Bright Lights, Big Pity

You are not meant for this. But you are here, thrashing your way through the water, trying to find a way to breathe. Ah, the pool. Chlorine flooding your nostrils. Fast. Time is of the essence. Are these your last moments? You look at your sister, pleading for help. How did you get here? Your family, the people who treat you so kindly, have such high expectations that you cannot meet. You have tried, many times, to make them proud—yet here you are, taking in what seems to be your final breaths—just to make them proud.

Swimming is in your blood—it is something your father, your grandfather, and his grandfather were experts at. You are expected to do the same, but you can't find it in yourself to do so. You put effort into impressing your loved ones, that’s for sure. You do what you can to prove yourself to them. You tried to be athletic, to keep to yourself, to stay out of the way. You wonder what your life would be like without these expectations (although people will always find a way to make you feel incompetent—that’s just how it is). This often makes you wonder—will you ever amount to anything? Is there any hope, that maybe someday your loved ones will appreciate your choices in life?

Your sister wraps you in a towel and lets out a sigh of disappointment. You can’t help but to think that she is angry with you. You let her down again. How could you be so careless? You stare blankly off into space, seemingly unable to ask the questions you so desperately need the answers to. Do they really care about you, or is this all just an act? These questions plague your thoughts. Maybe it’s the fact that your father refuses to give you food all day. Maybe it’s how they all leave you alone for what seems like forever, and hardly acknowledge you when they see you again. It seems that you are somewhere in between being neglected and being the favorite child. How can this be if you can’t even prove yourself to your parents and your siblings? You feel useless—after all, what kind of Labrador retriever doesn’t know how to swim?

But that’s just how it is.

Navy Blue(s)

Social Hierarchy plays a major role in Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Austen illustrates the differences between having happiness due to wealth, and having happiness due to the people you surround yourself with.

Having money does not mean having happiness. Sir Walter Elliot tried to trade his wealth for the mask of elegance and pride in his class. Obsessed with himself, the baronet reads Baronetage after reading Baronetage, again. Walter holds their position in terms of social class against potential owners of their old home. For example, Walter doesn’t hesitate to reject those in the Navy; he says, “Yes; it is in two points offensive to me; I have two strong grounds of objection to it. First, as being the means of bringing persons of obscure birth into undue distinction, and raising men to honors which their fathers and grandfathers never dreamt of” (Austen 27). He draws attention to how joining the Navy weathers a man’s features, making them out to be something much less than his ideal image of the owner of his home.

Lady Russell shares the same point of view as Sir Walter in terms of men from the Navy. Because of his weathered appearance, She tries to convince Anne not to marry Captain Wentworth. The only things that give Wentworth any worth, in Russell’s opinion, are his social class, his looks, and the way he treats women.

Persuasion adequately portrays the meaningless of social classes in the 1800’s. Through characters so self-indulged and obsessed with their stance socially, to characters like Anne who selflessly accept others for who they are.

Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Persuasion. New York: Knopf, 1992. Print.

You've got A. Friend in me

Everything Connie chased after appeared outside of her house with a flashy paint job and bad intentions. Raised without sufficient parental guidance, but instead with the idea that physical attraction is everything, Connie comes to experience the consequences of her vulnerability all because she can’t help but to put herself in danger.

Wegs views Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? through a religious literary lens. Being the master of disguise and manipulation, Arnold’s front represents the unrealistic ideal boy during the mid-sixties, implying that he embodies not only Connie’s infatuation with pop culture, but also Satan. Wegs explains that Friend’s intentions are  “Kind of psychological manifestation of deep powers, deep imaginative, mysterious powers, which are always with us, and what has in the past been called supernatural.” (Wegs 104).  Arnold Friend is the exact representation of what Connie wants in a boy, which is no coincidence.

Wegs proposes to the reader that the purpose of Arnold Friend’s name is that it can be easily be misinterpreted as “fiend,” and that, “his initials would well stand for Arch Fiend.” (Wegs 103). Although it would be clever that Arnold Friend shares the same title as the devil, I believe that his name is just another deception to add to the suspense of the story and to his pseudo kindness. Giving himself the name “Arnold Friend” and giving himself the ability to introduce himself as “A. Friend” before he abducts a fifteen year old girl seems like something he would do.

One could argue that Arnold Friend’s manipulation caused Connie to eventually let go of hope and turn to leave with him, but Wegs offers another option; she suggests “the forces of her society, her family, and herself combine to make her fate inescapable.” (Wegs 106). Because her father couldn’t care less about where she’s been and her mother’s competitive nature in terms of beauty influences Connie’s flirtatious nature, her fate with Arnold was inevitable.

Oates asks two simple questions in the title of her story, and Arnold Friend gives an answer: “The place where you came from ain’t there anymore, and where you had in mind to go is cancelled out.” (Oates 9).

Works Cited

Oates, Joyce Carol. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Print.

Wegs, Joyce M. “’Don’t You Know Who I Am?’: The Grotesque in Oate’s ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’” Journal of Narrative Technique 5, 1995. Print.