The term loss of innocence is an ambiguous term. Most commonly, loss of innocence is associated with virginity. Additionally, lost of innocence can be associated with adulthood. A person is no longer a child, and therefore may view the world differently than they did when they were a kid. As a child they may have been naive, unaware; not yet knowing the bad or evil that exists in the world. The idea of loss of innocence may even be traced back to the Book of Genesis and story of Adam and Eve. In this biblical narrative Adam and Eve experience a loss of innocence. Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis not only mark a loss of innocence, but for years the story has been used as a biblical teaching. It is an important story that sets up a relationship between God and mankind. The story begins with the phrase, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," (Pagels, xi). From the opening words of the story God is deemed as the creator. He is the creator, the absolute being from which all other things are created. In the process of God's creation, he repeats the phrase "according to its/their kind," (Pagels, xi). He does this to emphasize that each creature has its own unique function, and to establish that there are limits and boundaries to each creatures existence. There is a distinction, a type of separation that exists between God and all other beings. God is unlimited and infinite, where as all other things are limited and finite. Man exists somewhere in between a state of creatureliness and Godliness. Similar to the way that God has given commands to other creatures, he tells man that he should be "fruitful and multiply," (Pagels, xii). Man's purpose is to procreate, according to Genesis. Yet man's function is uniq... ... middle of paper ... ...me ashamed that their bodies are naked. It is not the nakedness itself that brings shame, instead it is the fact that Adam and Eve suddenly come to know their own vulnerability, and that there is such thing as being exposed. The loss of innocence for Adam and Eve is connected to the notion of truly "knowing" and "seeing." Before eating the forbidden fruit, they were in blindly living; abiding by the commands of God without question. It is the serpent who tempts them, and challenges God's authoritative power. Curiosity and knowledge are what lead Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. Once they do, they realize the difference that exists between them and the creatures around them, between the physical bodies of Adam and Eve; difference exists everywhere around them. When Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of Knowledge, they then think and see for the first time.
This simple story has many metaphorical meanings one of them being how humans are impulsive. In the story when they are told not to do something (eat the fruit), they suddenly have the urge to do the opposite. By them receiving knowledge they understand what the “right” thing to do and what the “wrong” thing to do is, within society’s viewpoint. Before Adam and Eve ate the fruit they think it is okay to be naked but when they eat the fruit they realize that it is shameful to be naked in public. Which is an example of their new found societal values.
Ignorance consumes the human being, and the way that it is warded off is through the gathering of knowledge that we obtain with experience. It is the loss of ignorance that constitutes the loss of innocence. At the beginning of the story the protagonist is ignorant of his surroundings, and fails to take due precaution. In his room he remains, “barefoot” (p.163) even though there may be, “scorpions leaving [their] hideouts” (p. 163).
Author Jonathan Swift states, “Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others”. Known as the greatest painter of his time, Masaccio, the brilliant artist, produces artwork with purity and language. Through Masaccio’s detailed artwork, The Expulsion of Eden, constructs a painting bursting with emotion that touches the viewer. The story of Adam and Eve depicts two people of opposite gender, and their journey through discovering the root of guilt, and the consequences of knowledge. After Eve (and eventually Adam) eats the attractive forbidden fruit from the tree of life - being tempted by the serpent, Adam and Eve are forever punished from the Garden of Eden, liberating both from innocence. Due to Masaccio's genius paintwork, he portrays the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden with precise detail and emotion that matches and, in some parts, enhances the actual Biblical story.
Childhood is a time in one’s life where innocence and experience are seemingly two separate worlds. Only when one becomes an adult, and has been thoroughly marked by experience, one realizes that innocence and experience resides in the same world. Innocence and experience are equivalent to the flipsides of a single coin. William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience demonstrate that religious doctrine and experience are responsible for destroying and understanding innocence in childhood.
In Genesis, God interacts with Adam by speaking to him face to face. Whether God was giving out instructions or punishment to Adam and Eve, he was always doing it to their faces. This close relationship is shown even when humans do something wrong. The only rule that God gives to Adam is that he must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve go on to break this singular rule and be punished. God even discovers Adam and Eves betrayal when he is in human form. "They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze"( Genesis 3.8, New Oxford Annotated Bible). This relationship between God and Adam and Eve feels like a teacher who is disappointing and punishing students who disobeyed him, rather than a God punishing his servants. God is more relatable to readers because of his humanlike qualities and the closeness of the relationship between man and God. This humanlike form makes God 's infinite power seem more relatable to the reader and to subjects who are curious about
The definition of experience according to Google is “practical contact with and observation of facts or events.” This definition almost directly contradicts the definition of innocence, which is “lack of guile or corruption; purity.” Innocence seems to be the inverse of experience. That is to say one cannot find both, as one grows larger the other will shrink. In The two poems The Lamb and The Tyger, William Blake divides his poems into two volumes. One of which is called the Songs of innocence and the other is songs of experience. It’s easy to pick out which Book these two poems by Blake belong in because of the vocabulary, the punctuation, and the descriptions within the lines.
Such was the beginning of creation. Creation continued with the sky and the waters, the Earth and the vegetation, the lights and the animals, and on the sixth day God created man. "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness…. So God created humankind in his image." God created Adam. It was Adam who had the first human relation with God. God "put him in the garden of Eden to till and keep it. And the lord God commanded the man, 'you may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.'" This simple command was not to be obeyed, and Adam, Eve and subsequent humanity was banished from Eden.
During the first part of the story, God is happy with his creations and especially man and women. He gave them rule over all living creatures and even gave them reign over the garden of Eden. “Let us make man in our image,after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and
Innocence is usually associated with youth and ignorance. The loss of one’s innocence is associated with the evils of the world. However, the term “innocence” can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Similarly, the loss of one’s innocence can be interpreted in more than one way, and, depending on the interpretation, it may happen numerous times. The loss of innocence is culture specific and involves something that society holds sacrosanct. It is also bounded by different religious beliefs. Still, no matter which culture or religion is at hand, there is always more than one way to lose one’s innocence, and every member of that particular culture or religion experiences a loss of innocence at least once in their lives. In addition, the individual’s loss of innocence will impair him or her emotionally and/or physically.
...erm can be used so widely that it can mean completely different things when taken out of context. The standard Webster’s dictionary has over five definitions for innocence. Its complexity and impact in the human life is so great that physiologists have stated that most adult conflicts involve a problem or disruption of one’s childhood. Harold Bloom has said that many disputes and conflicts in modern day life would be non-existent if a person maintained innocence throughout their aging life. Historians trace back the use of innocence to the Enlightenment, where it was thought that man was created to be good, until his institutions corrupted him. Innocence can also be traced as far back as biblical times. It has been said that the “original sin” by Adam and Eve was the first instance of a loss of innocence. By comparing two novels that use innocence as a theme, as done above, it is evident that innocence is widely dependent on the context in which it is used. There is no clear definitive answer to what the true meaning of innocence is. It can only be stated that the definition of innocence is dynamic with respect to the author and the time period, in which the literature is written.
There is much to be said about innocence. If one is with innocence than one can do no wrong. But that is not all to be said. Innocence is not always a good thing. It could make one naive or blind to certain evils. Like in the case of Billy Budd. Billy was innocent from evil and therefore could not see the evil of John Claggart approaching him, out to destroy him.
In the debate titled Of the Equal or Unequal Sin of Adam and Eve, two authors; Isotta Nogarola and Ludovico Foscarini, argue about the original sin committed by Adam and Eve. Nogarola first states that Eve lacked a sense and constancy and that she therefore sinned less than Adam did. In her case the serpent thought of Adam as invulnerable due to his constancy. God created Adam to have unchanged opinions and state of mind, in order to avoid falling into the serpent’s persuasion, however Eve’s vulnerability led her to a severe sin. God found Adam guilty for the sin because he esteemed man more highly than woman and led his command towards Adam to not eat the fruit from the tree. Weak and inclined to indulge on the fruit, Nogarola claims, Eve
Adam and Eve are the parents of all. They started off perfect, but that all changed with the single bite of a forbidden fruit. That one bite changed the world forever. In Milton’s “Paradise Lost” he fills in the literary and theological gaps of Genesis chapter three. Milton’s job in Book IV is to separate Adam and Eve whenever Eve gets tempted. He does so by making them have a debate about splitting up to tend to the garden. Eve argues that she will be okay while Adam argues that she should stay with him so he can protect her.
The Garden of Eden also presents the theme of salvation. When Adam and Eve eat the apple, God placed a flaming sword to prevent them from eating of the tree of life. They began to understand the consequences of sin and what great sorrow it brings. This is the continuous cycle of salvation and sin. Once Adam and Eve understand their concern and morals, Genesis two ends in peace and harmony with God’s creation of man and woman. Adam and Eve were very sorry for their sin of disobeying God. In spite of their sin He still loved them. He promised to send a Redeemer for the salvation of mankind. All is well until Genesis four with Cain and Abel. When Cain noticed that God was pleased with Abel, envy and hatred toward Abel entered. Cain rose up and killed his brother Abel. God had warned him before he killed Abel that if he would do well he would be accepted. So from the end of the story of Garden of Eden, we see salvation, but once Cain kills his brother, sin is present. It is a never-ending circle with sin and salvation in Genesis.
In the bible, Adam and Eve are seen as more equal beings, though Eve is tempted, she is not necessarily seen as any worse than Adam, and Adam seems to have no real recognition that what Eve is doing is wrong. In Paradise Lost Eve is the gullible, rash, and selfish one, whereas Adam is intelligent, discerning, and selfless. Eve can almost be fully faulted as the culprit in this endeavor, and Adam is just along for the ride due to his undying love for her. The serpent recognizes Eve as the weak one by saying “behold alone/ The woman, opportune to all attempts” (Milton, 480-481). Furthermore, it is Adam who recognizes the depravity and depths of what Eve has done and he recognizes it immediately “soon as he heard/ The fatal trespass done by Eve, amazed, / Astonied stood and blank, while horror chill/ Ran through his veins” (Milton, 889-891). He chooses to eat the fruit due to his love for her and his inability to fathom being apart from her, not because of ignorance. The result of them eating the fruit does not immediately open their eyes to the knowledge of good and evil, instead they have sex and revel in their actions. It is not until later on that they are hit with what has really been done and the implications it will have for them. The conversation held between Adam and Eve ends on a sour note for Eve as Adam says “Him who to worth in women