Arnold Friend In Where Are You Going

Isn’t it strange how if blinded by fear and love, the easiest choices in life can easily turn into the most difficult. Connie experiences this first hand with Arnold Friend. Connie is faced with a choice to either leave her home with two complete strangers whom she has never met before or to stay inside. Connie ultimately made the decision to leave with Arnold Friend. But why? Was it for the sake of her family? Did Connie just give up, knowing that she was no match for Arnolds persistence? Joyce Carol Oates never gives the reader any specific reasons as to why, only to leave them asking the question. Why Connie? Many might say that Connie left with Arnold Friend just because of the simple fact that she’s fifteen and didn’t know any better,

As many teens have been asked these same questions multiple times by their parents as well as Connie has, one could assume. She is fifteen with long blonde hair which seemed to draw everyone’s attention. Oates begins the story explaining how Connie was gawking at herself in the mirror, as just about any other ordinary fifteen-year-old girl would; and that’s just what Connie is portrayed to be, ordinary. She shows a mighty interest in boys, she knows that she is very beautiful. She’s superficial, very naïve, and self-centered. Everyone in society has come across someone like Connie a few times before. She is going through the phase in her life where she is transitioning from a girl to a young woman, and that might even explain a lot of her actions as

And that perfectly describes what he is. He is basically an embodiment of those “trashy daydreams” that Connie said to be having earlier in the story. He is a deceiver. He has painted eyelashes, translucent skin, stuffs his boots, lies about his age and has hair which appeared to be a wig. Despite all this he is very appealing to Connie, which also tracks back to the stating on how naïve she is. Arnold is almost very similar the devil. As he is very tempting and appears to be something good, even though deep down he’s the completely evil. He is also very sexual. Telling Connie, a girl that he doesn’t even know, that he is her “lover” and that he’ll come insider her where it’s all secret. The things he says to her do ultimately push Connie away from him but maybe in a sense he was actually drawing her closer. Tempting her with things her mind can’t even fathom, things that she might have maybe thought about here and there but never actually took time to fully comprehend what they meant. Young minds will often jump onto a new idea and test it out, and maybe that was the reason he said those things to