Arnold Friend Character Analysis
Wickedness and malevolence is afoot in the stories “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates and “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor. The antagonists are both men, Arnold Friend and Manley Pointer, who take advantage of women. However, one of these men is more malicious than the other. This man is Arnold Friend from “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” because his intentions with the young woman, who is a minor, appear to be much more evil and daunting than that of Manley Pointer from “Good Country People”. This can be inferred from the open ending in Oates’s story, where the reader can only presume the worst will happen to 15 year old Connie after being manipulated and taken over by Arnold Friend. Manley …show more content…
“A man has come for her, a rapist …” she says, then compares Connie’s fate to that of another story, by saying “Like Tarwater, Connie is about to be ‘raped by the devil himself.’”(Oates). Not only does the author herself label Arnold as a “rapist” which would not be surprising, seeing that Arnold states “I’ll hold you so tight you won’t think you have to try to get away … because you’ll know you can’t. And I’ll come inside you where it’s all secret …” (Carol Oates 104) she also labels Arnold as “the devil”. In addition to this label, Linda Wagner-Martin in her article Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?: Overview believes society’s expectations is also to blame for Connie’s fate. “ Connie's Achilles' heel, her weakness in social interaction, is her naiveté. “She believes everything her culture has taught her about herself as a young woman, herself as a sexual object, and herself as a person questing for adventure. She defines "adventure" only in sexual terms.” (Wagner-Martin). Friend’s sickening manipulation of a naïve 15 year old, as well as taking advantage of how easy that was during that time, only further explains why Friend is more of a villainous antagonist than Pointer, who manipulated an older woman in her
Oates's Short Story 'Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?'
496 Words | 2 PagesConnie seems to be very lost and lonely; the perfect target for the devil. In this story, the devil takes form as an attractive man by the name of Arnold Friend. He first spots her while she’s out on a date and he inaudibly tells her “Gonna get you, baby.” Connie tries to act as if she isn’t interested, but she clearly is.
Where Are You Going Where Have You Been Smooth Talk Essay
1005 Words | 5 PagesOne similarity between the film and short story is that Arnold Friend’s personality, looks, and intentions remain the same (Oates 327). If Friend’s character did not remain the same throughout both short story and film, the lesson that one should always have a plan in order prior to unexpected visits by strangers would have not been taught. The importance of Arnold Friend remaining the same helps raise awareness about rapists and how some may think. Joyce Chopra, the director of Smooth Talk, neatly portrayed Friend as a deceitful psychopath that was willing to do anything in order to share a car ride with
Good Country People Comparative Essay
543 Words | 3 PagesFlannery O’Connor, in her short life, wrote one novel and many short stories that impact literature to this day. She wrote two superb short stories, A Good Man is Hard to Find and Good Country People, which have many similarities hidden in the theme of their complex text. While both stories include themes about religion, identity, and the way we view others, the endings are astoundingly different. Nonetheless, O’Connor’s main theme concerning the way we view other people, is the most significant in both short stories. In Good Country People, Mrs. Hopewell repeatedly states that the bible salesman is the “salt of the earth” meaning that he is just a good and simple country boy.
Brief Character Analysis: Arnold Friend
122 Words | 1 PagesArnold Friend, as friendly as he seems in the beginning, has the ability to persuade people into an estranged thought process. He is manipulative in his facts of conversation with Connie, who shows to eventually be easily coerced. Is it Connie’s immature weakness as a teenager or Arnold’s undoubted tactics that make her final decision to join him? In the beginning Connie is impressed with Arnold Friend.
Arnold Character Analysis
903 Words | 4 PagesDuring our usual late-night phone call to each other, one of the topics that we talked about was the short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates; which I recently read for my English class. As I told you about the short story, we discussed our ideas and inclinations about the character Arnold, and how we individually perceive him. Our discussion revealed we had conflicting views on Arnold 's character. You told me that you perceive Arnold Friend to be a supernatural entity, and not of the human world. However, I disagree and think that Arnold is a rather disturbing mortal.
Where Are You Going Where Have You Been Characters
520 Words | 3 PagesWhen talking to her, Arnold Friend said things that sounded good, but did not exactly make sense during their conversation. This is shown by one of the first things that Arnold says to her: “You’re cute” (Oates, 2). Out of context, it appears sweet and spontaneous, but just before he said that to Connie, he had asked her to go on a ride with him. Arnold Friend starts to come off creepier and creepier as his threat escalates and he becomes some sort of broken record that sputters out words that sound right, but have no real meaning behind them. This is seen in the last words that he says to Connie at the very end of the story when he says, “My sweet blue eyed girl” (Oates, 6).
A Good Man Is Hard To Find Psychopath Analysis
1097 Words | 5 PagesThe Purpose of Psychopaths in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” In the short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” a family of six meets their demise on the side of the road in Georgia after a gang of convicts lead by The Misfit brutally murders each member of the family. The story starts off in an upbeat tone and sets up a seemingly happy plot about a family going on vacation to Florida. However, the grandmother does not listen to her son about taking her cat on the trip and her disobedience ultimately leads to all of their deaths. The author changes the tone of the story at the end when the family gets into a wreck and faces a gruesome death by a crazed armed killer on the loose (O’Connor#).
Literary Analysis: Flannery O Connor
1068 Words | 5 PagesLiterary Analysis ENG2106 Student name: Li Michaela Bernice Student ID: 4002551 Word count: Grace and sins Flannery O’Connor was a Southern author from America who frequently wrote in a Southern Gothic style and depended vigorously on local settings and bizarre characters. Her works likewise mirrored her Roman Catholic faith and regularly examined questions of morality and ethics. She created violence in the end of both “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and “Everything that Rises Must Converge” to put the stories to the end. She asserted that she has found that violence is strangely capable of returning her characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace, and also violence is the extreme situation that best reveals who
A Good Man Is Hard To Find The Grandmother Character Analysis
1165 Words | 5 PagesWhen comparing and contrasting the two short stories “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “Revelation” written by Flannery O’Connor, many similarities are noticed between the main characters as well as many differences. The author of the short stories based them on rejection and redemption in the modern world and it is shown in both stories. The Grandmother and Mrs. Turpin are similar and opposite when comparing being selfish and hypocritical, as well the amount of grace in each character’s life’s. Both the grandmother from “A Good Man is Had to Find” and Mrs. Turpin from “Revelation” are selfish characters but show their selfishness in different ways.
Where Are You Going Where Have You Been Literary Analysis
694 Words | 3 PagesHe 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.
Joyce Carol Oates 'Short Story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been'
569 Words | 3 PagesArnold Friend is a character in Joyce Carol Oates’s short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”. Throughout the scenes that involve Arnold, it can be seen that Oates used sexual predation as a main point in the story. Oates’s inspiration for Arnold Friend was Bob Dylan’s song “It’s all over Now Baby Blue,” and in the story, there are references to the song describing Connie as Arnold’s “sweet little blue-eyed girl” (Oates 9). Another inspiration for Arnold was an real-life psychopathic serial killer Oates read about in a newspaper who would “seduce young girls into his car after school; he would later molest and kill them” (Mary); he was the perfect muse for Arnold because both had a violently promiscuous persona.
Flannery O Connor's A Good Man Is Hard To Find
1142 Words | 5 PagesFlannery O’Connor is a renowned Southern author, noted for her gothic works and heavily Catholic themes. She focuses predominantly on racial tensions, morality, and divine grace. The religious and moral themes of her short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, converge on the character of the grandmother. Despite the self-proclamations of fulfilling what it means to be a Southern lady, Grandmother holds a superficial grasp of her religion. Throughout the story, the Grandmother never truly changed, only her ostensible actions did.
Self Awareness In A Good Man Is Hard To Find
1076 Words | 5 PagesIn the short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, Flannery O’Connor’s goal is to teach her readers an important lesson. By presenting an exaggerated and flawed character, and through a peek into her life, she displays the consequences of many faults, but most importantly, the danger of a lack of self-awareness. By the end of the story, the main character, Grandmother, has had an epiphany, brought on by a traumatizing event. By giving them an outside view of the folly of her character, Flannery O’Connor hopes to warn her readers of following the same path that will inevitably lead to destruction in some way or another.
Where Have You Been Joyce Carol Arnold Character Analysis
652 Words | 3 PagesBut what he does reveal is nothing but a facade. He is someone who is able to zero in on one’s weakness such as Connie’s romantic fantasies. He preyed on such fantasies by behaving as a typical bad boy archetype, wooing her off her feet and offering her elope from her mundane suburban somber. “ ‘I ain’t late, am I?’ He said.
Ida Arnold Character Analysis
544 Words | 3 PagesIda Arnold is said to be one of the strongest characters in Brighton Rock and can be viewed as a real motherly figure to Rose. Ida acquires the role of a detective after the death of Charles Hale. She is determined to prove that Pinkie is the murderer of Hale. Pinkie notices Ida’s suspicion and marries Rose because he knows a wife cannot be forced to give away evidence on her husband. Ida then feels like it is her job to save Rose’s marriage as well.
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