Loss of Innocence

Life is made up of expectations.  Whether they're others' expectations of you, or your expectations of yourself, they have the ability to mold you into who you are- even if it's someone you don't like.  

Let's talk about society for a second.  Society is a major league player whenit comes to what's considered acceptable and what isn't.  Fortunately, the society we currently live in is significantly more improved than say, 40 years ago where the lives of women were much more regulated by "manners" and men for that matter.  Women have had to endure a harsh struggle in terms or trying to achieve the same social status of men, and have been constantly battered by the expectation to be the ideal woman.  

In the short story "Girl", by Jamaica Kincaid, this pressure on women to be perfect is accurately portrayed through a conversation between a mother and her daughter.  I have to say, when I first read this story, I was completely interested by its simplicity.  How could one conversation, or more like a set of rules, convey such a powerful message?  Even more surprising to me was that this set of rules on how to become the ideal woman was passed from mother to daughter.  It adds a sense of acceptance of the limited lives women were forced to endure during this time, and rather than telling her daughter to live her life as the woman she wants to be, the mother succumbs to the immense amount of social pressure and instead instructs her daughter to follow society's expectations.  

"...on Sundays try to walk like the lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming."  

At several points in the story like the one shown above, the mother even goes as far as to calling her daughter a slut.  Now think about this:  What kind of effect do you think these words could have on a young girl?  The girl in this, who is most likely quite young hence the title of the story being "Girl" rather than "Woman", is not only having any dreams of her future crushed, but is expected to become a slut by society and her own mother.  In their eyes, the only way to contradict this is to follow a strict set of rules.  Only one outcome is possible from this, and that is her loss of innocence.  It's a very innocent and child-like idea to belive that you're capable of becoming anything that you want to be, and that your future is in your hands - not the hands of others.  However, like with the girl in this story, that innocence is instatly stripped away by society's expectations and in this case, the "traditional" role of the perfect woman.  She is now being treated like a woman rather than the girl she really is.  

It's difficult to go against what others expect of you, but here's the secret: nobody's perfect.  No matter what you do, you will never be able to live up to the "perfect woman" or "the perfect man" or the "perfect anything" in the eyes of society, so why not do whatever you want?  Screw society.

-Number Six 

Harry Potter on yet another magical romp between the lines, let’s find a unicorn this time guys! Alright, in all seriousness(What did someone call for me?-Sirius Black), we’re gonna be looking at “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway this time around. Cool story about Hemingway, according to the world wide web, though it isn’t substantiated, he made a bet once that he could make a man cry in six words. And so the “Six-Word Story” was born. For sale: baby shoes, never worn. Now, if that doesn’t hit you hard I don’t know what will.(this is connected don’t worry just lemme work)

Anyway, it seems like babies are a favorite topic for our boy Hemingway since “Hills Like White Elephants” is also about a baby. Although, in this case, it isn’t particularly wanted; The story is about a couple dancing around the choice of whether or not they were going to abort their child. I would say the loss of innocence in this one is just the couple’s realization that they can’t always do what they want, they have responsibilities. I think this way because the impression that they gave me was a young(ish) couple wandering around Europe without a care in the world doing as the please, when they please. But then, suddenly, Jig is pregnant and now everything is horribly convoluted and they don’t know what to do or where to go. I feel that this dash of reality is a type of loss of innocence, I mean they were all carefree and happy and now look at them, they can barely keep a conversation going. So, basically, what I’m saying is that children ruin everything. Never, ever, ever have them, ever. Just kidding, I love kids(no, not really.). I think the...moral, I guess you could say, is that your actions have consequences and you have to take responsibility for them.

Another kind of loss of innocence in this is Jig’s and her seemingly, indifferent attitude towards the baby and herself. She doesn’t care about herself and was willing to go along with whatever her lover wanted. This is still the same type of innocence as above really but you just see how pronounced it is in Jig’s character. She is referred to as a “girl” throughout the story while her lover is a “man” not a boy, a man. I admit this has colored my perspective of the story and that is, partly, why I think this way. I think that Jig is so caught up in this romance with this older man that she’s willing to do anything to return to that carefree bliss that they were in. “And if i do it you’ll be happy and things will be like they were and you’ll love me?” (Hemingway “Hills Like White Elephants” this quote accurately shows this point of view.

Okey-dokey, Harry signing off then.

Darkness of other days

Bob shaw’s short stories are nothing but overlooked masterpieces of the past. These forgotten short stories are crafted extremely well and open a whole new dimension and aspect of thinking and analyzing short stories.

I came to this realization when reading the Light of other days, one of Bob shaw’s best short stories in my opinion. The story starts off with a couple looking around for a new house in the countryside. The eerie silence and mystique as they first enter the countryside represents their new venture into an ideal and quest unknown. As they view different homes, they eventually stumble upon what they believe is an extremely nice home made of a substance called slow glass.

The essence of slow glass is that light takes many years to pass through it, so constant moving images of the past flow across the walls, giving one a reminder, memory, or view of an action from a previous time. This amazing ability makes slow glass rare and allows one to capture the moments from his or her life, with the ability to once reminisce with them later on in life.

Now this encapsulated and breathtaking view of the house intrigues our characters to venture towards it and ask its owner about its sale. As they view the house and its aspects, they see its value and the different characteristics. Often times the protagonists in the story see the family members of the house owners wandering around, but are never noticed by them, causing a sense of uneasiness and questionability about the house. After various talks about budget and wandering around the house, our prospects leave the house and countryside intrigued about the house. They purchase some of the slow glass and then leave the house in a sense of uneasiness at the revelation they soon make.

Now this revelation is one that represents a loss of innocence of our main characters in a very impactful way. Our characters realize that the entire time they were seeing the house owner’s wife and son, they were actually just viewing images of them on the slow glass. The man’s family has been deceased for quite some time and is still present on the glass, but without him. This both represents the fact that the house’s owner was busy and didn’t get to spend time with his beloved family, and that he must live with that grief for the rest of the days they will remain on the glass. It is a constant reminder to himself about the time he didn't devote to his family, and now it’s too late.

The owner loses his innocence to his perception of love and being there for his family as he will regret not spending time with his family for the rest of his life. The glass represents a constant reminder of his loss, and causes the loss of innocence of any visitors. The main characters, or the buyer's, lose their innocence once they find the truth about the looking glass’s amazing sadness despite its uniqueness. They also lose their innocence to grief because they have never seen, dreaded, or been fooled by it’s false sense of time set by the looking glass. All of these different aspects combine to cause the loss of innocence of both the characters, as well as the reader’s perception of grief and the story.

And for the last time,

Special K <3

I Stand Here Ironing by Tillie Olsen is a simple story of a mother’s regret for neglecting to always be there for her daughter. Reading this made me wonder about how Emily must have felt. AS the oldest sibling she had to grow up the fastest so as to help out her mother and watch the other children. Emily had to give up part of her childhood to her younger sister Susan. While she was a toddler she received a lot of love from her parents, but eventually they had no time for her and had to send her away to a sort of boarding school. I think it’s ironic that even though we share the same name, our situations are polar opposites. She had to abandon her childhood at a young age in order to help care for her younger siblings while I, being the youngest (well, former youngest), always had someone taking care of me.

I am not the youngest anymore but I was the baby of the family for the longest time so I almost always got my way. On the other hand Emily from the story had to quickly grow up and sacrifice her innocence. Her mother almost never had time for her so she stopped hoping. She stopped expecting to receive love and affection from her mother. I guess that’s why the tone of the story is kind of guilty and regretful. The mother wanted to provide all the care that her daughter needed but there just wasn’t enough time with the housework and other kids. This may sound contradicting, but although I was the youngest in the family for so long, I can somewhat relate to Emily. Even though my baby sister was born thirteen years after me, I had these two little cousins that I had to take care of. I lived with about twelve people in my house, so I had to take care of my little cousins because all the adults were busy at work or cooking dinner or on the phone. But I don’t think it was quite the same, although I had to babysit my cousins all the time my parents always made time for me. I was still their baby, but for the fictional Emily, her mother just didn’t have enough time.

I touched on it earlier but I didn’t fully try and explain it. I think that in the story Emily had o knowingly give up her innocence. When Emily had to go to her father’s family’s house I think is the turning point for Emily. That where Emily changes. She realizes that being a single mother is hard and that she needs to grow up to help her mother.

Welp. That’s all I have for today. Thank you for reading!

-Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen

"Ah, young love!"

Isn't that what they all say?  Just the words "young love" create an immediate response of swooning and nostalgia.  Maybe you yourself experienced something categorized under young love, or perhaps you've come to be fond of it as it is frequently romanticized and idolized in the media.  Unfortunately, this blog post won't follow that aura of young love that you're used to. Don't get me wrong, it can be beautiful, but with the story Araby by James Joyce, this is simply not the case.

There's a reason why you can really only experience young love once, and it's because it will ruin you.  That sounds a bit pessimistic of me, but if you think about it, it's quite true.  Falling in love for the first time takes you by surprise.  Like with the young boy in Araby, it will fiercely engulf you while simultaneously fascinating you with its novelty.  This love may or may not work out, but when it ends, the world comes crashing down and is accompanied by your innocence.  Didn't see that one coming did you?  What kind of blog post would this be without my signature take on loss of innocence?  Anyway, the fact that young love happens in your youth makes a loss of innocence that much harder to bear.  

In "Araby", the young boy allows his love for a girl to grow until it begins to control all his desires and actions.  This is evident with his unwavering quest to go to the bazaar to buy the girl a gift, most likely with the hope that it will win her love.  This is all very romantic ( and "awww so cute"), but it is also very shallow.  Think about it.  A boy has dedicated all of his time just to try and win the affection of a girl who doesn't even bat an eye at him.  Young love?  More like young stupidity. (Ouch sorry to those of you hardcore believers in young love.)  The boy comes to realize this with the help of the shopkeeper at the bazaar.  Her cold demeanor towards him combined with her complete uninterest triggers a connection that he makes between her and the girl he has fallen in love with.  His loss of innocence stems from this connection, and he accepts the idea that no matter what he does, the girl he loves may turn out to be like the shopkeeper and never care about him.

"Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger."  

At this point, the boy's innocence has disappeared, and the darkness described serves as  a symbol of this loss of innocence.  The once beautiful and light bazaar which he had fantasized about this whole time has now turned dark and all of its light has been extinguished.  The bazaar never lived up to his expectations, forcing him to realize that his love for the girl and what he hopes they will become will never live up to his expectations either.  The boy's once innocent take on the world that was filled with light and only seeing the bright side of things has now turned dark and empty, much like the bazaar.  Even though his short-lived romance provided joy for a time, it still led to pain and the disintegration of his innocence.  Ah, yes, young love!

-Number Six

Whelp, Harry back for another scintillating conversation about yet another short story. Although, to be completely honest, this one is probably one of my new favorites of all time. Quite an honor, really, considering it’s standing among the likes of the Dresden Files, Howl’s Moving Castle, and, of course, you can’t forget Harry Potter! Anyway, I’ve just realized I haven’t even said which story we’ll be talking about this time. So, without further ado, let’s jump into Bob Shaw’s “Light Of Other Days.”

Now, before any analysis, I just have to go through the premise with y’all at least once. I swear, it is life-changing. We begin with a little insight into Mr. and Mrs. Garland’s marital life as of late. The newly pregnant Selina Garland is...disgruntled, to put it lightly, due to losing her job, any aspirations she had on a new house, and being forced to rely on her husband’s meager earnings as a poet because of her “delicate condition.” And so, while on a vacation gone wrong meant to fix their marriage, the pair stumble across a rural “slow glass” refinery run by a Mr. Hagan. While there they see his unusually young wife in the window and get this unnerving feeling that she can’t see them and are wary of Hagan’s extreme reaction to her appearance. And they end up looking into his cottage only to see, not the tranquil image seen through the window but, “a sickening clutter of shabby furniture, old newspapers, cast-off clothing and smeared dishes. It was damp, stinking and utterly deserted.” (Shaw “Light Of Other Days” After learning what happened to Mr. Hagan’s wife, the couple hurry away shaken and clinging to one another.

So, onto the analysis! In terms of loss of innocence, I would say it’s easiest to see it in Mr. Hagan not really losing his wife perse, but how he copes with it is his loss of innocence. The appeal of slow glass, according to Mr. Garland, is that seeing is basically equivalent to owning. Thus Mr. Hagan’s painful attempts to revive her through the slow glass is as what it really is. A pitiful endeavor that, ultimately, only serves to reinforce the fact that life isn’t fair, that there isn’t a happily ever after, that you have to have to cherish what you have while you do; because it won’t always be there. This poem, which is mentioned in the story, is a prime example of this feeling of wanting the past, to return to what once was.

Oft in the stilly night,

Ere slumber's chain has bound me,

Fond Memory brings the light,

Of other days around me . . .

This ties in with the Garlands’ situation, as they are currently fighting but still love each other. By the end of the story they discard their previous disagreements and find solace in each other. They, like Hagan, have realized the ruthlessness of the world and the regrets that it causes. This is their loss of innocence.

Sorry if it seems like I’m gushing but this story is just so ugh. This story is heartrending not because of any big gestures, awe-inspiring revelations, or some such nonsense but the raw feeling that Shaw conveys through the abruptness of the thoughts and words of his characters. “Strange how a man can love a woman and yet at the same time pray for her to fall under a train.” (Shaw “Light Of Other Days” this paradox accurately shows how convoluted the Garlands’ relationship, although not particularly emotional. But, the part that really hit me is the end when Hagan says “I'm entitled to keep something.” (Shaw “Light Of Other Days” that whole scene is just steeped in emotion.

Alright done, I’ll see y’all.

The Bet

Can we be the cause of our own loss of innocence? Theoretically yes because the amazing aspect of literature is that you can create and innovate anything you want to. Realistically, however, it would take a lot of action, change, and depth of insight in order to cause our own innocence. This idea can be seen applied in a very intuitive way in the short story “The Bet” which was masterfully written by Anton Chekhov.

A big theme that drives loss of innocence in “The Bet” is the theme of isolation. The experiment of solitary confinement is taken to extremes by the lawyer. The banker bets the lawyer to survive five years in solitary confinement and the lawyer, who is bet, raises his own bar to 15 years. Now thinking logically, the ideal situation in a bet is not to make your own task harder because the end goal is a reward. Why does the lawyer bet against himself making his task harder than before?

Putting this action in perspective, it is highly likely that the lawyer had some ulterior motive throughout this journey. His wanting to experience isolation drove him, essentially, to lose his own innocence for a few reasons.

As a lawyer in the real world at a party full of bankers and other professionals, there’s no doubt that he was at least significantly wealthy due to his position and that he had experienced different viewpoints in life; He had experienced the wealthy/living life to some extent.

His wanting to be alone can symbolize a journey to attain a greater understanding of life. We as humans strive to better ourselves both in private and the workplace, but can, at often times, be very stupid when it comes to making certain decisions. We care about our bodies, yet choose to smoke and hurt ourselves. We care about our planet, yet we continue to harm it through loitering and polluting.

It is fully possible that our lawyer here was finally done with the irrational and “stupid” decisionmaking made by humans. This is why he sought out to gain a better understanding of life.

But this all begs the question: why isolation?

Being isolated in this man’s case seemed to be pretty nice. He’s fed and given what he wants and needs, he is free to read or do any individual activity, and he puts himself through it in the first place.

At first, the lawyer seemed depressed, but soon he begins to study vigorously because there isn’t much else to do in solitary confinement alone.

He tackles languages and learns a few, moves on to religion and its aspects before finally viewing academic topics such as science, literature, and other random topics

The Lawyer ultimately comes out after 15 years wanting very minimal materialistic possession and a new outlook on life. Loss of innocence is, at its core, the changing of one’s ideology in terms of a drastic shift. The lawyer pushes himself to learn more about other areas of society to find his true ideals of enlightenment, much like Siddhartha's journey to find nirvana in “Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse. This pushing of ideals and wanting to change, much like Siddhartha's quest, proves to us that one can be the cause of their own loss of innocence. If there’s a will, there’s a way, and the lawyer has utilized that to his best extent.

Bonjour all! C’est moi, Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen. Today is Tuesday, so you’ve probably already guessed it. Yep that’s right I am going to be talking about something related to innocence. Girl by Jamaica Kincaid was a very perplexing story to me. I didn’t quite understand it at first. It’d seemed like it was a mother scolding her daughter and sternly telling her what she needed to be doing. It kind of reminded me of my mother whenever she tells me to clean my room and get good grades. But then the mother in the story started to say stuff like to not be the “slut you are so bent on becoming.” Wow. I mean, my own mother can be critical of me sometimes but she has never called me a slut or anything like that. The overarching question for this story was something like whether or not the mother was [helpful or hurtful] to her daughter. Initially I had thought that whatever advice this mother was giving to her daughter was hurtful. What kind of mother accuses her daughter of wanting to be a slut? I had thought that the mother was limiting her daughter to fit into the same mold that she herself is in. However, as I was talking to the rest of the people in my group I realized that I had to rethink that. At the time period that this story was written in, the daughter probably didn’t have many options anyways, so in a way the mother was encouraging her daughter to be the best that she could be within her limited circumstances. Even with that in mind, the slut comments don’t seem very positive, but perhaps she means to say that she wishes that her daughter will be a respectable woman that the baker would let touch the bread.

It’d be a stretch to try and say that this story was an example of losing innocence. But well, I’m going to try anyways. I don’t think that anywhere in the story either of the characters losing innocence, however I do think that the mother was fighting for her daughter’s innocence. The mother in this story wanted to protect her daughter from the harsh realities of that time. Having dreams and aspirations in that time was basically impossible for a woman. Overcoming the obstacles set by society to keep woman subservient and submissive. The mother’s intention was to have her daughter realize this and work toward being the best that she and be within the circumstances. The mother wants her daughter to turn into a respectable lady even if she cannot rise up to be great, the mother hopes for her daughter to be great in her own right. Th-th-th-that’s all folks!

-Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen

Hey! Number Six here with a new blog and a new take on loss of innocence with “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. This short story is not only an interesting read, but it’s a riveting tale of a woman who slowly loses her sanity.

Interestingly enough, as the readers, we see the story through Jane’s (the protagonist) eyes and experience her interaction with a yellow wallpaper throughout the story. As her conflict with this wallpaper grows, we begin to see the process of her loss of innocence as insanity slowly starts to touch her previously innocent mind. Personally, as I read the story, my thoughts progressed from considering Jane as an ordinary person who suffers through life’s obstacles to thinking that she is one crazy woman. Although her switch from sanity to insanity was more gradual than instantaneous, it was extremely clear that her mind was long gone by the end of the story.

I attributed her loss of innocence to the end of the story, where Jane also completely loses her marbles. If you think about it, a loss of sanity is most definitely a loss of innocence. You go from rationalization to an utterly new way of thinking while simultaneously shedding your previous identity. In Jane’s case, she completely disregards her earlier self so severely to the point that she no longer refers to herself as Jane or associates the name to her new personality.

"I've got out at last," said I, "in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!"

Despite my very strong suspicion that Jane was becoming insane, this one line validated everything. Here, she no longer refers to herself as Jane, but has manifested into “the woman behind the wall”, a completely new person. Embodied in this is Jane’s complete and irreversible loss of innocence.

There’s a slight loss of innocence with the readers accompanying this line as well. We go through the story on a sympathetic level where we connect with Jane and her tale while also believing it to be true. However, this line opens our eyes to the fact that she has ultimately lost her sanity, making us doubt everything we’ve already read and making us question how we felt about the protagonist. In a sense, the story betrayed me. It betrayed my trust in Jane and her story while ripping away my innocent assumption that she was a normal woman experiencing a light form of depression.

One thing I couldn't pinpoint was the one reason why Jane actually went insane. Yes, there is an inner conflict that she struggles through, but in my eyes, there is no clear or explicit reason as to why she loses that sanity.  Jane struggles through her depression which eventually progresses to insanity, but what pushed this progression?  Perhaps it was a combination of stress, her newborn child, the expectations of loved ones.  Even though it’s in our nature to want to find a clear answer or explanation to everything, sometimes there is no explicit answer. Sometimes, there is no specific reason that people turn insane or lose their innocence. It’s just a combination of hardships and it's just a part of life.

-Number Six

Heya, it’s Harry, again. It’s only been a day but here I am for, you guessed it, Araby. Joy, complete, utter, flipping joy. Alright sorry just needed to get that out of my system, but I guess I’ll just pick off from yesterday and say whatever come to mind?

Well Mrs. Devo, my lit teacher, cleared up those first two paragraphs for us, so that’s one bullet we dodged, thank the lord. I’m not really sure what to talk about so I guess I’ll just tell you what my first thoughts were when I finally understood it (kinda) after reading it like asdfhsvuiwc times. Okey-dokey so, like I said earlier, I had no clue whatsoever about the first two paragraphs and basically abandoned them after my first run through. But that third paragraph, that third paragraph, that’s where all the magic started. I’ll admit at first it this sudden change of perspective and subject threw me off for a good while, three or four readings, but I had an inkling of the idea. I mean come on two kids running around in the dirt then he meets a girl, not too hard to guess what happens next. Thus, when, in the next few paragraphs, the main character appears to become slightly obsessed with Mangan’s sister I wasn’t too surprised. And the trip to Araby was equally predictable; not necessarily going to Araby that was predictable, but the trip itself was easy to see coming. I mean really? Boy is lonely, Boy meets Girl, Boy goes on “grand” adventure for Girl, Girl falls in love with Boy, the end. But that’s where the surprises start. The trite, cliched steps begin to divert and, lo and behold, new material, at least to me. Of course, the main character encounters obstacles on this “quest” of his, what kind of story would it be if he didn’t.But the difference is in that his realization in the last couple lines of the book is of a different sort then is usually seen in these kinds of stories. Instead of finding love and living happily ever after our character realizes the filth that humans are stained with. How they’re so easily corrupted and controlled by sin, greed, and, especially, beauty. This is an unusually poignant loss of innocence because of how easily relatable it is but also, and more importantly, because of the total reversal of thought. All children must grow up, if not now then later, and this contributes greatly to how emotional this epiphany is. That scene causes a visceral response in the reader because of the complete one-eighty from the beginning of the passage. They’re children running through the physical grime and muck of humanity but are heartbreakingly innocent. And now, though physically unscathed, infected with the filth, blackened by the blemish that is being human. But this scene right here is why I’m so taken with this story hahahha. Alrighty, well seeya around and don’t forget to drop a comment.