Loss of Innocence Causes Children to See the World Differently (Essay Example)

Scout and Jem have just heard the verdict of the trial… “It was Jem's turn to cry. His face was streaked with angry tears as we made our way through the cheerful crowd. 'It ain't right,' he muttered, all the way to the corner of the square were we found Atticus was standing under the street light looking as though nothing happened” (Lee  242) 

This quote proves the theme because the theme is that loss of innocence cause children to see the world differently and this is shown through Jem and his emotional reaction to the verdict of the trial, and Atticus’s nonchalant reaction to the trial.  this is one of the first times that these kids have seen racism and prejudice at this high of a level affecting peoples lives in such imperative ways. Jem’s reaction along side Atticus’s reaction show how loss of innocents affects children because Jem is hysterical:  It was Jem's turn to cry. His face was streaked with angry tears” shows how Jems innocence has been lost because he has seen racism and its reel world affect on other humans and how unfair this whole system is oppose to before when he didn’t know about all of those things. Atticus is very nonchalant: “Atticus was standing under the street light looking as though nothing happened” Jem and Atticus’s contrasting reactions prove the theme because Atticus is clearly not that innocent and he has a mellow reaction but Jem on the other hand, is an innocent child who’s reaction is much more extreme. 

Scout is reflecting on how far she’s come in these past few years when she says… “The Radley place had ceased to terrify me but it was no less gloomy, no less chilly under its great oaks, and no less uninviting. Mr. Nathan Radley could still be seen on a clear day, walking to and from town we knew boo was there, for the same old reason—nobody’d seen him carried out yet”(Lee 227) 

This quote proves that loss of innocence causes children to see the world differently because in the beginning portion of the book boo Radley was treated as a extremely scary villain tape character because no one had ever seen him and they knew that he had stabbed his father when he was young so they assumed that he was a bad. When scout says “it was no less gloomy, no less chilly under its great Oaks, and no less uninviting.” This proves it at the Radley place has not changed and how it looks at all but the persona of boo Radley has changed because scout now she’s the world differently with her innocence lost. This is significant because it shows how scout sees the world differently after she lost her innocence versus before.

A man named George Floyd was being arrested when… “Floyd, 46, is arrested shortly after 8 p.m. after allegedly using a fake $20 bill at a local Cup Foods. A disturbing cellphone video later posted to Facebook shows an officer pinning Floyd to the ground with his knee on the back of Floyd's neck while a handcuffed man repeats "I can't breathe" and goes unconscious. He later dies at a hospital.” (Deliso)

This quote proves the theme that loss of innocence causes children to see the world differently because innocent children see race As an arbitrary thing that doesn’t impact many things in the world and that is how it should be, unfortunately in our world race does impact a lot of different things that would happen. Many innocent children might assume that the George Floyd situation was either just a police man doing his job and it got out of hand or an accident not having to do with race but a more grown-up person who is less innocent would initially assume it had something to do with race because of the society that we live in.

“The day after Mr. Floyd’s death, the Police Department fired all four of the officers involved in the episode. On May 29, the Hennepin County attorney, Mike Freeman, announced third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter charges against Derek Chauvin, the officer seen most clearly in witness videos pinning Mr. Floyd to the ground.” (Hill) 

This event proves the theme that loss of innocence causes children to see the world differently because when children are young they naturally assume that policeman do the right thing every time and are always right and are always doing good for the world but as people grow up and become less innocent, they see the world differently and realize that policeman can do bad, they can be accused of a “third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter” charge which shows that not everyone is always good and sometimes it takes loss of innocence to see the world differently in the way that you would see a police officer as not 100% good all the time.

Both the events from to kill a mockingbird and the killing of George Floyd prove the theme that loss of innocence causes children to see the world differently. These events are similar in the way that they were both racially motivated to a certain extent and the different ways that a child in the erra that mockingbird was in would’ve reacted was different than how a child in our current era would reacted mainly because back in the mockingbird era, racism was the norm for most people but nowadays it’s extremely criticized and terrible. Also back in the mockingbird era there were no cellular devices Internet or social media so information wasn’t transported as efficiently as it is now, Kids now however are getting access to phones at very young ages social media at very young ages and being exposed to things that they would’ve never been exposed to in the mockingbird era. Naturally, the children nowadays are going to be less innocent because of the insane amount of social medias and things they’re seeing every day on those social medias that are most of the time not controlled or filtered nearly as well as they should be.