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The loss of innocence
Innocence in american literature
Loss of innocence
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As said about nurturing young adolescents, “You cannot create a genius, all you can do is nurture one” - Ninette de Valois. We can only be nurtured into so many things, the rest is the natural instinct of nature. The novels To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Macbeth by William Shakespeare, and Lord of The Flies by William Golding all show characters who lose their Innocence. Jem loses his innocence after the Tom Robinson trial. Jack loses his innocence when he goes from killing pigs for survival to killing pigs for his own good. Macbeth loses his innocence when he goes from killing people for protection to killing people for his own good. Macbeth and Jack have a bad loss of innocence because it turns them into savages along the way. Jem had a good way of losing his innocence. He gained something good from losing his innocence, he gained the feeling of empathy. He gained the feeling of putting himself in others shoes. As we grow up we are being nurtured into doing things that some people might consider right or even wrong. …show more content…
He gains a new perspective of things, he gains empathy as he loses his innocence. Scout is talking to Jem about how there is only one type of people, but Jem bares to disagree, “The thing is, our kind of folks don’t like the Cunninghams, the Cunninghams don’t like the Ewells, and the Ewells hate and despise the colored folk’... ‘Naw, Jem, I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folk.’ …’That’s what I thought too’ he said at last, ‘ when I was your age.’” (258). Scout is explaining to Jem that there is only one type of people or Folks. The hierarchy starts with rich white people, poor white people, white trash, and lastly colored people. Jem saying that he thought that there was only one type of people and that people were treated equally. So he thought, explaining that he once thought racism did not exist. Until being exposed to true
Elie’s loss of innocence and childhood lifestyle is very pronounced within the book, Night. This book, written by the main character, Elie Wiesel, tells the readers about the experiences of Mr. Wiesel during the Holocaust. The book starts off by describing Elie’s life in his hometown, Sighet, with his family and friends. As fascism takes over Hungary, Elie and his family are sent north, to Auschwitz concentration camp. Elie stays with his father and speaks of his life during this time. Later, after many stories of the horrors and dehumanizing acts of the camp, Elie and his father make the treacherous march towards Gliewitz. Then they are hauled to Buchenwald by way of cattle cars in extremely deplorable conditions, even by Holocaust standards. The book ends as Elie’s father is now dead and the American army has liberated them. As Elie is recovering in the hospital he gazes at himself in a mirror, he subtly notes he much he has changed. In Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie loses his innocence and demeanour because he was traumatized by what he saw in the camps, his loss of faith in a God who stood idly by while his people suffered, and becoming selfish as he is forced to become selfish in the death camps to survive.
Even though Jem is growing up and maturing he has some naive view of the community he live in. We see that in trial of Tom Robinson. Jem is convinced that the jury is going to rule in favor of Tom. But as we know Tom is convicted. This surprises Jem. He doesn‘t understand and can‘t accept it. However everybody else know that the ruling is never going to be in Toms favor. He sees the world only as black and white although he is learning that it is not that simple. Through the story Jem learns about the injustice, racism and discrimination in his
...es that despite all the differences humans have, we are really more alike than not. Scout is constantly educated by her Aunt on Maycomb's different folks. She realizes that “there’s just one kind of folks. Folks” (304). Scout has finally become enlightened, a role model that everyone, even Atticus, can aspire to be like.
In the book To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee tells the story of coming-of-age and the loss of innocence through the character Jem. Through recurring events, Jem is faced with the realization of society’s injustice, and is left questioning the world he lives in. During a time of rampant racial discrimination and prejudice in the south, Jem transforms from naivety to maturity.
As much as everyone would like to believe that all people are inherently good, the illusion of innocence that is often presumed throughout childhood makes the revelation of human nature especially hard to bear. Arthur Koestler said, “Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion”, and this one is certainly a very hard reality to cope with. In the novel Lord of the Flies, the author William Golding tells the story of a group of British schoolboys who crash land on an uninhabited island in the midst of a world war, and how they regress from civilization to savagery. By conveying Ralph’s reactions to the deaths of Simon and Piggy, providing detailed, symbolic imagery of the cliffs and the lagoon, and showing Ralph’s despair at his new understanding
The first time Scout was exposed to the racism of Maycomb was when one evening Atticus crept out of the house. This was unusual because Atticus never went out late at night. Scout and Jem, curious about why Atticus had left incognito, followed him discretely to see what he would do. What they actually saw him doing was a bewilderment, they saw him reclining in front of Tom Robinsons cell, guarding Tom from an oncoming lynch mob. When the mob arrived at the jail, Scout portrayed a large amount of danger on herself when she put herself in the middle of the argument. Atticus stated later “a mob’s always made of people, no matter what. Mr. Cunningham was part of a mob last night, but he was still a man.” After Scout intercepted the argument, she pointed out Mr.Cunningham and started delineated his son and fellow classmate; Walter. Mr.Cunningham’s eyes were now blinded by the sentimentality that Scout purp...
Although he did ruin the azaleas, he was made to grow them back. This shows that racism can not be changed with rash actions, that it is much more deep rooted. Jem, in this incident and previously, was still naïve. Whenever Scout questions Jem on the issue of racism, he becomes moody, which is partially the result of his trying to understand the controversial issue. Later on, he starts to become more aware of how people act, and that their views are much different from his own.
“Life is nothing without a little chaos to make it interesting” (Amelia Atwater-Rhodes). In William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, a plane full of boys get stranded on an island. The character Ralph, who is only twelve and a few months, takes the position of chief who tries to establish order on the island. However, most of the boys do not obey the rules Ralph has created. Immaturity within a community creates chaos.
Heart of Darkness is Joseph Conrad's tale of one man's journey, both mental and physical, into the depths of the wild African jungle and the human soul. The seaman, Marlow, tells his crew a startling tale of a man named Kurtz and his expedition that culminates in his encounter with the "voice" of Kurtz and ultimately, Kurtz's demise. The passage from Part I of the novel consists of Marlow's initial encounter with the natives of this place of immense darkness, directly relating to Conrad's use of imagery and metaphor to illustrate to the reader the contrast between light and dark. The passage, although occurring earlier on in the novel, is interspersed with Marlow's two opposing points of view: one of naïveté, which comes before Marlow's eventual epiphany after having met Kurtz, and the matured perspective he takes on after all of the events leading up to his and Kurtz's encounter.
According to Jem, ““There's four kinds of folks in the world. There's the ordinary kind like us and the neighbors, there's the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down in the dumb, and the negroes”” (Lee 206). Scout responds, “‘Naw, Jem, I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks’” (Lee 227). Scout had a deeper appreciation for social equality.
Recently, I have read both a Raisin in the Sun and To Kill a Mockingbird, both considered literary classics. They share a number of similar themes and character that face similar situations. Ultimately, they have extremely different plots, but address the same issues; some that were common around the time they were published, and some that carry relevance into current times. What I wish to bring to light in this essay is that in both novels, there are many characters that lives’ hit a shatter-point in the course of the story. This shatter-point is where the characters’ lives are irrevocably changed, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. What I’m going to explore is how these characters cope with the emotional fallout of what the aforementioned shatter-point left in its wake.
Loss of Innocence in Killing a Mockingbird Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather, the streets turned red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. " (Lee 9). This environment, as Scout Finch accurately describes, is not conducive to young children, loud noises, and games. But, the Finch children and Dill must occupy themselves in order to avoid boredom.
As a result, throughout the book Scout and Jem grow and become more sympathetic and loving towards everybody in the town, coloured or not. Atticus shows this when he defends Tom Robinson, stands up to the mob on the night before the trial and treats Calpernia as an other parent to the children instead of a slave. He raises his children to be courageous and empathetic through teaching them good life lessons and teaching them to not be like the rest of the town but to treat everyone equally. Heroism is not just being kind, but going above and beyond to help someone in need.
It’s one of the most famous stories to ever exist, the story of how two people changed what defines us as humans. It’s the story of Adam, Eve, a serpent, and the unbecoming of mankind, the Fall of Man. This iconic account has been the premise for many works over the centuries. Today, Lord of the Flies by William Golding is considered one of the most influential novels of our time, not only for its adventurous story of stranded boys on a lost island, but also because of its allegorical tale of the true fault in man’s soul. William Golding leans heavily upon the Biblical account of the Fall of Man to highlight man’s depravity in his novel, Lord of the Flies.
“I think that’s the real loss of innocence: the first time you glimpse the boundaries that will limit your potential” (Steve Toltz). In the previous quote, Steve Toltz discusses the transition from innocence to corruption. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies illustrates the loss of innocence through various characters: Jack, who struggles with pride and a thirst for power; Roger, who revels in the pain of others and uses fear to control the boys; Simon, who represents the demise of purity when humans are at their most savage; Ralph, who illustrates the struggle people endure when attempting to be civilized near the savage; and Piggy, who suffers because he has the only technology necessary to survive. Golding enforces the theory that true innocence will often pay the price to sustain true evil by arranging the characters' personalities and actions in a way that correlates to the effects of Darwin's evolution theory, "survival of the fittest" (). Jack is a good example of this as he exerts power over the weak and uses his skills in hunting to survive. The thirst to prove his masculinity overrides his innate purity, effectively corrupting him. Jack’s loss of innocence begins a domino effect that begins to influence the others.