Connie Carol Oates Analysis

“Recession is when a neighbor loses his job, depression is when you lose your job” Ronald Reagan. Recession is only a temporary decline and depression is a long and extended period of economic failure. There was a crisis in America during the time period the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? was based on. The Great Depression was occurring at that time and the characters in this movie reflected and showed was it was like to live in a time like that. Each character in the movie symbolized what an individual person would have went through during the Great Depression.

-O’ Brother, Where Art Thou quote: movie was centered around flooding of the valley by TVA dam (Coen & Coen, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, 2000) -Created by the TVA Act in 1933 election of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR). -New Deal which was a series of programs, ‘alphabet soup,’ established during the Great Depression, restoring dignity back to the American people. (History.com Staff, 2009)-Energy, environment, jobs, economy (Our History, n.d.) It did this through power production, flood control, and reforestation and staying with its mission of “making lives better for the people of the Tennessee Valley region.” (How TVA Changed Lives, n.d.) -Effects are still felt today in the citizens of the southeastern United States. (The Editors

Religion is a big influence in Flannery O 'Connor 's writing. “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” stresses the idea of good and evil. This can also be viewed at the evil in Christ. The story is set in the early 1900s. “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” begins with a woman and her disabled daughter sitting on their porch and she notices a man walking towards their home. The man, Mr. Shiftlet, sees an old car that he wants. The old woman, Lucynell, is also craving something and takes the opportunity to achieve it. By her use of symbols, imagery, and irony, she reveals that there is corruption within Christ.

The two poems I chose to analyze were “Curandera” by Pat Mora and “Loose Woman” by Sandra Cisneros. They were an interesting read and made sure to reread several times to make sure I got everything I could from them. Both poems are so unique from other poems I have read; they are also unique from each other yet share similarities as well.

She runs back into her house, desperate for the safety it once provided, and futilely wails for help: “Her fingers groped down to the [telephone] dial but were too weak to touch it. She cried out, she cried for her mother, she felt her breath jerking back and forth. as if it were something Arnold Friend was stabbing her with.” Fully disconnected from her sense of self, Connie accepts her doomed fate and walks out of the door into the open arms of Arnold Friend. Connie and Arnold both wear deceptive masks.

Oates opts for a young person's perspective through her main character, Connie, a fifteen-year-old girl just on the brink of womanhood, and navigates the intricacies of adolescent character, health, and the indefinable danger that lurks around the next corner.

Belonging to a certain group is a natural experience in the lives of individuals. Groups are categorizable by a variety of options but often expel a trait that epitomizes each individual within the group such as rank, societal merit, or simply just appearance. Behaviorism gratifies purpose within cohort mentality among those in an association due to the psychological commonalities that bring these groups together. When it comes to an individual's development within a certain group, joint mentality helps create a safe environment but often times supports ideologies of self empowerment. Anthropologist Karen Ho composes the analysis of students whom graduate Ivy League universities and enter into financial professions, in her essay “Biographies

Joyce Carol Oates has captivated the imagination of the reader within her short story The Abduction. There are many components to making a story great as well, and in his Ted Talk “The Clues to a Great Story”, Andrew Stanton goes into detail about the dos and don’ts of story. Joyce Carol Oates uses several of the positive references from Stanton’s Ted Talk throughout her short story to grab the reader’s attention and envelope them into the story of a girl gone missing.

Oates's goal was for Connie to symbolize weakness in a violent and dangerous world. The story begins with Oates describing the main character Connie, as a beautiful young fifteen-year-old girl who had a, “nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people’s

Oates's story, according to its ambiguous ending, can have several interpretations. The most literally one depends upon the problem of rape in today's culture. Connie is a pretty, young and inexperienced girl. She is being seduced by an older man, who finally achieves his goal, rapes her, and probably murders. The story can be a kind of warning that there are thousands of women harmed through this crime every day, and more often they are innocent and naive teenagers and girls. It may also call for not only reacting to a victim of a horrible rape, but for searching out the rapists, seeking the causes of rape in the society, and stopping this epidemic at its source.

As in the short story, the story is more about Connie and Oates only uses a few sentences to describe her family members, she doesn’t provide much detail either. On the other hand, in the movie by Joyce Chopra, she adds a few scene and even developing further more into the other characters, such as the mother, father and her older sister, June. The main theme is still about Connie but also about her family. By doing this, it can create more connection

Regardless, after the incident Connie’s will is broken and she is overcome with feelings of emptiness. After Connie denies to go with Arnold; “This is how it is honey; you come out and we’ll drive away, have a nice ride. But if you dont come out we’re going to wait till your people come home and then they’re all going to get it”(Oates 12). Arnold threatens Connie with her Family which makes her scared and the fear going through her body makes her react devoted and she then gives herself up for the sake of her family. Connie was motivated to stay a live

In Safari by Jennifer Egan, Egan brings up the topic of relationships and their structures quite often. Egan even defines many of Mindy’s personal terms, which describe her interactions with others. Such terms as Structural desire, Structural resentment, Structural Dissatisfaction, are brought up often as Mindy describes her relationships with Lou, Albert, and herself. Mindy goes through lots of struggles and challenges while trying to maintain these partnerships. These kinds of relationships can be applied outside of the story; to show how these kinds of relationships can affect us in negative ways. Mindy has a completely different perspective by the end of the story. She also has all new relationships with Lou, Albert, and herself. In Safari, Mindy has many complex relationships throughout the text that change and evolve, as she also grows as a person.

As seen throughout the story, those who are younger are portrayed as powerless and looked down upon. This is mostly defined in Connie as she struggles to reach maturity. At home, she is viewed as a young, immature child who cannot do anything. “’Why don’t you keep your room clean like your sister? […] you don’t see your sister using that junk’ […] Connie had to hear [June] praised all the time by her mother and her mother’s sisters” (Oates). As shown, Connie is viewed as a child in the eyes of her family. Her mother constantly assumes dominance over her by berating her. “Connie wished her mother was dead and she herself was dead and it was all over” (Oates). As a symbol of youth in the house hold, she resents her mother and sister because they symbolize the figure of power and maturity that she desires. Not only is this lack

Ophelia Norris doesn't say much about herself and doesn't plan to anytime soon. She becomes a lost soul or has she always been a lost soul? With losing herself and going down everyday, she goes into a world of darkness who is just waiting for someone to bring her out. Faking smiles and relationships could only give her a bitter happiness that has never been what she wanted to achieve. She lives in a nonchalantly life, but that is only because she cares too much. Confused in her own world and sucking herself in another reality, she becomes non-existent.