ENGLISH WRITING(1) - Literary Analysis Essay--Draft for Peer Review

Using the literary/narrative terminology covered in class and described in materials on the website, analyze the attached story from Joyce Carol Oates, "Where Are You Going,? Where Have You Been?" Follow the instructions in the webpage document on how to carry out the literary analysis essay. Minimum 1400 words for peer review. Maximum roughly 1600. (Final submission will be 1500 - 1600 words after revision). Submission should be in doc, docx or pdf format. Composition of the essay must be in either Microsoft Word, LibreOffice or Open Office. No use of Google Docs, Pages, or Hangeul Word Processing allowed. (For the Korean version of MS Word, four defaults have to be changed. International versions are likely OK but check first). Any instances of plagiarism will mean a failure on the assignment as well as the course. Please be forewarned. The complete draft of the essay is due at the beginning of class on Friday, April 7. Please note that a grace period DOES NOT APPLY to the workshop draft. It might be well worth your time to review the lectures on academic writing from the second week of class as well as the lectures and documents related to this assignment, including narrative vocabulary, how to carry out the literary analysis essay, and how your first essay will be evaluated. You may find these materials on the website. Please post your draft here on LearnUs and also bring two printed copies of the draft to class for peer review--one for your partner to be determined and one for me for a preliminary check. Please note that students who do no come prepared with a completed draft for peer review at the start of class on the 7th will not be considered for "+" grades in the class. Other penalties will also apply, including a recorded absence for the class.

 

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Introduction

 

Do you remember your first swimming experience? Or do your remember your first driving experience? How did you feel when you tried to sleep in the army boot camp the first night of the mandatory military service? How about speaking up for the first time to defend your rights and interests from an adult who tried to invade and infringe them when you were a kid? How about your first dating experience or your first intercourse with your dating partner? How about called by police and got investigated by them for being falsely accused? Or your first presentation experience in front of the class or it could be your first music performance.

 

 

The story is written in third person limited omniscient point of view since the narrator only knows the thoughts of Connie’s. The main character of the story is Connie and a stranger Arnold Friend. Also, the story contains side characters such as Connie’s mom and dad, her sister June, Aunt Tillie, her neighbors, and her friend who hangs out with her, and of course Arnold’s company, Ellie. The genre of the story is thriller and the tone and the style of the story is intense and nervous.

 

 

1.       Thesis, main theme

 

 

We all have memories of those experience in mind which is almost impossible to forget. And we tend to think those recollection as thrilling and scary. We tend to feel great terror and often panic when we get to experience something new especially when it is inevitable and also when it has to be done without the help of parents. In the story, ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been’, The Author of the story, Joyce Carol Oates described the feeling by symbolizing and personifying it as a stranger whose name is Arnold Friend who abruptly shows up and forcefully demands the main character, Connie to go for a drive with him. Though this tense and scary scene, the writer tries to remind reader of their nervous and thrilling first experience which the reader may have experienced in the past.

 

 

2.       Plot summary

 

In the exposition stage, Connie hangs out with her friend and goes to restaurant and movies and spends time with her friends and local boy she met in the bar.

 

In the rising action, Connie sees a guy who has a shaggy hair and finds the guy interesting and ponders him. In one Sunday, her family left Connie staying in the empty house and the stranger she saw once shows up and demands to come along with him and his company.

 

In the climax, Connie grabs a phone and tries to call her mother for help in desperate.

 

In the falling action, Connie drop down on the floor and calm herself a little.

 

In the resolution, Connie submit herself to the stranger, resign herself to them and follows the stranger which ends the story without the clear conclusion.

 

 

 

The Body

 

Connie symbolizes typical teenagers and young adults who struggles to make the way though difficult and complicated life and to figure out what is going on around them and what should be done and shouldn’t. Connie is also described as a teenager girl who is undergoing puberty by author narrating her whim and her sudden mood sway and also her absurd thoughts like killing her mom and killing herself to end this misery. We tend to experience and learn new things when we are teenagers and we tend to be more sensitive and touchy when we are in puberty. I think the author wants to maximise the readers to feel sympathy toward Connie and to make readers understand Connie easily by setting the character as a meek, helpless teenager girl who is undergoing puberty.  

 

Arnold Friend symbolizes fear and intension of starting or experiencing something new which especially must be done by oneself and especially is inevitable.  Besides this abstract idea, what Arnold Friend really means completely depends on the readers experience. As I mentioned in the opening question, It could be your first swimming experience in the deep sea without life jacket, or it could be your first experience of performing the solo instrument play. Or also it could be your first driving experience in the highway where you feel panick and huge stress every time you tries to change lane.

 

But One noticeable point is that Connie felt some attraction to him. When she first saw him, she couldn’t help but to see him again. And also she kind of liked the way Arnold dresses and somewhat attracted by his muscular body when he showed up in her house. We tend to get attracted and fluttered by seeing new things. And we imagine what would it feel when we actually do it and we decide to do it with excitement. Just as Connie got attracted by Arnold at first glance, we get attracted by things on youtube which is actually dangerous. We tend to get excited by watching extreme skiing and snowboard performance, by mountain bicycling in fast speed and by F1 drivers or fighter pilots and trumpet solo playing in the huge concert hall. But when the time comes to do it by ourselves in real life, we panic and lose all confidence. This feeling is described in the story as Connie finds out that Arnold is more than 40 years old and she feels disgust and fear towards him. My experience is that when I watched the Army combat tactic training and mock battle training on youtube I felt attracted and daydreaming about performing best combat drills and survivability in the training when I was a high school kid. But when I grew older and when I got a call of duty from the South Korean Pentagon and conscripted to South Korean Army, I experienced same feeling as Connie.

 

Arnold Friend also symbolizes growing pains which we all experience. I think from this thrilling experience Connie would grow up and be mature. And I think Arnold Friend is a good opportunity for her to learn how to deal with is tough situation whatever difficulties Arnold symbolize. When we think of our experiences which we felt and acted like Connie at the time, we don’t feel that anymore when we try it again now. We feel, experience and learn from those difficult and exhausting experience which Arnold Friend represent.

 

  

Resolution

 

We tend to feel fear and terror from doing things which are unfamiliar to us. Especially things which is inevitable and mandatory that we have to go though at least once when we grow up and have to be done by ourselves without others help. First, we feel somewhat awe and show interest, but often the feelings quickly fade away and the thing only left on our mind is usually fear. And we go through this new experience with mixed feelings. Later, when we recollect the experience, we realize that we don’t feel the fear and terror we used to feel with the experience, and we feel that we have grown up and matured.

 

Word count 1175