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Character Analysis Of Arnold Friend

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“Clever as the Devil and twice as pretty.” Holly Black (Goodreads Author) The author Joyce Carol Oates uses characterization to display that the character Arnold Friend is a devil like figure, and the foreshadowing involved to uncover what happens to Connie after she gets into the car. Connie is characterized as one of the cool, and pretty girls at her school. She despises her family they are not close at all. Her mom envies her because she 's so pretty and cannot be like her. Her older sister who also doesn 't like her that much is always put on a pedestal. Examples are set on Connie of what her sister has done. Her father isn 't really involved in anything and keeps to himself. They Connie met a “boy” named Arnold Friend who has black hair and says he is eighteen but apparently looks much older, he is obsessed with Connie and will …show more content…

The lies Arnold tells also defines what type of a devilish character he really is, and uncovers what he truly wants in the end no matter the cost; Connie. He tells Connie that he is really 18, but there could be no way he is. Connie does not recognize him at all, and she notices the aging on his face like he was wearing a mask around himself on not shoe Connie his true identity yet. It 's believed that his name isn 't really Arnold Friend his name represents that, he is an old friend. “His smile faded. She could see that he wasn 't a kid, He was much older thirty, maybe more. At this knowledge her heart began to pound faster.” From the evidence provided is shows that the lies can shape a character and by revealing he is not who he says he is the author is foreshadowing something bad is going to happen from all the buildup of tension. Arnold is a trickster, clever, and knowledgeable and hopes Connie does not truly recognize the evil in him. This evidence foreshadows the end in a negative way from the confirmation that he would do anything to get Connie, no matter what the cost, no matter what obstacle is in front of him, like a

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794 Words | 4 Pages

Connie mentions that he is dressed like all the rest of her aged boys which leads the reader to believe Arnold did this intentionally to deceive Connie. Body language plays an immense part on Connie, as Arnold performs his unsettling gazes at her. The first being with his sunglasses on. Connie thinks to herself how she cannot see where his eyes are actually looking. This adds to the feeling of danger that fills Connie’s head.

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760 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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812 Words | 4 Pages

It is shown in the story that Arnold Friend has had a lot of experience doing this. He tricks Connie by disguising himself to look younger than he actually is, playing the same music as her, and telling her he knows who her family and friends are. Connie may be an easy target for Arnold because she is very boy crazy, but Connie realizes Arnold really isn’t who he says he is. The reasons that Connie doesn’t run away when she realizes this is because Arnold Friend threatens her and her family, and there are two people against her. In conclusion, all these things describe how Arnold Friend shows an obvious masquerade, and how he

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903 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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1135 Words | 5 Pages

Connie ends up realizing that Arnold Friend seems to be much older, and seems more frightened now. Back to the devil read, she says that her father will be coming back and Arnold seemed to be describing exactly what they were doing, as if he was right there. Any normal person would not be able to do that. As the confrontation continues between the two, Arnold states, “honey, I’m not coming in there but you are coming out here” (Oates 67). It has been said that the devil isn’t allowed to come inside a place unless he is invited, or if you go out to him.

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1833 Words | 8 Pages

“She was fifteen and she had a quick nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was all right” (Oates, 259). Connie didn’t like being compared to her sister June by her mother and felt as if her mother only thought that she sat around all day daydreaming about boys. The only good thing that June did in Connie’s eyes was go out with her friends, which justified Connie being able to go out with hers. Connie would lie about going to the movie with her friend and they would end up going to hang out with older boys at restaurants and in allies until her friends dad would pick them up. One night Connie spent 3 hours with a boy she had met eating at a restaurant and then down an alley to hang out with

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909 Words | 4 Pages

Connie’s parents are made up of a not so caring father and a judgmental mother: “Their father was away at work most of the time and when he came home he wanted supper and he read the newspaper at supper and after supper he went to bed. He didn't bother talking much to them, but around his bent head Connie's mother kept picking at her until Connie wished her mother was dead and she herself was dead and it was all over.” (Oates 1). Here the author explains the father's actions when he arrives home. Connie’s father does not pay attention to her nor her sister, June.

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995 Words | 4 Pages

This change is more than obvious when Arnold confronts her with a decision to save her family’s lives and sacrifice her own and Connie chooses to save the family that she despises. For Connie to save these people that she calls her family and sacrifice her own life that she normally sees as superior to others’ is of utmost importance in perceiving that Connie has undergone a momentous change as a person. Connie goes from wishing her mother dead at the start of the story to exchanging her own life for her’s. Although Connie is perceived as a pretentious brat at the beginning of the story, she undergoes a change in personality, and acts in spite of all her previous beliefs

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426 Words | 2 Pages

She presented herself in public as a young woman, but she was only fifteen years old. She wore her shirts “one way when she was at home and another way when she was away from home”. Everything about her was different when she’s away from home. Connie thinks that what she was doing was okay, but in reality she was drawing bad attention to herself. It resulted in Arnold Friend noticing her and visiting her.

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1137 Words | 5 Pages

The story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates, is a one where the idea of how girl who struggles with wanting to be a mature woman, faces her demon full form. The protagonist of the story is Connie, a 15-year-old rebel girl, obsessed with her look; and through fault of her own, meets the antithesis of herself, the antagonist of the story, Arnold Friend. Connie seeks to be a mature adult and desires an emancipation from her family. Seeing herself as mature woman through the desires of her attraction by other boys and men, as well as her mother. Its this same desire which acts as the main fault for her character.

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1444 Words | 6 Pages

Her mother and she have tension and her father rarely sees her, he works and sleeps “Stop gawking at yourself, who are you? You think you’re so pretty” (Oates page 4). Connie mostly keeps up with her own personal life more than

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588 Words | 3 Pages

To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone’s sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating” (McCarthy). In a way, this relates to how a character in Much Ado About Nothing could deceive another person in hopes that they wouldn’t find out. People now mask their identity using social media, which is the same thing as in the novel except, they did not have a screen in front of their faces. Deception is something real which still continues today and was present in the

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1290 Words | 6 Pages

At home she had a childlike walk, a pale and smirking mouth, and a cynical laugh; at home Connie was a child. In public, Connie acted like someone different, with a languid walk, bright pink lips and a high-pitched laugh; Connie tried to fit in with the older kids. Based on the way she presents herself, Connie seems to be able to attract guys’ attention and handle any situation with grace. However, just as the confrontation between the two showed Friend’s true character, the confrontation showed Connie’s as well. After her nerves overcame her, Connie reached for the phone to call for help, but all she could hear was a tiny roaring and was “so sick with fear that she could do nothing but listen to it” and then “she cried out, she cried for her mother, she felt her breath start jerking back and forth into her lungs as if it were something Arnold Friend was stabbing her with” (13).

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1415 Words | 6 Pages

“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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1181 Words | 5 Pages

A boy who once was easily swayed by those around him is now a man who can easily identify deception because he was able to identify his own

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