[Essay] please reword this sentence it is awkward!

[Unregistered]

By giving Connie’s personal feelings and thoughts about herself, boys, her family, and Arnold Friend, whom represents Schmid in Oates’ story, Oates proves to the reader that Connie is not at fault for getting involved with Arnold Friend.

 

[TheParser]

By giving Connie’s personal feelings and thoughts about herself, boys, her family, and Arnold Friend, whom represents Schmid in Oates’ story, Oates proves to the reader that Connie is not at fault for getting involved with Arnold Friend.

***** NOT A TEACHER *****

Good morning.

The best that I can come up with is something like:

To convince the reader that Connie is not at fault for getting involved with Arnold Friend, Oates describes Connie's feelings about herself, boys, her family, and Arnold, who represents Schmid.

 

[kfredson]

By giving Connie’s personal feelings and thoughts about herself, boys, her family, and Arnold Friend, whom represents Schmid in Oates’ story, Oates proves to the reader that Connie is not at fault for getting involved with Arnold Friend.

Yes, I would agree with TheParser that it might be best to reverse the order of what is said here; however, I do not actually find the original sentence to be awkward. It seems clear enough, and the author may have a reason for stating it in this way. The word "whom" should be changed to "who," however.

 

[Barb_D]

And I find myself agreeing with kfredson again. One suggestion would be to put "who represents Schmid in the story" in parentheses. This would eliminate one set of commas from the entire sentence and make the critical path a bit more clear.