Warm-Up: Coming of Age (Or, how we grow into adulthood)

Agenda Warm-Up Discuss Joyce Carol Oates Sentence Scramble Activity Break Workshop Assignment 2.3

“Can’tcha read it?” He opened the door very carefully, as if he was afraid it might fall off. He slid out just as carefully, planting his feet firmly on the ground, the tiny world in his glasses slowing down like gelatine hardening and in the midst of it Connie’s bright green blouse. “This here’s my name, to begin with,” he said. ARNOLD FRIEND was written in tar-like black letters on the side with a drawing of a round grinning face that reminded Connie of a pumpkin, except it wore sunglasses. “I wanta introduce myself. I’m Arnold Friend and that’s my real name and I’m gonna be your friend, honey, and inside the car’s Ellie Oscar, he’s kinda shy. Ellie brought his transistor up to his shoulder and balanced it there. “Now these numbers are a secret code, honey,” Arnold Friend explained. He read off the numbers 33, 19, 17 and raised his eyebrows up at her to see what she thought of that, but she didn’t think much of it.

Sentence Scramble Activity If possible, print out the “sentence scramble” document and cut the sentences into strips. With your group: –Identify the topic sentence –Sequence the other sentences into a meaningful paragraph –Identify which sentences are “idea” or “evidence” –Among the idea sentences, which are “bigger ideas” and which are “smaller ideas”?

Key The threshold of Connie’s house represents the space between childish fantasy and the reality of adulthood. Connie's two personalities – as a daughter at home and as a soon-to-be adult at the mall – are colliding at this threshold, and Connie is forced to rectify these clashing identities. Connie is “standing perfectly still inside [the screen door]” when Arnold Friend arrives, and from this perspective, she sees him both as a fantastical figure from adolescent movies and music, and as a symbol of real danger. From a distance, Arnold Friend fits Connie's vague concept of the boy of her dreams; “she recognized most things about him... even that slippery friendly smile of his, that sleepy dreamy smile that all the boys used to get across ideas they didn't want to put into words.” But there is something vaguely creepy about his puppet-like, clownish appearance, the way he is “stiffly relaxed” and how one hand is “idly on the door handle as if he were keeping himself up that way.” The idea that Arnold Friend has to prop himself implies that his body itself is not what it seems. This suggests more generally that something is not quite right, that “all these things did not come together,” when she begins to suspect Arnold Friend is not a “boy” but is “thirty, maybe more.” This is the first crack in Connie's fairytale, and after this point, it begins to unravel. Arnold Friend represents looming adulthood and the reality of adult sexual relationships taken to a nightmarish level, lurking just outside the door. The threshold thus represents a turning point in the story itself, a moment that calls our attention to the risks of moving forward, and presents the next step as that which will change everything.