Preview

Connie Character Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
550 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Connie Character Analysis
Connie who finally gets attention from an older person she gets frighten, she neglects her childlike fantasies for realities of being a mature woman. Too look mature she dresses older, wear her hair different, her behavior and the way she acts when she’s away from home. She even gets the attention she wants from an older person, hang out at restaurant’s and listens to romance and love songs. Connie has two sides to her, one at home which she acts immature and when she goes out with her friends which she acts mature. She never seems to have a stable side to herself. Through the story, Connie doesn’t know what or who she wants to be.
Connie tries to be mature. When she is away from home she tries to be sexy, seductive, and mature. But the way Connie giggles, smirks and her behavior at home makes her immature. But when Connie is away from home she acts different. Her relationship is defined by her relationship to men’s or boys, and romance fills her thoughts. “Connie is a pretty teenager on the cusp of adulthood who is experimenting with both her identity and her sexuality” ( Salvalaggio Karin).
Doesn’t get along with her sister or mom. Connie and her family seems like enemies to each other, they can get along at all. Since Connie doesn’t have a
…show more content…
Connie has two sides to her one that’s stable to her and home and one when she goes out with her friends. Connie and her mother doesn’t have a god relationship, neither does her and her sister. She listens to too romance pop music, wear her hair different and look sexy and seductive. When Connie “Mature” Sides frightens, her she doesn’t really want to be mature anymore. But Connie gets really scared and tries to cry for help when Arnolds pops up in her yard while her family is away. She tries to make a call, and scream for her mother, but Arnold Friend tells her to come outside which she obeys and gets into his

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    After the sinkhole, Lake Windsor Middle School students got the choice to either learn in the gym for the time being or transferred to Tangerine Middle School. His choice can be harmless or harmful. Paul, took the opportunity to switch. But, the only way he got on Tangerine’s soccer team is because Paul’s mother, Mrs. Fisher got rid of the IEP form from his Cume Folder. Paul befriended the Tangerine Middle school teammates by joining the Tangerine Soccer team. This shows about his character by the way he “ratted” the Tangerine soccer players and then went to their school to play on their team. The consequences of this choice are that if the Tangerine soccer players figure out that it was Paul who ratted out the soccer players from the carnival…

    • 272 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In hopes to seem more mature, Connie dressed, walked, and talked like she was older than fifteen. To go along with her I’m-so-grown-up attitude, she also got the older boys attention. Connie often daydreamed about the boys she met, however “all the boys fell back and dissolved into a single face that was not even a face but an idea, a feeling, mixed up with the urgent insistent pounding of the music and the humid night air of July.” Connie did not realize how young and immature she was until Arnold showed up at her house and wanted to take her away. It was only then that she came to notice where her rebellious actions made her end…

    • 650 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This is obvious in Connie's situation through her actions. She endangers her own life to spare her family from the wrath of Arnold Friend, "‘You don't want them to get hurt,' Arnold Friend went on, ‘Now get up, honey. Get up all by yourself.' She stood." (p. 510). If she had refused to go, her family would have been put in danger, yet, through the story Connie appears to be very unattached from her family. There is a large amount of tension between her and her mother, "her mother, who noticed everything and knew everything and who hadn't much reason any longer to look at her own face, always scolded Connie about it," (p. 499). Connie's father is uninvolved in her life, "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…" (p. 499) and Connie shows no appreciation for her sister, "she 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," (p. 499). She is leading a typical rebellious teenage life where she avoids parental guidance but still has a deep appreciation for them and would risk her own life to spare…

    • 1242 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In this classic tale, Connie is very young and naïve and it certainly doesn’t help matters that she has negative influences in her life. Her own mother was a negative influence who corrupted her and led her to the path of the dark side, which would lead to her downfall. Considering the circumstance that "her mother had been pretty once too, if you could believe those old snapshots in the album, but now her looks were gone and that was why she was always after Connie." (Oates, 312) It has been demonstrated that Connie reminded her mother of herself when she was young, which made her own mother dislike her and favor the younger daughter, June.…

    • 1034 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Connie is described by the author as a the typical girl next-door when she is at home with her family, but a completely different human being in public with her friends as she is exploring her sexuality and searching for independence. The archetype between Arnold and Connie is suggestive of the struggle experienced by adolescent girls in their transition to womanhood. It is a period of emotional turmoil and the violent feelings expressed by Connie and the forcefulness of Arnold’s behavior really conveys the struggle experienced during the transition from adolescence.…

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Firstly, the two sides of Connie, Connie’s nightlife and her every day normal life with her family at home, emphasizes her developing sexuality. When Connie goes out with her girlfriends she shows a side of her that she will never show to her family: “Her walk, which could be childlike and bobbing, or languid enough to make anyone think she was hearing music in her head; her mouth, which was pale and smirking most of the time, but bright and pink on these evenings out; her laugh, which was cynical and drawling at home—"Ha, ha, very funny,"—but highpitched and nervous anywhere else, like the jingling of the charms on her bracelet.” (Oates 2) By acting like this she tries to be attractive to boys and in particular older men. This behaviour creates a very distinct contrast that contributes to the story's main idea. Connie hides her sexuality from her family, where she only makes fun of her sister and has fights with her mother. This indicates that she is ashamed by her sexual side, because when going out…

    • 948 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    What I feel is significant about this piece of literature is the story that is being told and the reality behind it. Many young girls face this kind of reality everyday and don’t have a good outcome. The authors’ intention in the story was to portray a little girl named Connie and show her struggle with adolescence and wanting to become a woman far too fast. The themes that stand out to me in this story are Connie’s constant fantasizing and daydreaming. She is always worried about her appearance and fantasizing about boys, but when it comes down to the reality of actually engaging and being confronted with a man, she reverts to being a child again. Another theme that stands out to me is Connie leaving herself extremely vulnerable. She has her friends’ dad drop them off at a shopping plaza, but sneaks off to a drive in to meet boys. Then she meets with Eddie and hangs out in an alley. This exposes her to Arnold Friend. She portrays herself with a lot of independence, but when she has the confrontation with him at her house, she tries to scare him away with saying, “But my father’s coming back. He’s coming to get me” (Oates 330). She says this because she is still a little girl and doesn’t quite know how…

    • 530 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Connie asks Arnold and his friend to leave. Arnold refused to leave without her. Connie noticed he was wearing a wig. Arnold begins to describe Connie’s family at the Barbeque. He gives Connie details about what her sister was wearing. He also stated that Connie’s mother was shucking corn. Finally, Arnold refers to himself as Connie’s lover and shows his sexual intentions, upsetting…

    • 913 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Looking for Alibrandi

    • 969 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The theme change is explored throughout the novel “Looking for Alibrandi” written in a young teenagers perspective by Melina Marchetta confronts the readers the variety of changes happening in a teenager’s life. The book includes changing in relationships, changing in perspective, and growing up.…

    • 969 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Arnold Friend Symbolism

    • 815 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Even when going to the mall then being sneaky and crossing the road to go to the drive in, her “sanctuary” that often played background music “like a church service”, another religious parallel that Oates gives the reader that her church service is the drive in resurant where all the older kids hang out. Connie is displaying youthful innocence and naive immaturity in realizing the danger she could be in, she is the lamb, young , pure and innocent. Connie rarely goes to church and her father is not a father at all, a mere figurehead that has no interaction with the family at all. The relationship with the mother is not much better, they often fight because Connie is always doing her hair or dressing up while the mom usually wears her robe and slippers. Connie and her sister are as well complete opposites, one is a rule follower and never says a word out of place and Connie is the rebellious young pretty one. Although with the sad relationships Connie had with her family, she made the ultimate sacrifice when Arnold Friend threatened to kill them if she did not come outside. Connie also fails to realize the power she has for through Arnold Friends long and convicting list of threats and remarks, Arnold never, not once, takes a step inside the door. That is also a religious parallel, the devil cannot enter a…

    • 815 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A kid wants to be noticed, but some people don’t go about it the right way in order to get the attention that they are seeking. Connie gets her attention through the way in which she walks and the questionable clothing she wears. At some point a person has to at least have the awareness and maturity to know when they are on dangerous grounds. She is too innocent to realize that Arnold Friend is not there for good intentions but he is giving her the attention she wants from people so even if she has a bad feeling about him she still feels attracted as much as she feels repelled. “She couldn’t decide if she liked him or if he was just a jerk”(Oates 4). An adult woman who knows what to look for in a guy past his appearance would know right away that Arnold is not someone that they would want to be associated with. Innocence becomes dangerous in this story considering Connie really doesn’t know any better, for up to this point she hasn’t seen anything go wrong as a result of the way she was acting, but until something was too show her that her ways were wrong she could never know to stop doing what she was doing in which case eventually her innocence was going to hurt her. A person cannot mature past their child like behaviors until that innocence that they once had is lost and until then they cannot get out of the stage in which they are…

    • 1229 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Since Connie is a rebellious fifteen year old girl that fights with her parents and constantly wants to do her own things, she is acting like a normal teenage girl that is of course not yet fully mature. She enjoyed going out with her girlfriends and complaining about the “hard life” she had and the constant nagging her mother gave. One night when Connie picks up a guy named Eddie, she “drew her shoulders up and sucked in her breath with the pure pleasure of being alive, and just at that moment she happened to glance at a face just a few feet from hers. It was a boy with shaggy black hair, in a convertible jalopy painted gold (Oates, 320). Connie constantly tries to ignore this man, who the reader eventually learns is Arnold Friend, yet she cannot look away while he says, “Gonna get you baby” while wagging his finger. This quote could symbolize Connie’s eventual fate since womanhood comes to every girl and Eddie did not even notice Arnold saying anything since men do not understand the way girls enter womanhood. Connie continues to be compared to her wholesome sister June by her mother with a disapproving tone, but Connie returns the favor by taking her mother for a fool. In fact, “Connie thought her mother was so simple that is was maybe cruel to fool her so much”(Oates, 321). This constant bickering between mother and daughter…

    • 1134 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Where Are You Going

    • 1045 Words
    • 5 Pages

    she was pretty and that was everything” (323). This captivation with herself along with the constant looking in the mirrors and thinking her mother was only pestering her all the time because her mother’s own good looks were long gone by now (323) shows a sign of immaturity because she believes everything revolves around whether or not someone is beautiful. Connie had two sides to her, which is most personified in her clothing and the way she makes it look one way at home and a different way when she is out (324).…

    • 1045 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In "Where are you going, Where have you been?", Connie starts out as most teenage girls seemingly would - she wants to be more daring, to appear older, to experience more of the world. She sneaks away from childish pursuits, to the teenage or adult world, to drink and kiss boys rather than shop for school clothes, to see movies in a steamy car instead of in a theater. She talks of being beautiful as if it were her only good grace - beauty, to her, is the ultimate goal. She wants to be older, and more beautiful, and this is her downfall. Her foolishness and her naivety is what appeals to Arnold Friend in the first place. Arnold Friend, a stranger, appeals to her early on in the story. He is older, more powerful, and smarter. She is frightened, of course, but intrigued, and it is her yearning for the adult world, and the adult life, that, in the end, causes her downfall. She is suckered in by the convincing conman who uses his words to appeal to her weaknesses. She is tricked into being what Arnold wants her to be by his smooth words and his façade of confidence. She's toyed with, played for the naive fool she is, who is far too young for the world she wants to be a part of. Only at the very end of the story does she begin to realize what…

    • 1116 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Annotated Bibiliography

    • 425 Words
    • 2 Pages

    To gain a better profile of Connie, one must understand the interactions she has with the members of her family, the involvement she has with other people, the interesting places she finds the most enjoyable, and the influences she experiences form certain events that have an effect on her behavior. As a result of this Connie I believe lets Arnold Friend have his way with her. She does not have a good relationship with her family, especially her mother, the two of them are constantly said to be arguing.…

    • 425 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Powerful Essays