Connie’s Decision Nobody really knows what the future holds. We all live day by day wondering what God’s will is for our lives. Yet we carry on and make decisions that may or may not shape what our lives turn out to be. In Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where are you going, Where have you been? ,” we meet Connie, a fifteen year old beautiful girl.
Connie like most teenagers is a little boy crazy and at times rebellious. She and some girlfriends would get together and go to a local drive-in restaurant where older kids would hang out. (153) One night at this drive-in a boy with shaggy black hair, in a convertible caught Connie’s eye. (154) Connie had never seen him before. He made the sly statement of “Gonna get you, baby,” and she just ignored him and walked on.
(154) Little did Connie know he was speaking the truth. In a very short period of time Connie was about to make the biggest decision of her life, literally. Connie was at home alone one day sitting in her room listening to music. Her mother, father and sister were out to a barbecue. An unfamiliar car pulled up in the driveway and Connie at first was worried about how she looked. This was the least of her troubles.
When Connie got to the front door she was faced with two men. The driver whom we come to know as Arnold Friend and the passenger whose name was Ellie Oscar. Arnold comes off at first as kind of strange yet nice. He asks Connie, “You want a come for a ride?” (156) Connie smiles but is still hesitant.
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Arnold proceeds to ask Connie to go for a ride with him, but soon his tone changed and he went from asking to telling. Connie started to get frightened when Arnold starting saying telling all the things that he knew about her. There was no way he could have known those things because she didn’t know him. “I took a special interest in you, such a pretty girl, and found out all about you like I know your parents and sister are gone somewhere’s and I know where and how long they ” re going to be gone, and I know who you were with last night, and your best girl friend’s name is Betty.
Right? ,” Arnold said. (157) This to me is where the tone in the story really changed. Eventually in the story Arnold threatens Connie that if she calls the police he is coming in and if she doesn’t come out he is going to do harm to her family. Connie is faced with a huge decision.
Does she take the chance on calling the cops? Or should she get in the car with Arnold Friend? Either way I think she knew that the outcome was going to be death. The story ends with Connie on her way out to the car. She put out her hand against the screen. She watched herself push the door slowly open as if she were back sage somewhere in the other doorway, watching this body and this head of long hair moving out into the sunlight where Arnold Friend waited.
(164) Why does Connie make this decision? The story does not say, but as the reader I think that Connie was thinking if she stayed that he would harm her and her family, but if she went with him he would only harm her. Ultimately this is the interpretation I got from her actions. She turns out to be a hero in some ways. She sacrificed herself for her family. This was not an easy decision.
What would you do if you were in Connie’s shoes? Would you be able to step foot in Arnold’s car? I hope that I never have to make a decision like that but if I do I would probably try to make a run for it. There are people in this world that this has really happened to and I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened again. Decisions can be simple or they can change our lives. We don’t know what decisions we will have to make tomorrow or the next day. All we can do is pray that we never have to make a decision like Connie’s.
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