Innocence and Experience Essay

In The Catcher in The Rye, by J.D, the main character, Holden, can be seen as a troubled teenager growing up in a less than perfect society. Throughout the novel Holden struggles with the fact that many young and innocent kids will grow up and see the world from a different perspective. He naturally becomes worried for all future generations who will one day grow, as he did, and loose their innocence. The fixation of youth and innocence can be seen in the title of the book, as well as throughout the novel.

Everyone is born into this world with a sense of innocence, completely oblivious to the cruelties of the world. However, as humans grow up and reach early- adulthood, they begin to realize the realities of this world, all that is real and all that is, in fact, a figment of the imagination. As people learn that it is truly impossible to stay hidden from the harsh realities of adulthood for their entire life, they also learn that it is impossible to shield others from these truths as well. They learn that although they may not be able to protect themselves from life’s misfortunes, they must perceiver, move forward, and not hold anyone back in their tracks. Just as all humans eventually learn to accept and move past life’s various misfortunes,

Often, we as humans tend to separate ourselves from stories and myths. If a story is fictitious, we immediately dismiss any possibility of relating and learning from it. However, some archetypal events and themes observed in literature may be far more real than we wish to admit. The loss of innocence is one such archetype. Despite having broad definition, the effects of the loss of innocence are narrow. Commonly, an innocent or ignorant individual experiences an event or realization causing a shift towards experience and knowledge. Archetypes are present in Roman and Greek myths, and are still used today, sometimes unknowingly, in stories, songs, and poems. This is likely because it is a reflection of events in our own lives, to a certain

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 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.

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.

The Romantic Period centered on creative imagination, nature, mythology, symbolism, feelings and intuition, freedom from laws, impulsiveness, simplistic language, personal experiences, democracy, and liberty, significant in various art forms including poetry. The development of the self and self-awareness became a major theme as the Romantic Period was seen as an unpredictable release of artistic energy, new found confidence, and creative power found in the writings of the Romantic poets Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, and Shelley, who made a substantial impact on the world of poetry. Two of the Romantic poets, William Blake, and Percy Bysshe Shelley rebelled against convention and authority in search of personal, political and artistic freedom. Blake and Shelley attempted to liberate the subjugated people through the contrary state of human existence prevalent throughout their writings, including Blake’s “The Chimney Sweepers,” from “Songs of Innocence”, “London,” from “Songs of Experience” and Shelley’s A Song: “Men of England.”

The first extreme in Blake’s Songs of Innocence & Songs of Experience is innocence. The Songs of Innocence is comprised of poems of young children who have a naïve perspective of the world around them. In The Lamb, the young child is compared to a untainted lamb who has not been corrupted by the world. In The Chimney Sweepers the orphaned child is sold to be a chimneysweeper. The child clearly has no hope for any future, however the naïve child listens to the voice of the angel and makes peace with his situation. He blindly accepts the comfort without coming to the recognition that he will ultimately die. In The Little Black Boy, the child doesn’t recognize the prevalent racism of his time. He believes that he and the white child can sit together in the light of G-d and together they will be like innocent sheep. These children encounter

Innocence is known as being free from moral wrong or guilt, while experience is gaining knowledge after encountering a specific situation. Innocence and experience is often practiced throughout the life of an individual. “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” by Flannery O’Connor, symbolizes innocence and experience well throughout the story starting with the main character who is a grandmother raised in the South. Following is the story “A & P” by John Updike, which characterizes a teenage boy that comes to realization words are powerful and to stand up for what is right. “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara, is similar to the theme innocence and experience through the eyes of a hard headed young girl named Sylvia, living in poverty

Through this, Blake is showing the hypocrisy of religion, a theme commonly shown throughout “Experience.” Throughout “Innocence” a simple, child-like portrayal of religion is explored. This could show Blake as primarily a religious poet as there are common, simple themes running throughout many of his poems in “Innocence.” This simple view of both Christ and religion contrasts the complex metaphors used to represent religion in “Innocence.”

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton is a book that gave the word “love” many other meanings, such as impossible, meaningless and incomplete. There were many unbearable obstacles that Countess Ellen Olenska, one of the main characters, had to face because of love. She was treated badly by many people and always longed for love but never obtained it. With everyone cursing her, betraying her and hurting her, there was one person who was always there for her. Newland Archer wasn’t only sympathetic towards her; he also began to fall in love with her. The love she always wanted. He was the man who truly cared for her and always helped her make decisions. Out of all the selfish people in New York who

During the Romantic period, which began in the late 18th Century, and ended in the early 20th century, there were many political changes, such as the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, repression and reform, pre-industrial economic changes. There were also many changes throughout literature and culture during this time. Poetry during this time often had strong themes of nature, internalization, subjectivity, and imagination. Three highly influential poets who were also often characterized as poets of the Imagination are William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Blake. Imagination is important to romantic poets because it was used as a healing tool for the writers’ troubles, using reason and emotion to relate to and participate in the world around them.

They are living in a moment of revolution, of innovation, of speed and steam; and they are longing for returning to past ages where everything seems easier, like the Ancient Rome or Greece. But especially they are going to look for that innocence and purity in their inner souls, in something that everybody has had the pleasure to experience. For the Romantic poets childhood is vital, for they understood that the child has a wider overview of the world given that he has not lost the innocence that characterizes him; there is something magical, pure and divine in a child’s vision of the world and that is what the Romantics are longing

Blake's poems of innocence and experience are a reflection of Heaven and Hell. The innocence in Blake's earlier poems represents the people who will get into Heaven. They do not feel the emotions of anger and

William Blake thought the role of the child to be innocence. Witnessing two of his

Blake’s two poems are both told from a child’s point of view, which is different from many works and forces adult readers to realize the fault in society’s standards through the bleak eyes of the many unfortunate children.