Connie's Sexuality In Joyce Carol Oates 'Smooth Talk'

Oates emphases that Connie is in her adolescence, who is trying to transition into thinking like an adult. Connie, who is obsessed with her appearance, is constantly “craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was all right”(Oates 1). She is starting to

Evidently, Connie was manipulated by her youthful wild dreams, therefore eventually became blinded by her surroundings at the end. Theme enhances the idea of the story as the character leads herself into a destructive internal journey. The central idea of the story is identified and unifies the moral

Arnold Friend’s layers of deception. Connie’s blindness is the pretext of her loss of innocence

When Connie first hears a car pulling up in her driveway, her attention is immediately directed to her hair and looks. She isn’t concerned as much about who is outside or what they want, but how see will look to them. When she initially sees Arnold she is attracted to his style and car. He is muscular in tight faded jeans and a drives a bright gold jalopy. His image is everything that Connie has fantasized about and can relate to. Arnold is even playing

The encounter that Connie experiences with Arnold Friend involves a series of events that would lead someone to believe that he in fact was a figment of her subconscious, or a nightmare. Before their rendezvous, Connie had been sitting “with her eyes closed in the sun”, daydreaming (29). This is the first clue Oates presents the reader to show that Connie falls asleep. In addition to this, when Connie “opened her eyes she hardly knew where she was” (29). When a person is involved in a dream, it is common that they

The beginning of the short story enlightens the reader into the relationship that Connie has with her mother. Connie’s mother does not agree with her admiration for herself. This is due to Connie’s mother’s own insecurities. Oates writes, “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 3043). Connie was aware that her mother was jealous of the way she looked and envied her young adolescence. Her mother was nagging her daily and constantly comparing her to her sister. The constant comparison and nagging left Connie to deal with internally judging herself. Oates expresses Connie’s strong unhappiness with her mother by stating “…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” (3043). Connie’s frustration with her mother lies deep within her internal judgments. She repeatedly obsesses over her mother’s words and desires attention from older males. Even though she does not feel as if she fits in with her sister June, there are some characteristics that she likes about her sister. One of these characteristics is that June is older. Since June is older, Connie is allowed to go out when her sister does which allows her to embrace her rebellious adolescence. She wishes she was older and battles with her internal misconception of her age. In the story, Connie is at an age where she is experimenting with her surroundings. Young girls are regularly comparing themselves to their friends and their elders. The obsession of comparison leaves Connie continuously striving to be better and to increase her attractiveness. Her misconceptions suggest to her that she needs to be more sexual. Her varying internal conflicts leave her with a void that she tries to fill otherwise.

Joyce Carol Oates plays upon the stereotypic female gender role through her adolescent character, Connie, in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” The story was written at a significant time in America’s history. It was a season when social and moral conventions were challenged. This period experienced the rise of women struggling for sexual freedom and gender equality in a patriarchal society. Oates portrays the protagonist, Connie, as naive, unaware and inexperienced; she has yet to find her identity and fully understand her place as a women in the world. She believes she has learned to play the game of the sexes and that she has the upper hand. This belief, though, is quickly subverted when she is confronted by Arnold Friend, a man who works to reinforce patriarchal standards by punishing Connie for acting outside stereotypic female role boundaries, she then realizes as a women, she has very little power.

Connie’s identity is shown at the end of the story, but who she was at the beginning of the story differs to who she became at the end of the story. To start, Connie was a fifteen year old girl who was beautiful and adventuress, but failed to acknowledge and grasp the idea of a real family. Connie’s family or her mother is not the exact loving and caring mother some people have experienced. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”, Connie sated “Her mother, who noticed everything and knew everything and who hadn 't

The Cultural Revolution and Sexual Desires in Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”

During the conversation between Connie and Arnold Friend, she experiences a dramatic moment so intense that it cannot be avoided or ignored. Her attempt was creating a sexy appearance and fascinating the boys in the local diner delivers as her experiment to analyze new fields as well as a new side of herself. However, until Arnold comes into the story, her expeditions have always been closed into security. She may go into an dark alley with a boy for a short period, but no matter what happens there,

The characterizations of Connie’s family members have great effects on Connie. And Connie’s mother’s characterization is the main motivator for Connie’s rebellion. She always compares Connie with June, who is the “ideal daughter” in her eyes, and blames Connie for some little things, such as improper dressing and not having a tidy room. Oates suggests that the reason for Connie’s mother prohibiting Connie to dress up like an adult is that “ Her mother had been pretty once too” (Oates 1), but now “her looks were gone and that was why she always after Connie” (Oates 1). Therefore, she is jealous about Connie’s beauty and feels uncomfortable when seeing Connie wear beautiful outfits. Meanwhile, she likes June so much because June is obedient and plain, which makes her feel that she is dominant in the relationship. In the short story, Connie’s father is not given much description by the author, but

The characterizations of Connie’s family members have great effects on Connie. And onnie’s mother’s characterization is the main motivator for Connie’s rebellion. She always compares Connie with June, who is the “ideal daughter” in her eyes, and blames Connie for some little things, such as improper dressing and not having a tidy room. Oates suggests that the reason for Connie’s mother prohibiting Connie to dress up like an adult is that “ Her mother had been pretty once too” (Oates 1), but now “her looks were gone and that was why she always after Connie” (Oates 1). Therefore, she is jealous about Connie’s beauty and feels uncomfortable when seeing Connie wear beautiful outfits. Meanwhile, she likes June so much because June is obedient and plain, which makes her feel that she is dominant in the relationship. In the short story, Connie’s father is not given much description by the author, but his characterization has an effect on Connie as well. The irresponsible father spends little time with family and seldom has conversations to his daughters. When hearing his wife’s complain about Connie, he just bends his head with saying nothing, which makes Connie feels ignored and lonely. Urbanski states that “The father, who spent most of his time at work, is weak” (Urbanski 200) to reveals the father is not an active figure in his daughter’s life. Therefore, lacking of the company and communication of family members, Connie becomes upset. In addition, Connie’s sister June, who has the opposite characterization, is also one of the reasons for Connie’s rebellion. In Connie’s eyes, June is a

In the story, “Where are you Going, Where Have you Been?” the author, Joyce Carol Oates, uses literary devices to convey a message about the loss of innocence. To be more specific, Oates’s characterization of the protagonist, Connie, specifically shows the actions leading to her innocence being taken from her. The literary device of characterization gives a clear picture Oates thoughts at the time she wrote the story, expressing concern for young girls who are at risk of having their innocence taken from them.

In her sorrow for the behavior of her daughter Connie, the mother often expresses a bit more appreciation and consideration for the older sister June. She declares somewhere in the story, ‘’Why don’t you keep your room clean like your sister? How’ve you got your hair fixed-what the hell stinks? Hair spray? You don’t see your sister using that junk’’ (Henderson ). It is well-known that anything in excess is harmful, but Connie does not seem to have been aware of this. Connie’s behavior, far away from doing good to her, exposes her to her sexual predator as an easy prey.

According to society, women were not supposed to ‘give the gift of herself’ (7) to any man before marriage, but both she herself and her sister did so: ‘they had given themselves each to the youth with whom she had the most intimate and subtle arguments’ (7). Women were expected to fulfil the sexual needs and wishes that a man has; ‘a woman had to yield him what he wanted’ (7), but it did not necessarily mean she gave herself to him if she was to ‘take’ him. She has, as Lawrence labels it, given herself to several men before she met and married Clifford. They had a strong connection together, which was heavily based on their physical, sexual relationship. Connie’s husband, Clifford Chatterley, was a soldier who was sent away to fight for his country at war. Before going off to war, he and Connie married. Their relationship was heavily sexually based. This created a stronger connection between the two, with both their needs being satisfied. So, with Clifford being left paralysed from the waist down, it is no surprise that this had a huge effect on their relationship. It especially effected Connie and her strong desires for pleasure. Between the duties that have fallen on her to care for her husband, and the fact that her needs are not being fulfilled is another reason as to why she becomes so weak and defeated. She herself admits that