My own understanding of this story is the dark, evil subliminal flow throughout the story along with the realism that is brought out by the life of Connie and how something as your family life and the way a parent cares for their child or treats their child, or harmless intent decisions a young girl makes can create an outcome of men behaving sadistically and disgustingly towards a girl as young as 15.Connie is a shallow girl who is uncared for by her parents and who is often compared to her sister, obsessed with her looks she is fully aware of how beautiful she is. Having parents who do not typically ask where you are going will lead a young girl to involve herself into dangerous, but “fun” things that young teenage girls typically should not involve themselves in. Being a girl that beautiful and easy to talk to, men will think this is a easy target. Unfortunately for Connie, this man was very demanding and was very serious and was relentless in the fact where he really wanted Connie and targeted her weak, shallow thinking mindset and targeted her physically and mentally. The article states, “Since Connie so values appearances, she holds
others to these shallow standards and uses what she sees on the surface as her criteria by which to judge them. This superficial view
of the world leads her to embrace the drive-in restaurant, where older kids hung out and where Arnold Friend marks her with
his X. Then, because at first she liked the way he was dressed, she does not immediately urge Arnold Friend to leave
her driveway, and she stays talking with him, thus allowing him the time to create a physical space of psychological terror from which
she cannot escape. ”
The men are sick and forceful, relentless to leaving her alone until she abides by what they say. It’s truly relatable to be a girl who do not enjoy the company of her family, who has to put on a two-person personality and to want to live a life that’s exciting and different, to feel as if you have control and it’s realistic that when you aren’t careful and when you least expect, dangerous times can come.
One thought on “Celine Ghany Discussion 14”
I like how you connected the way a family treats their daughter to men being sexually forceful on a female. This relates to the societal idea that usually a girl with “daddy issues” or severed familial relationships tend to encounter more sadistic men and are most often than not raped or sexually harassed. I like that you also included the fact that because Connie is shallow, she projects that onto others, and it causes her to have poor judgement about the intentions of men until she was in a situation she couldn’t get out of.