This quote represents the differences between Connie's behavior, including her laughter, at home versus in public. The mention of a charm bracelet reminds readers of Connie's femininity and youth while the use of the words cynical and drawling reminds the readers of masculinity. This shows how Connie tries to appear extra feminine, and therefore sexier when in public. This quote compares a religious building to a restaurant, representing the social and cultural world that Connie lives in. This allows the audience to have an enhanced understanding of the conditions of the society surrounding Connie so that they can have a superior understanding of her actions.

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When Connie realizes that Arnold is much older than she thought, she is taken over by fear of what’s going to happen. This situation is much different than anything else she has ever

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The short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates can be interpreted in a multitude of ways due to its ambiguity. A psychological lens, however, provides the most accurate viewpoint for analyzing the story as it clarifies certain obscure scenes and actions of Connie. One psychological issue of Connie that is easily inferred from the beginning of the story is her insecurity about her looks. Connie constantly worries about the way that she looks and takes any opportunity to do so, “craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people's faces to make sure her own was all right” (1).

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