Innocence Is Bad

Each year in the United States, people are imprisoned for crimes he or she did not commit. Right now 25% of the imprisoned were wrongly convicted. But the Innocence Project works hard to vindicate and exonerate innocent people from prison. Although the person is not guilty they could spend months or even years in jail for a crime they did not commit. This causes many set backs such as a criminal record, no job and possibly no education. Subsequently when these people get out of jail, they are unable to support themselves and society needs to provide them with restitution.

The first experience that Baby has which causes her loss of innocence is her first exposure to the

Innocence: “the quality or state of being innocent; freedom from sin or moral wrong. Freedom from legal or specific wrong; guiltlessness.” What would you do if you no longer lived your innocent life but you had done nothing wrong. Ripped out of your daily life and convicted of a crime you never committed. Do you think you could save your life from being behind bars forever?

In the summer of 1994 an Illinois woman’s buzzer rang at her apartment complex in Waukegan. She went downstairs to check after nobody went upstairs to her apartment. As soon as she reached the door downstairs, two men forced her into a dark colored sedan, kidnapped her, and raped her. Distraught after her attack, the victim wandered until she ultimately found a Seven Eleven close by and the police were called. When the police arrived, the victim said she was attacked by two Hispanic men that looked to be in their mid-twenties and a bit taller than her height of five feet and seven inches. The car that she was forced into was described as dark colored, older, having four doors and tinted windows. The victim’s boyfriend saw Angel Gonzalez’s car in the apartment complex parking lot and it matched the characteristics that the woman used to describe the assailant’s car. Police later stopped Gonzalez’s car and the victim acknowledged that the car was the one she described. She was then asked if Gonzalez was one of her attackers, and she was certain that he was, despite her being in the backseat of the police car while he was in front of it. Not only was he not close enough for her to get a clear view, but he also had facial hair and a birthmark, both characteristics that she did not use to describe her attackers. This led to Gonzalez being in police custody for interrogation where they did not allow him to sleep. When he was interrogated, he

The only enemy to innocence, is time. As time goes on our innocence fades away. This is shown in the book Outsiders. Outsiders is a great book because it has many lessons. It talks about the importance of family and how it does not matter if you are rich or poor and these are all very important lessons but the main point of this book is that no matter what ever you do, always maintain your innocence. It is what people look at first when they meet you. This lesson is shown many times throughout the novel.

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

The idea of innocence began with Greek mythology and the story that Dionysus`s children were born corrupt and needed to be taught morality. This coincides with the Christian concept of everyone being born with original sin. Slowly these views of intrinsically corrupted children were replaced by the thoughts that the youth were “angelic, innocent, and untainted” (Augustine). Around this time the concept was introduced that children added meaning to parents` lives, rather than just solely being used for labor and legacy. This belief is still withheld in modern times and helped shape nuclear families, making children the basis of the family and the want for them to stay innocent.

This sense of innocence impressed upon

Innocence is defined as the lack of guile or corruption, in other words, purity. In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, one can see that a “sin to kill a mockingbird” represents the “killing” of a child’s innocence. This can be seen when Harper Lee kills the innocence of Jem and Tom Robinson. The idea of “killing a Mockingbird” can still be seen in society today when a celebrity’s innocence is ruined by media and gossip.

Loss of innocence is a dominant theme in Atonement and mainly relates to the children and young adults in the novel. As these characters struggle to come to terms with the difficulties of growing up, they grow accustomed to the sufferings of the adult world but, in addition to this, they grow less innocent. Furthermore, the novel emphasises the universal fact that wartime kills innocence and forces people to grow up.

“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” written by Carol oates in 1970, portrays the cultural transition’s impact on teenager’s behavior in 1960’s. The new style of music highly influenced adolescent’s behavior, initiating a revolutionary era. That was a time which culture was rapidly changing. A sexual revolution was taking place, leading people, especially teenagers, to question the traditional and religious believes from previous generations. In addition, World War II had just ended in 1945, driving people to promote peace and love amongst themselves, especially through music for the next few decades. Despite all the peace and love movement, a series of murders began to arise in Tucson, Az. Charles Howard Schmid Jr., a 23-year-old man, brutally murdered numerous girls and made the national headlines. A creepy predator who was Oates inspiration to create the unscrupulous pedophile character of Arnold Friend. Connie is a 15-year-old girl who lives an ordinary life; confused about the girl she is, and the woman she is becoming. Being a teenager is not an easy thing overall, for any girl, in any era. Furthermore, she lives in a fast-paced, transitional phase in America; a phase which rock and roll is considered, “the devil’s tool,” to most parents; rock and roll lyrics began to be more explicit and provocative, hence, leading the young generation to break the traditional rules of a conventional era.

Vicissitudes lead to loss of childhood innocence. A pack of civilized British boys are left stranded on an island. Their childish and immature nature drives them to fool around, without adult supervision they experience total liberty over themselves. At the beginning of the book, their moral tendencies remain intact by creating a system of order and rules. However, they remain ignorant of the fact that being the adult of the group transcends just obtaining power. Also, by Jack denying his responsibility to ignite the signal fire to continue to hunt pigs in a sociopathic-obsessive behavior, shows their depraved nature of how the island collective would cease to devolve into further brutality. Jack’s devoted ambition to dictate gradually influences

The schoolboy’s loss of innocence leads to violence and anger. Over the course of time, evil and hatred between the schoolboys becomes a common occurrence. The schoolboys are affected by the violence: “The breaking of the conch and the deaths of Piggy and Simon lay over the island like a vapor. These painted savages would go further and further” (Golding 184). This quote affirms that the schoolboys turned to violence. The strange acts of violence lingered over the island and affected the schoolboys attitudes and future actions. Golding hints that violence would become a common theme. Many of the schoolboys began to turn against each other. One of the boys Roger pushes a large boulder on Piggy: “The rock bounced twice and was lost in the forest.

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

Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, the Songs, by William Blake, has many underlying themes, one of which is duality. Duality is the opposing of two sides of the same whole. In this case, the two sides are innocence and experience. Innocence does not necessarily mean ignorance. In the Songs, the first half is Songs of Innocence and these poems seem to be very uplifting. In each poem the subject or narrator is happy because they are childlike and experiencing everything for the first time, or have yet to experience the evil associated with it. They are in a state of purity or good. Innocence, in the sense of the text, is being like a newborn. It is a state of being where the experience is not spoiled by age and the negativity of the mind and world. The second half of the Songs, is Songs of Experience. In this half, the narrator or subject is experiencing similar things as in Songs of Innocence but their mind is spoiled by negativity and their expectations from previous experiences. They are in a state of darkness or evil. At a superficial glance, one will walk away with the impression that one can either have innocence or experience, but not both. However, this is not the case, when digging deeper into the text and meaning, the duality of the human soul is having both innocence and experience at the same time. The organization of Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience proposes that there are two sides to the human soul, just as there are two sides to the text