Initiating Event

What Causes the Loss of Innocence?

In the Christian Bible, Eve eats the apple that God told her not to eat "For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5). Once she and Adam had consumed the forbidden fruit, they lost their innocence, marking the beginning of mans destruction of all innocence. The loss of innocence is caused by man's influence in society as shown in the poem "Contemplations Of The Sword;" by Robinson Jeffers, the memoir Crazy; by Pete Earley, and the television episode "Pennhurst State School and Hospital" from the Ghost Adventures series.

Robinson Jeffers uses a sword as a symbol for the loss of innocence in the poem "Contemplations Of The Sword". The symbol is introduced "in the sense of a symbol. The sword: that is: ... Destruction of all goods and materials; massacre, more or less intentional, of children and women;" which Jeffers displays how devastating the sword is to the world (Jeffers). The author uses words that provoke a dark, strong feeling with the words "destruction" and "massacre" to show the extreme magnitude of the loss of innocence. By showing that the massacre is "more or less intentional," the author conveys that the loss of innocence can be deliberate or accidental. "Children and women" are the ones that bear the sword in this example, showing that even the most innocent things in the world are susceptible to the loss of innocence. Furthermore, massacres and destruction cannot happen by themselves. A man must wield the sword in order for these events to happen. The poem furthers the importance of the symbol by stating that "The sword: ... frustration of all hopes/That starred mans forehead" (Jeffers). This quotation shows that all of the hopes and dreams that one can have are the reason why they lose their innocence. The "frustration of all hopes" shows how twisted dreams can get in blissful innocence when it seems like nothing can ever hurt anyone. The loss of innocence is what "starred man's forehead." Man is behind destruction-man is behind persecution-man is behind the sword-man is behind the loss of innocence.

In Pete Earley's nonfiction piece Crazy, mentally ill prisoners and homeless people are neglected, harassed, and robbed of their innocence by the men tasked to take care and provide for them. In Miami-Dade county, '"A lot of people think someone who is mentally ill is going to get help if they are put in jail," he told me as we walked, "But the truth is that we don't help many people here with their psychosis. We can't,"' (Earley 37). Under treating mentally ill inmates shows the loss of innocence because the people who work in the jail are only giving its inmates the least they can. The jail employees cannot force inmates to take medicine. The loss of innocence in this quotation is neglect, by which the people of the jail and state are at fault. When someone is so incapacitated by a mental illness that they cannot care for themselves, and the people who are tasked with providing for them fail to do so, that causes the loss of innocence. "By its very design, a jail like ours is intended to dehumanize and humiliate a person. It's supposed to have a negative impact," is the way the intentions of the Miami-Dade County jail affect the inmates (Earley 37). In this situation, the loss of innocence is caused by the cruelty of man. This quotation describes how much torture and dehumanization is occurring behind bars. The doctor that is speaking reveals that this is not the case with only mentally ill inmates, but regular inmates as well. Innocence is lost by someone making a person less than the human that they are. "In 1988, the American Civil Liberties union of Florida accused the Miami police of harassing homeless persons as part of a campaign to drive them off the streets;" these actions display how the homeless are treated by the police in Miami (Earley 133). The police are supposed to be authoritative figures and try to keep their cities as crime-free as possible. In this instance, the police are the ones who commit the crime of harassment. Innocence is lost in the helpless homeless people by the harassment of the police. The people who were in charge of caring for Miami's most vulnerable citizens caused them to lose their innocence by the worst possible means.

The Pennhurst State School in Spring City, Pennsylvania was intended to be a home and treatment center for mentally retarded children, but what occurred behind the walls of the institution was neglect and abuse towards the innocent patients by the staff. At Pennhurst, it was thought that people sent there would get better; what really happened at Pennhurst was "Instead of treatment we gave them harm," ("Pennhurst State School and Hospital"). The man speaking was the co-president of the Pennhurst Memorial and is acknowledging the dangerous things that the staff, state, and society did or did not do that caused the loss of innocence in the patients. Children who are mentally retarded require more care than who are not because of the way the disability affects them. When they are given abuse, they lose their innocence because they did nothing wrong. The men and women tasked with caring for them did not for fill their responsibilities. When a reporter came to Pennhurst to do a story for the Philadelphia Central Broadcasting System, he found that "The children who are rotting in their cages, cribs, and beds, can thank society for their dreadful plight," ("Pennhurst State School and Hospital"). The first section of this quotation shows how horrible the conditions are at Pennhurst. The words "rotting" and "cages" gives the watcher a dirty and inhumane sense of the environment the patients are living in. The last part directly puts blame on man for the conditions at Pennhurst. The reporter extends the responsibility of the loss of innocence to all of the people in society to show that all of man let this abuse and neglect continue, furthering the loss of innocence. As a former employee of Pennhurst once commented about the care, or lack thereof at the school, "We have a tremendous capacity to turn people into less than us, and once you do that, you can justify a hell of a lot of awfulness," ("Pennhurst State School and Hospital"). The speaker directly accuses man in the loss of innocence in the patients. The phrase "less than us" describes the inhumane causes and effects of the so-called treatment at Pennhurst. The word "justify" is used in a logical sense to show how the horrible and abominable care provided by man will lead to the loss of innocence. The loss of innocence is caused when man is given the duty of caring for incapacitated children, but provides them with harm and neglect.

The loss of innocence is caused when man taints society with his explicit behaviors and ideas. Robinson Jeffers explains the loss of innocence as man's brutality towards the innocent. In Pete Earley's nonfiction Crazy, the loss of innocence is man's mistreatment and harassment of innocent people. Patients at the Pennhurst State School and Hospital also received neglect and harm, as shown in the television series Ghost Adventures. In today's society, innocence is lost daily by harassment, neglect, and abuse, especially in the wake of the recent tragedies of unlawful murders committed by police officers. Although the specific medium though which innocence is lost, man will always be one to cause it. When God found out about Adam and Eve's loss of innocence, He proclaimed that "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life," (Genesis 3:17). Eating the food from the cursed ground symbolizes man destined to continue the loss of innocence as long as they exist. The loss of innocence will continue though out time as long as man is there to supply it.

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Honors Essential Question Essay