Connie

Connie's mother criticizes her looks and behavior while holding up her plainer sister June as the ideal daughter, creating in Connie a wounded need to be seen as special elsewhere. Arnold grotesquely fills that emotional vacancy, calling her "my sweet little blue-eyed girl." The mother-daughter friction also fuels Connie's desire to escape home — an escape Arnold ultimately grants. Connie's desperate cry for her mother at the climax is the most unguarded moment in the story.

"She thought, I'm not going to sleep in my bed again. Her bright green blouse was all wet." This line is devastating because of its matter-of-fact clarity — Connie understands exactly what she is walking toward as she steps off the porch. It strips away any ambiguity about her fate and marks the complete collapse of the adolescent self she had been constructing throughout the story.

Connie steps outside her house and surrenders herself to Arnold Friend, relinquishing her body and identity in a moment framed as both a literal abduction and a profound loss of self. She has fought back — grabbing the phone and screaming — but Arnold dismantles her will by threatening her family. The ending leaves her fate implicit, but her thought that she will never sleep in her bed again signals she has no illusions about what awaits her.

Connie is vulnerable because she has absorbed pop music and drive-in culture as a romantic mythology that promises love, excitement, and a grander self — and Arnold expertly mimics that script. She is also emotionally isolated: her mother's criticism, her father's emotional absence, and her rivalry with June leave her hungry for attention and validation. Arnold exploits that hunger, making his scripted seduction far harder for her to dismiss than it should be.

Connie maintains two distinct selves: a sullen, girlish version at home and a flirtatious, bold, "trashy" persona she performs with friends at the shopping plaza and drive-in. Oates frames this split as a survival adaptation — Connie rehearsing womanhood without understanding its dangers. Arnold methodically dismantles both versions, leaving her no identity to retreat into, which is why her collapse at the end feels so total and annihilating.

Eddie is the boy Connie goes off with at the drive-in the night Arnold first spots her, representing the ordinary, non-threatening teenage romance Connie knows how to navigate. His brief appearance establishes the social world Connie inhabits — flirtatious but manageable. Arnold then invades and corrupts that same world, mimicking its language and rituals while concealing something monstrous, making the contrast between Eddie and Arnold central to understanding how Connie is deceived.

Several details expose Arnold as something other than the young man he pretends to be: his boots are stuffed, suggesting he cannot walk naturally in them; a wig slips above his ear; and his face is described as "not a face for a young man." These physical discrepancies undermine Connie's initial confidence that she can manage the situation. Together they signal that Arnold is an adult — or something worse — hiding behind a carefully assembled teenage façade.

Ellie Oscar sits nearly silent in Arnold's gold jalopy throughout the confrontation, holding a transistor radio, but his presence is strategically menacing. When Connie tries to call for help, Ellie casually suggests cutting the phone line, revealing the pair's coordinated, predatory intent. His silence makes him more threatening than a speaking antagonist — he is there to block every exit, ensuring that Connie's attempt at resistance is met with a wall of calm, organized danger from two directions.