Connie In Joyce Carol Oates's The Metamorphosis

The quote, “‘Then I wish I weren’t your daughter, I wish you weren’t my mother,’ I shouted”(Tan 141-142) expresses the tone of hateful because the things Tan said as a child to her mother were just hateful to say. The relationship between this mother and daughter is a poor

Madame Ratignole is always giving Edna counsel and warning her. When Edna moves into her new home alone and becomes close to Arobin, Ratignole “advise[s] [her] to be a little careful while she [is] living there alone” and tells her that Arobin’s “ attentions alone are enough to ruin a woman’s reputation” [96]. Ultimately, Edna ignores her about almost everything. Ratignole has little influence on Edna’s decision making and Edna makes choices that she would never make, both of these facts show their dissimilarity. Edna’s relationship with Mademoiselle Reisz is different.

The idea of blocking everyone out helped Connie build her self-confidence. To emphasize Connie’s narcissism, Oates stated that “Connie’s mother kept picking at her until Connie wished her mother was dead and she herself was dead and it was all over” (324). Because Connie felt so negatively of her mother and family, she creates an idea of wanting to be on her own. She doesn’t know exactly what it is like to be without anyone to use as a crutch, but Conni feels as if her mother doesn’t want her to be pretty. Connie wanted to shut her family out because she felt as if they didn’t love her as much as her genuine sister June.

The overall theme of the short story, Abuela Invents the Zero, is appreciate your family with respect. One example is when Connie's grandmother comes to visit, she does not want to be seen around her because she is embarrassed by the way she dresses and acts. This could make her grandmother feel unwelcomed by her granddaughter. This tells me that Connie is afraid people would see her differently around her grandma and she is going to avoid her as much as she can. When her grandma walks in the door, Connie refers to her as “the old lady”.

The story shows that Connie was not prepared for Arnold Friend’s despite her actions beforehand. Connie is the opposite of her sister, June. June is a goodie-to-shoes while Connie wants to be her own person. Her mother always nags on Connie saying that she should be like June who follows the rules and is a good role model. Her mom tells her, “Why don’t you keep your room clean like your sister?..

Her mother is mean and severely strict. Tita, being the youngest child, is pulled into the family tradition of the youngest daughter looking after her mother until death. Even though Mama Elena, Tita’s mother, is terrible mother, the message of what it means to be a mother is shown in the book. In Like Water for Chocolate the author uses Tita, a shotgun, and the kitchen as symbols to show that being a mother doesn’t have to do with having gave birth to a child, but is defined by traits shown by a person.

Bernice prides herself in her family’s old fashioned values, that a woman must be polite and gentle in order to be feminine. However, since she never was allowed to fully express herself, her social skills turned awry and she fails to win the attention of men. Therefore, she seeks her cousin,

Rather then when she`s home, she shows her different aspect of life. She has a difficult relation with her mother, “she makes me want to throw up sometimes” (Oates 1). Therefore, she rejected the role of having to get along

She uses the foil to explore how Irene and Clare experience womanhood differently and connects it to the expectations of women in the 1920s. She mainly uses motherhood and marriage to exhibit these differences in their lives based on off race. She uses motherhood to show how Clare hates being a mother because of her fear of her husband finding out she’s black through her daughter’s skin tone. Irene appreciates being a mother even though she sacrifices her own desires for it; she understands the huge responsibility that comes with being a mother and embraces it. Marriage is used to portray Clare’s fear of her husband, and it shows Irene’s insecurity in her marriage when she suspects Clare and Brian are having an affair, yet her faith in her husband when she blames herself.

The story is told from the point of view of their mother, Ms. Johnson, and it is from her that we learn about the difference in the sister’s characters. Dee, who changes her name to Wangero, is outspoken and is the educated sister. Maggie is shy and appears to be ashamed of the burns on her skin. “[Maggie] thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that ‘no’ is a word the world would never learn to say to her” (Walker 6). This is important because, in the end, Dee does not get her way.

I won 't ever do it again”( Esquivel 12), is what Tita said when she got scolded. Mami was considered more polite than saying mama according to Mama Elena and if they didn 't, they would get slapped. However towards the middle of the book, Tita couldn 't cope with her anymore. Near the end, Tita announced her hatred for her mom by exclaiming,” I know who I am! A person who has a perfect right to live her life as she pleases.

Another character is Connie’s mother. Connie and her mother argue and bicker on a regular basis. She seems to be constantly getting after Connie "Stop gawking at yourself, who are you? You think you’re so pretty?” (Oates 308).

Connie, the main character in Joyce Carol Oates’ short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is a young woman with palpably low self-esteem. This vulnerability allows Arnold Friend, the main antagonist of the story, to successfully attract and manipulate Connie. The story begins by highlighting Connie’s daily rituals of self-assurance (369). In order to feel secure with herself, even for a fleeting moment, Connie looks at herself in a mirror to make sure that she is satisfied with what she sees; this ritual is coupled with her tendency, when in public, to scan the area in order to make sure that no one is making any disgruntled looks about her appearance (369).

Karlea Belsey Mrs. Ham English 1302 23 February 2016 “Two Kinds” of Girls “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, written by Joyce Carol Oates in 1970, the main character, Connie, is put in the shadows of her older sister, and she feels as though her mother does not care for her as much as her sister. Connie acts and dresses different when she was away from her family; she tried to fit in with her friends whenever they went to the shopping mall, movies, or to the restaurant across from the mall. On the other hand, in “Two Kinds”, written by Amy Tan in 1989, the main character, Jing Mei, was a Chinese-American whose mother wanted her to be a prodigy in something, and believed that she could be anything that she wanted to be since she was in America. Both of these characters, Connie and Jing Mei, had someone pushing them to do something, but in the end, Connie agreed to her persuasion, while Jing Mei refused.

Writer, Joyce Oates, in her fictional short story, “Where are you going, where have you been,” recounts the story of, Connie a fifteen year old. Joyce Oates creates a flippant tone in her character description of Connie. The tone shifts from flippant to disturb after her brief interaction with Arnold at her house. Oates uses emotionally/ominous loaded language, and vivid threatening imagery in Where are you going,where have you been. Oates purpose is to warn readers of what could happen when an adolescent go through the rite of passage.