Loss of Innocence

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.