Music and fantasy Essay

In the beginning of the story, Connie leads the life of a carefree fifteen year old girl. She spends most of her days in town with friends where they meet boys, listen to music, watch movies or go for shopping. When she stays at home, she fantasying about meeting boys and gets in her mother’s way. She is happy when she listens to music and when she is in town with her friends. She is unhappy when she is at home and her mother constantly nags her. Her mother considers her useless, whose mind is always filled with ‘trashy daydreams’. She is like any other middle class teenager. Her world is full of friends, fun, rock and roll music and fantasy. She knows that she is pretty and that is everything to her. She like most teenagers seemingly lives two lives: one that her family sees and the other when is anywhere other than home. She observes the world through the rose colored glasses of youth. Her involvement with boys both real and imagined are sweet and gentle, the way it is in movies and promised in songs. 1. The story is different in the sense that the victim, Connie comes out on her own accord, leaving her home and family behind. The abducted does not force his way in to her house. Rather he seduces her by music, charisma and increasing threats. When Arnold friend appears and ask her to go for a drive, she is flattered that he remembers her. Gradually she notices something fake about him and wants to quit the conversation. But the turn comes too late and by then Friend has her in his hold. She realizes the danger but chooses to give in. She tries to protect her innermost self by falling into a state of trance and distancing herself from her body. The sweet sugary pop music that Connie listens day after day epitomize her naive vision of life, love and sex, this proves very dangerous for Connie. She has a hazy view that any sexually charged interaction with boys is sweet and gentle like it is shown in movies and promised in songs. Thus she is helpless against Arnold Friend, whose disguise has a weird resemblance to Bob Dylan. His actions are that of the vagabond in Dylan’s song, â€Å"It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue†, who comes to lure her into an ominous and uncertain destiny. The Rock’n’Roll music is always present in Connie’s life. She hears music in a restaurant in town. It makes Connie feel good about everything. To her, it is like a church service, something to depend upon. When she is with a boy Eddie, again there is music. Music makes her feel joy and pleasure of being alive. When she is at home, she daydreams about boys and music is always at the background. On a Sunday afternoon, when she is alone at home, she turns on the radio; she is immediately bathed in a glow of slow-pulsed joy that seemed to rise mysteriously out of the music. Music is also present in the form of Ellie Oscar’s transistor radio, the romantic promises and frantic strains of music assist Arnold Friend in seducing Connie at her house. 4. One of the themes of the story is illusion of innocent youth versus the reality of uncertain future. Connie has the illusion of love and life which is crashed by the cruel reality. In the beginning of the story, Connie sees the world through the rose colored glasses of innocent young. She believes the world to be like what is seen in popular movies and promised in bubble-gum rock. She lives in her own dream world. She fantasizes about boys, where all the faces dissolve in to one single face which is not a face but an idea, a feeling mix with music. At the end of the story Arnold Friend appears at her doorsteps and her world of illusion and innocence is invaded with brutal reality. Friend succeeds in seducing her in to an unknown and uncertain destination. Moreover if we consider Friend as a portrayal of Charles Schmid, a serial killer in Tucson, Arizona, then probably she faces the reality of rape and subsequently death. Work Citation: â€Å"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been by Joyce Carol Oates†. 12 July 2007. University of San Francisco †¢ Educating Minds and Hearts to Change the World. 19 September 2007 Joyce Carol Oates â€Å"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been†. 4 May 2000. Martina Preis and Corina Naujokat. 19 September 2007. We Could Be So Good Together: Rock And Roll And American Fiction. June 2007. Terry Dalrymple and John Wegner. 19 September 2007.