Loss Of Innocence In Laurie Halse Anderson's 'The Joy Luck Club'

A child should not have to do or experience adult things. In the book Night by ElieWiesel … Loss of innocence is shown when Elie is fighting for his father. Three ways that lossof innocence exists in today’s world is child soldiers, children working to provide for theirfamilies, and when a child is taken away from their family. Loss of innocence has many forms,one in which is shown in the book Night by Elie Wiesel and the real life situation of child 2soldiers etc. For example, Elie fights for his father, giving his food and water to him so he could live.

In many ways, people lose their innocence. The novel, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton’s main characters are the Socs and the Greasers. The novel shows us a lot of examples of loss of innocence between them. Also in the song, “Nothing Gold” by Stevie Wonder described the sense of innocence pretty well. In the novel and the song, we can find a lot of examples of loss of innocence which is shown through losing someone or something so special and problems people have to face.

In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, it shows a good example of loss of innocence. When the boys are first deserted on the island, they behave like children enjoying their freedom and expressing profound homesickness and fear. Eventually their childhood is corrupted by loss of innocence, fear and, savagery.

Everyone has had a point in their child where they realize the world isn’t just “sunshine and rainbows”. The loss of innocence, the act of experiencing something that changes your perspective on life in a negative way. In the nonfiction book, “The shining” Danny Torrance is a symbol for the loss of innocence. Danny had a Traumatizing moment as child when Jack, Danny’s father, broke him arm because he was in a drunk rage. Danny also has an imaginary friend, Tony, who shows Danny his first couple of visions of murders. Danny also has the ability to witness murders and spirits of those murders. All of these factors are reasons why Danny has experienced a loss in innocence.

Archer tries to pull himself out of the depths of the strict society’s structure, but The Age of Innocence illustrates how the fight against society's norms get buried beneath conformity through it’s play on characterization and it’s adherence to Old New York’s unwritten- but unchangeable rules.

The novel The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton takes place during the Gilded Age, and tells the story of Newland Archer, an upper class gentleman who struggles to decide between two women in his life: May, the ideal woman of the time and her cousin Countess Ellen Olenska, an unconventional character. During the 1870s, there was a large concentration of wealth in a very small group of people living in New York City where the novel is set. As suggested by the title, the topic of innocence is important throughout the novel, influencing several aspects of the story. Innocence often refers to the lack of experience or knowledge of immoral topics, while also having a connotation of purity

“A true relationship is two imperfect people refusing to give up on each other” - Unknown. Relationships are never perfect, there are always a few bumps down the road. This goes for any relationship between boyfriend, girlfriend, brother, sister, husband, wife, etc. Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club brings to light the imperfections of family dynamics. This imperfect relationship focuses on the struggles between mothers and daughters. The broken relationships invite readers to question their own relationships, but also see how they relate to the relationships of The Joy Luck Club. Tan uses animate and inanimate objects to express the love and hate in one’s relationship, even if it’s through wobbly furniture, a jade pendant, or a

In this passage from “Waiting between the Trees” from The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan illustrates how mothers sometimes lose the ability to keep their child safe due to lack of communication. As shown in the passage, the mother struggles to communicate her emotions and feelings to her daughter due to the chasm between them, meanwhile illustrating the repetition of regret of miscommunication.

Parents always want what is best for their children, regardless of culture or ethnicity. In The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, and in "Life With Father" by Itabari Njeri, the parents express their parental methods upon their daughters. Children will all react differently to their parent's methods, as do Waverly, June, and Itabari, but they still share a common resentment for their parents. It is shown in the two stories how parental methods expressed to children can be misinterpreted, thus influencing the child's behavior.

Curiosity can obtain a grip of an individual and diminish their innocence into oblivion. Even the most virtuous adolescent is susceptible to become a victim of curiosity and ultimately lose their innocence. Author Alice Walker expresses the loss of innocence of a lighthearted girl in her poem “The Flowers.” Using descriptive detail, diverse diction, and intense imagery, the author reveals that a casual stroll through the woods can modify the perception of a righteous girl by showing her innocence change throughout the story.

Innocence, like a glass figurine, can form cracks, but once it shatters, it cannot be mended. Children often display naiveté in their view of the world. In Alice Walker’s poem “The Flowers,” the main character, Myop, treasures her purity at the start of her day, but the purity she treasures fragments before her eyes when she discovers an unexpected corpse. Walker reveals the transformative qualities of children’s loss of innocence through her use of subtle irony, well-chosen contrasts, and intricate diction.

The transition from childhood to adulthood is a complex but universal passage. Both Katherine Mansfield's "The Wind Blows" and D.H. Lawrence's The Virgin and the Gipsy embody adolescent angst in their characterization. Matilda and Yvette search for meaning beyond the lives they perceive they are condemned to lead. Both bring about greater understanding of the struggle between a young girl's struggle of innocence versus sexuality. In similar uses of metaphor and imagery the stories tell the tale of social convention, romanticism and sexual awakening.

Moreover, Edith Wharton's "The Age of Innocence" makes us to reflect on the societies of earlier times, about how societies have evolved and about the value of feelings and the choice that each one makes based on a social conditionality. “It was a study of the complex, intimate connections between social cohesion and individual growth”, as Cynthia Griffin Wolff, an expert on the author's work, points out in her introduction, The Age of Innocence is a generous look at the past; with maturity, Wharton seeks to understand the values that guided the society of the United States until World War I, to then welcome the new era that was

Ying-ying hopes to make her daughter understand and feel the fear she experienced in a way that the direct render of her past that she might not allow her to do. Ying-ying is a source of life lessons throughout this book, but especially during this part of the story: “I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength. It was a strategy for winning arguments, respect from other, and eventually though neither of us knew it at the time, chess games.” (II.1.1)

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass and The Wizard of Oz are fictional stories about the coming of age. Children relate to these stories and admire both Alice and Dorothy. In what can be assumed are Alice’s and Dorothy’s dreams, we see various anthropomorphic creatures and animals. There imaginary worlds lead both girls to face situations in which they must think maturely and at the same time lose a bit of their innocence, similar to when a young child takes their first step in becoming their own mature and independent person. When both girls admit for the first time they were not who they were when they first entered their dreams, they took their first step into a new world of decision making and maturity. Alice and Dorothy mature throughout the story and leaving behind the dependence and innocence every person once had. Both girls are coming to the age of independence. Throughout Alice’s and Dorothy’s journey in wonderland it can be seen that each girl loses the air of innocence they had at the beginning of the story. The stories, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll and The Wizard of Oz film directed by Victor Fleming, all represent a coming of age story where a young girl must go on a journey, let go of her childishness, and mature and face her fears in order to find their way home.