We Are Seven, by William Wordsworth: Innocence and Experience

The tone in these lines are often humorous and at the same time genuinely loving. In short, the tone of this poem is as complex as the subject with which it so memorably

One night the narrator encounters a red-haired girl standing in the snow without any shoes on, in just a bathrobe. She is clearly distraught and claims that "He doesn't love anyone…his ex-wife, or the one before that…and he doesn't love me" (11). The narrator takes her to the dean's house and thinks that "she is beautiful and she was someone's red-haired daughter, standing in a quadrangle how many miles from home weeping" (10). The girl reminds the narrator of the daughter he once had. Evidence of this when the narrator thinks, "I thought of her as someone's child, which made me think of ours, of course" (21). He suspects that the girl is having an affair with his professor after noticing that she shows up at the professors office and the professor calls her his "advisee" with a sly grin. After witnessing this he calls in

The friends of the narrator, however, do not hide in the imaginary world of childhood and are maturing into adolescents. Sally, “ screamed if she got her stockings muddy,” felt they were too old to “ the games” (paragraph 9). Sally stayed by the curb and talked to the boys (paragraph 10).

Danielle, with her petite stature and sheepish presence, proves to be very timid. The narrator explains that “her voice sounded like someone had stepped on a mouse”. She squeaks out as few words as needed with her tiny voice. As a result of Danielle’s unsocial nature, the children often do not even notice her. She was commonly just background noise and “nobody had ever paid much attention to her”.

As a little girl, I saw the world in the best light simply because innocence clouded my judgement. As a child, I was innocent of mortality, as a teen hope, and as a young adult love. However, later on that innocence took on the role of ignorance. Not in the sense of not being knowledgeable or educated on the matter, but rather knowing it all too well that I choose not to acknowledge it. Innocence can be served as an instrument to block out surroundings when problems arise. It is an illusion of reality to protect what the individual desires to be true to what is actual. In Wendy Cope’s poem “Reading Scheme,” Cope writes about an affair more from the perspective of children by using the villanelle form to illustrate the inability of the

Innocence is beautiful. The three rakes and the young boy illustrate the most simplest form of innocence which reserves the revelation of evil. In the Pardoner's Tale, the three rakes insist on discovering who “smote the man’s heart in two” (Chaucer 355). The murder, Death is dangerous and the rakes courageously took this opportunity to help themselves and others from the danger. This demonstrates the rakes ability to want to improve other people's lives while also showcasing the righteousness they contain. The murderer, Death, “shall be slain” and the three men “pledged their word of honor to live and die for the other,/ as though each were the other’s brother born” (357). Chaucer demonstrates the virtue these men have for themselves and for each other. Although, they drink too much they still embody supportive and honorable friends. The hope that “death shall be dead, if they catch him” (357) depicts the beauty in their hopes and innocence. The beauty of the widow’s son, seven years of age, in the Prioress Tale, paints the unknown virtue during the walk to and from school. The mother has always teaches her son “to worship our blissful Lady,/ Christ’s dear Mother, and he did not forget it” (373). Chaucer proves that innocent children “will always learn quickly” (373). The young child studies his book and he heard the Alma redemptoris being sung. The young child innocent and interested, “listened to the words and notes/ until he knew the first verse all by heart” (373). However, the innocent boy does “not at all what this Latin meant,/since he was of so young and tender an age” (375). Chaucer makes known that this young boy is intelligent and innocent as he listens to his mother and is curious for his age. The innocence in the rakes and the young boy is beautiful and tender,

But, for the first time, her daughter stares into her eyes, and her response is astounding as well as startling, considering her age. She says, “Mommy, there's a world in your eye. Mommy, where did you get that world in your eye?", and for the first time since the beginning of the piece, we experience Alice’s confidence once again (6). She realizes her self-worth, and that it is not determined by her appearance, she says, “Yes indeed, I realized, looking into the mirror. There was a world in my eye” and although she went through a good portion of her life believing that she wasn’t beautiful, or sufficient, it was all worth it because it taught her to love herself even more now (6). To end the piece, she illustrates a dream she had: it’s her old self-doubting self and another her, confident and radiating, coming together. She is once again able to speak of herself in a positive way, she states that the latter self is “beautiful, whole, and free. And she is also [her]”, which, in a way, exhibits that same attitude she had as a two-year-old (6). Twenty-seven-year-old Alice completely contradicts twelve-year-old Alice, who would “abuse [her] eye” and who did “not pray for sight” but “for beauty” (4); she now speaks of herself

The first example of the children losing their innocence is when they are describing the transition from elementary school to junior high school. Each has found that instead of one teacher, they in fact had many teachers. Additionally, the girls they were once friends with, now different in size and grace, ignored them. This becomes apparent that things have change as a result of age.

symbolic richness, but at the same time the poem supplies the reader with a wide

In J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories there are many tales centered on children, who are often depicted as a symbol of hope and connected with the values that stand in contrast to the ones typical of the adults corrupted by materialism. In my essay, I would like to concentrate on the portrayal of children in “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” and “Teddy”. Even though the way these characters are depicted is similar, a child protagonist in each of the stories is representative of different things. While Sibyl can be seen as a prototype of a childlike innocence, purity and simplicity, Teddy can hardly be considered a prototypical innocent child. Despite the simplicity of Sibyl’s thinking, her presence and behavior help the reader draw many complex

This passage is one of the most memorable passages in Alicebecause it so resembles the typical conversation that young girls often have with their dolls at imaginary tea parties. Imitating what their own mothers say to them over and over again – “Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to,” “Don’t shift in your seat while your elders are talking to you,” “You must be a proper young lady” – these young girls try to come to terms with all of the social restrictions that are placed upon them and to

At the beginning of the story, as M.Lantin falls in love with the woman, the author seems to describe the woman thoroughly as being one of rare find. The author states that, “Everyone sang her praises”(Maupassant 69). The story makes a big deal that “the young girl seemed to be the very ideal of that pure good woman to whom every young man dreams of entrusting his future” (Maupassant 69). She was clearly a woman with unique beauty, even described as modest with shy charm. Many, especially M. Lantin, knew

She is so naïve and adolescent that she leaves her worldly activities and gets ready to go out and spend time with her boyfriend. She gives him her possessions: her “labor” and “leisure” too (l. 7) for his politeness.

Gaiman shows that beauty is not an indicator of whether a female character is good or evil. He is clear believer that it is what is on the inside that counts, and actions speak louder than words. Glimpses of the old woman’s, the Princess’s, goodness are seen; when she, in the midst of her anger, dusted off a mother with her baby and “made certain that the baby’s sleepy mouth remained on the nipple” (33). She, a princess, takes care of the people in her castle while the beautiful woman in the bed in the tower steals the peoples’ lives and dreams (Gaiman, 52). The Princess’s actions reveal the goodness that is inside her. Gaiman also uses the idea of eyes being more telling of what a person is truly like than their outward appearance. He describes the princess as “a very old woman. Her fingers were gnarled, like the roots of a hawthorn bush. Her nose was long, and her eyelids drooped, but there was a look in her eyes in that moment that was the look of someone young” (Gaiman, 62). This is in direct opposition to how he described the younger girl, “the golden-haired girl, all childlike and innocent (ah, but her eyes! Her eyes were so old)” (Gaiman, 56). It is by looking past outward superficial appearances that the Queen fully realizes what is happening, “The queen looked at the girl, and saw what she was searching for: the same look that she had seen in her stepmother’s eyes, and she knew what manner of creature this girl was” (Gaiman, 54). Gaiman uses the idea of a woman’s

her eyes ... kindling a kind of active uncaring"(p. 114) toward him. Her physical beauty, "the rhythmic rise-fall of her buttocks, the tremulous up-downing of her behind"(p.151), will make him "hurt for her, for the taming of her" (p. 152), for years to come.