Loss Of Innocence In The God Of Small Things

1145 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Themes of maturity in literature

Maturity is a state of mind that suddenly shatters the past state of mind of innocence, and leaves it destroyed. It becomes irretrievable. Maturity is then forced upon the person’s mind until it is accepted as a normality. In The God of Small Things, written by Arundhati Roy, children named Estha and Rahel recall the biggest tragedy of their lives. Rahel feels responsible for the death of her cousin, Sophie Mol, and must come to terms with the horrible trauma she experienced. This event transforms the book into a tragedy with a grim tone. The tragedy and aftermath are caused by their reckless behavior.They both are forced to mature when they experience that tragedy and the aftermath of it.

Rahel feels guilt about being the reason their cousin is dead. All three of the children run away from home to escape. Estha and Rahel are the ones who decide to go, while Sophie Mol follows them to help them make a statement. They attempt to cross the river on a boat Estha and Rahel found earlier. As they are rowing, they begin to lose control of the boat due to the rapid waters. The boat capsizes, and Sophie Mol drowns. Estha and Rahel realize that she’s now dead, and that there will be consequences to their actions. Before even …show more content…

It destroys innocence in its arrival. In The God of Small Things, written by Arundhati Roy, Rahel feels the pain of maturity. She feels it ruin her life, and destroy everything she holds dear. She is left with it, and loses all of what she had before it in her innocence. She caused her cousin to die, her close friend to be beaten to death, and her twin to be severed from her life as a mute for the rest of his life. This event and her suffering because of it make the book a very grim tale of how one horrible mistake can leave the world around you in ruins. Her regret and grief is all she has left after this tragedy. She clings to it, and hopes to one day let go off it when better times

Show More
Related

  • Loss of Innocence

    1336 Words  | 3 Pages

    In A Separate Peace, John Knowles carries the theme of the inevitable loss of innocence throughout the entire novel. Several characters in the novel sustain both positive and negative changes, resulting from the change of the peaceful summer sessions at Devon to the reality of World War II. While some characters embrace their development through their loss of innocence, others are at war with themselves trying to preserve that innocence.

    Read More

  • John Updike’s A & P, Richard Wright’s The Man Who Was Almost a Man, and James Joyce’s Araby

    1298 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...the future to see that his life is not ruined by acts of immaturity. And, in “Araby”, we encounter another young man facing a crisis of the spirit who attempts to find a very limiting connection between his religious and his physical and emotional passions. In all of these stories, we encounter boys in the cusp of burgeoning manhood. What we are left with, in each, is the understanding that even if they can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, we can. These stories bind all of us together in their universal messages…youth is something we get over, eventually, and in our own ways, but we cannot help get over it.

    Read More

  • Loss of Innocence in Sarah´s Key

    1756 Words  | 4 Pages

    The youth are acknowledged for having innocence, and witnessing certain events can take it away. In Sarah’s Key by Tatiana De Rosnay experiences cause innocence to be lost. Losing freedom affects an individual personality, making the person more mature. Losing hope causes an individual to change their views on life. A person’s family dying causes a lifetime of pain. When experiencing a horrible event, one should not let it change them.

    Read More

  • Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell Have a Loss of Innocence

    895 Words  | 2 Pages

    Loss of Innocence is a classic theme in literature. Protagonists are forced into situations where they must sacrifice their goodness/what they believe. It is a theme that runs through both “ Young Goodman Brown” and “ The Most Dangerous Game”, though each of them happen in a different way.

    Read More

  • Scout's Path To Maturity

    699 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sometimes a loss of innocence through contact with evil and life experiences leads to maturity. It helps one see the world for what it really is and gives a shot of reality instead of just living in a dream world. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Scout’s early childhood innocence is lost as she becomes a near grown up. She starts to see Maycomb in a different light and learns to accept people as they truly are instead of what she thought they were. This is because she comes in contact with racial prejudice, Boo Radley and she real people of Maycomb.

    Read More

  • Growing Up In To Kill A Mockingbird

    917 Words  | 2 Pages

    Growing up is a difficult task. This is true especially Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Using many examples of the loss of childhood innocence, Lee shows us that a corrupted society leads to growing up faster and one’s childhood being stripped away. Through Jem, the eldest of the Finch children, and Scout, the youngest, the readers see how a trial in 1930s Alabama takes a toll on young minds. Jem and Scout grow up more than expected when their summer consists of nothing but a racist trial. In Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, she implies that growing up leads to loss of innocence, especially in troubling times.

    Read More

  • The Age Of Innocence, By Edith Wharton

    1120 Words  | 3 Pages

    The setting of a novel aids in the portrayal of the central theme of the work. Without a specific place and social environment, the characters are just there, with no reason behind any of their actions. The Age of Influence centers around the Old New York society during the 1870’s. Most of the characters are wealthy upper class citizens with a strict code to follow. The protagonist, Newland Archer, lives in a constant state of fear of being excluded from society for his actions. Archer’s character is affected by standard New York conventions as well as the pressure to uphold his place in society, both of which add to Wharton’s theme of dissatisfaction.

    Read More

  • Scout's Childhood Simplicity in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird

    634 Words  | 2 Pages

    The adult world is a cold and terrifying place. There are robberies, shootings, murders, suicides, and much more. If you were to be a small child, perhaps age 5, and you were to look in at this world, you would never know how bad it actually was, just from a single glance. Children have a small slice of ignorant bliss, which helps to keep them away from the harsh of reality. It isn’t until later, when they encounter something that opens their eyes and shows them, that they truly start to understand the world we live it. Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird shows the many differences between the simplicity of being a kid and the tough decisions and problems that adults must face every day.

    Read More

  • Maturation Of Love In Atonement

    736 Words  | 2 Pages

    The coming of age novel, Atonement by Ian McEwan, discusses guilt, forgiveness, and the complicated nature of love through the struggles of growing up. The novel begins in England during World War II, where 13-year-old Briony Tallis is part of a family with dysfunctional dynamics. Her older sister, Cecilia, experiences true love with the family’s gardener, who is the son of their housekeeper, but their relationship is riddled with many obstacles. Most troubling is that Briony naively imagines their intimacy as something more aggressive towards her sister. Her innocence and shielded view of the world causes an unfortunate series of events that tears the family apart and alters the course of the rest of Briony’s life. In Atonement, McEwan demonstrates the maturation of love and how prosperous, yet destructive love can be between lovers and family alike.

    Read More

  • To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

    1389 Words  | 3 Pages

    Everyone remembers their childhood, how they used to play around every single day, carefree and untroubled. One can remember playing in the mud and carelessly, curious and naively. One can also remember living in their own little world, deaf to the world and issues around him or her. It is something everyone wants to last, but it slips by as quickly as time passes. It is what as known as childhood innocence, the barrier shielding children from the harsh realities of the world around them. The loss of innocence is a stage in life everyone has to pass, which takes place after a significant event in one’s life that destroys their bright and happy views. As highlighted in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, all children are born innocent and care free, but it is inevitable that the innocence will be stripped away as they grow older and are susceptible to the world’s harsh realities. This theme is visible throughout the entire novel, but it is most prevalent in the society in which they live in, the racism that the children are exposed to, and their realization of the true world around them.

    Read More

  • The Devil And Miss Prym Essay

    971 Words  | 2 Pages

    If Chantal tells the village, she may be making a choice that leads to the death of another villager. If she does not, the stranger will tell them she withheld the opportunity which will put her at risk of being the chosen victim. In her moment of fear, she says, “For that moment, all of our fears suddenly surface: the fear of setting off along a road heading who knows where, the fear of a life full or new challenges, the fear of losing forever everything” (Coelho). On the other hand, Sophie is faced with two fatal choices, one being which child is most likely to live and which will surely die. Another choice she must make after a long life of agony after losing her family is the fatal choice to take her own life as she constantly has flashbacks of the guard demanding, “Make a choice, Or I’ll send both of them over there” (Pakula

    Read More

  • Pearl And Syrian Refugee Children In The Scarlett Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

    961 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout most of society today the concept of innocence is either greatly present or just lost and there is no in between. But the idea of innocence and children holding is dependent on the social status of the child and that family, since the more exposed the child is to the world and technology the quicker they will lose innocence. As opposed to a child living in a society such as a Puritan society where things were not as developed and opportunities for children were limited. Hawthorne illustrates the timeless theme of innocence through the development of Pearl’s in The Scarlet Letter, and thus allows the reader to draw parallels between Syrian refugee children as they battle to keep hold of their innocence.

    Read More

  • Loss of Innocence in Rite of Passage by Sharon Olds

    664 Words  | 2 Pages

    Loss of Innocence in Rite of Passage by Sharon Olds A rite of passage is defined as a ceremony marking a significant transition or an important event or achievement, both regarded as having great meaning in the lives of individuals. In Sharon Olds' moving poem "Rite of Passage", these definitions are illustrated in the lives of a mother and her seven-year-old son. The seriousness and significance of these events are represented in the author's tone, which undergoes many of its own changes as the poem progresses. From its title, the tone of the poem is already set as serious, and we know there will be a significant event taking place in someone's life. As earlier stated, a rite of passage is an important ceremony or a life-changing event.

    Read More

  • The Effect of War in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis

    1117 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... growth where a child is forced to start looking for solutions for everything that is wrong instead of simply being a child. This analysis prove that children have their own way of seeing things and interpreting them. Their defense mechanisms allow them to live through hard and difficult times by creating jokes and games out of the real situation. This enables then to escape the difficulties of the real world.

    Read More

  • The Concept of Childhood Innocence

    1554 Words  | 4 Pages

    Abstract In this essay, I intend to explain how everyday lives challenge the construction of childhood as a time of innocence. In the main part of my assignment, I will explain the idea of innocence, which started with Romantic discourse of childhood and how it shaped our view of childhood. I will also look at two contradictory ideas of childhood innocence and guilt in Blake’s poems and extract from Mayhew’s book. Next, I will compare the images of innocence in TV adverts and Barnardo’s posters. After that, I will look at the representation of childhood innocence in sexuality and criminality, and the roles the age and the gender play in portraying children as innocent or guilty. I will include some cross-cultural and contemporary descriptions on the key topics. At the end of my assignment, I will summarize the main points of the arguments.

    Read More

More about Loss Of Innocence In The God Of Small Things

Open Document