LOI+4

Paul Berry Mrs. Anderson Honors English I Period 3 December 1, 2011

To me, loss of innocence is a time in one’s life where they feel an overwhelming amount of guilt, weather it’s necessary, or unnecessary. Loss of innocence is said to have a lot to do with growing up, but I personally think that one can be grown up, yet still cling tight to their innocence. In my eyes, these kinds of people are the ones we look up to most, because they are most often the ones who show little to no guilt. To further my point, Superman wouldn’t be too “super” if he spent his time wallowing in his guilt, rather than being a confident, heroic, and most importantly, innocent man (and not only in a legal sense). Yet, nevertheless, there are very few Supermen around, which to me can only mean that most people have, or currently are, experiencing a state of what we call, “loss of innocence”. Obviously, loss of innocence can vary from person to person. For me, I’d have to say that the biggest case of “loss of innocence” that I’ve experienced was when my grandmother died. As in Scout’s case, it was a real eye opener to the pains of life, yet in my opinion, I don’t think that it had as much of an affect on me as the idea of racism had on Scout. This too shows that the degree of loss of innocence varies from person to person, yet loss of innocence is still regarded as a part of life for nearly every person, and this is why it is thought to be a universal theme in literature.