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The turn of the screw summary
Character analysis essay for arnold friend
The turn of the screw summary
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More handpicked essays just for you.
The turn of the screw summary
Character analysis essay for arnold friend
The turn of the screw summary
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
A lot of clues in the story hinted that Arnold Friend wasn’t a friend at all, but was a demon that came to take Connie away. When Arnold Friend was first introduced, Connie kept an uneasy feeling about him and felt intrigued by his presence. For example, Arnold immediately starts to ask Connie if she wants to come for a ride. (Oates 1012). Arnold seems to add pressure to Connie from the start and is obviously not there just to take her for a ride.
Have you ever felt so umcomfortable in a situation it made you scared? WAYG, WHYB written by Joyce Carol Oates is a thriller about a stalker who preys on the main character connie. Through Arnold Friend’s persistance and determination for connie, as well as the biblical references, Joyce Carol Oates shows how Arnold Friend is the devil. Arnold Friend is the devil and this can be proven through his appearance. “Tight faded jeans stuffed into blacked scuffed boots” (Oates 4).
Arnold Friend’s sudden appearance in Connie’s life takes her from childhood to adulthood in the blink of an eye and she ultimately becomes a passive victim. Not many fifteen-year-old girls are considered mature at that age and Connie is certainly no exception to that. She is presented as quite vain in her views of herself and those around her. Her mother, once a beauty herself, is constantly nagging at her and telling her to stop gawking at herself in the mirror. Connie considers her older sister June to be somewhat of a spinster who is described as “plain and chunky” (Oates
“And his face was a familiar face, somehow: the jaw and chin and cheeks slightly darkened because he hadn't shaved for a day or two.” 3. Arnold Friend’s conflict in the story is, he uses an aggressive approach to take a defensive Connie. Arnold Friend’s background, in the story 4. N/A 5.
In Joyce Carol Oats “Where Are You Going Where Have You Been,” we are introduced to two main characters. The names of the two main characters are Connie and Arnold Friend. In Oates’s short story, Arnold Friend is an imposter that tries to convince young Connie to go on a ride with him and his friend Ellie. Connie refuses to go on the ride but Arnold’s use unnatural techniques to force Connie to leave her house and go with him. Arnold Friend’s awareness of Connie’s family and friends and his ability to persuade Connie reveals that he is more than just a creepy old man trying to kidnap a young girl.
Arnold Friend is a character full of mystic, and he is very diabolical. Oates even describes that “He was standing in a strange way, leaning back against the car as if he were balancing himself” (Oates 125). Arnold can be depicted as maybe having magical powers since it is as if he is balancing himself while standing in a strange way. Along with how Arnold stands, Joyce Carol Oates also hints out important symbols on Arnold’s car. “The story even implies that Arnold has killed, or at least raped, before. "
In the story "Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?", Joyce Carol Oates does an outstanding job on creating an element of bone chilling and goosebumps when reading it. Arnold Fiend, or as he likes to introduce to people as Friend, is a demon in disguise as he represents himself as goat like by his appearance, how he knows everything about Connie, the 15 year old protagonist, even when he just met her, and by how his car symbolizes himself and religion too. Simple things in the story like numbers and flies can mean more than what they are. Arnold Friend first appears when Connie is hanging out with her friends and a guy named Eddie, who is giving her attention just as she likes it.
She says, “And his face was familiar somehow: the jaw and chin and cheeks slightly darkened because he hadn’t shaved for a day or two, and the nose long and hawk like, sniffing as if she were a treat he was going to gobble up and it was all a joke” (Oates 323). Oates compares Arnold Friend to a hawk, a bird of prey, who is feeding on Connie. This is another indication that Arnold Friend is like the devil himself, and Connie is his victim. He is taking away Connie’s childhood and her innocence because of the way he tries to get her to give into temptation. Arnold Friend knows that Connie wants to fall in love.
“Numerous commentators have noticed Friend’s resemblance to the devil of Christian mythology” (Johnson). This phrase makes one think of the devil because Arnold Friend’s actions that imitate devil like features. Arnold Friend’s appearance of being fake can also show that he is a devil in disguise. “His whole face was a mask, tanned down to his throat but then running out as if he had plastered makeup on his face but had forgotten about his throat” (Oates). The words in this phrase incorporate several ideas.
In the story, Connie looked at the phrase “man the flying saucers and she felt like “words meant something to her that she did not yet know” (p.) which if she was on drugs she might not be aware of the fact that what she is seeing is not real, but eventually when she is sober she will understand. The ambiguity of Arnold Friend leaves many unanswered questions for readers. Unless Joyce Carol Oates decides to reveal the real Arnold Friend, readers may never know if he was in fact the devil or just a figment of Connie’s
Is the classical representation of a monster. That is, he is an amalgamation of features and attributes which resemble the protagonist and their faults. Connie wants to be mature, to which Arnold obliges from a sexual aspect and not a romantic one. Arnold is a man with a mashup of both young an old. His pattern in speaking seems to match that of the current generation of adolescents, and the persona he presents is that of teenage boy, even claiming to be eighteen.
Apparent in the beginning stages of the short story, Connie despises her sister, June, for the glory she receives for being the reliable child. She hates her mother for liking her sister more than her,
He knew her name even though she had only quickly glimpsed at him the night prior with no communication from her at all. He knows where her parents are, what they are doing, how long they will be, how they look he even knows who her best friends are. Essentially Arnold Friend is the very essence of nightmare to Connie he is everything she is afraid of. He pressures her in to a situation out of her control. He takes away her pride of rejecting people and forces her to choose her family being hurt of facing her demons and going with him.
“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.” ( ).
Ar no friend, the guy she ignored at the mall. An old fiend, would in fact be Arnold himself at the mall giving her fiendish looks. And arch fiend, the latter being another name for Satan. Symbolism is also found with Ellie Oscar.