Innocence In A Good Man Is Hard To Find

“Ultimately, the journey from innocence to experience involves a change from a simple straightforward view of the world to a more nuance, complex understanding” (672). A boy longing for the attention of a girl who rarely acknowledged his existence would resent the experience of admiring her from a distance. The fact that faith and Christian go hand and hand, but if a man never builds his own foundation how could he ever hope to stand when the enemy entices his ear with a devious whisper. Or maybe looking into the eyes of a killer who have no remorse for his victims could rob an old lady of her innocence. It all boils down to experience; like telling a little white lie and being told soap could fix it. There is no point in life no matter how young or old one is where he/she does not regress to a state of innocence due to the lack of experience. With that being said, the complex understanding of life leads one into being straightforward.

Take for instance our

friend from the story Araby, this young boy clearly has an obsession with the girl around the way. The young boy remains innocent to reality until the last paragraph. “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity, and my eyes burned with anguish and anger” (679). Now, these are some passionate and well thought out emotions and concepts coming from a young boy, but his experience altered his perspective on his actions; which led to a somewhat belittling self-analysis on his situation. Even so, the author leaves room for one to think this unfortunate series of events gives him a more straightforward approach to life. Instead of putting so much detail and thought on different situations, in this case the girl, the young boy may just go for the straightforward approach to find out rather or not his efforts are still needed.
Now, Young Goodman Brown may be the prodigy. As Goodman Brown ventured into the forest his thoughts were not as simple as one whom is said to be innocent is described to think, but his answers are beyond straightforward; though they were uncertain as he knew not what to believe. “A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man, did he become, from the night of that fearful dream” (709). This is Browns description after his experience in the forest. When his reality set in his mind understood more, but his reactions became straightforward. “Turning the corner by the meeting-bursting into such a joy at the sight of him, that she skipt along the street, and almost kissed her husband before the whole village. But, Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without greeting” (709). This is fairly straightforward, and Goodman Brown had this type of attitude toward everything after he left the forest. Although his experiences expended his knowledge on what was actually going on around him, his reactions became straightforward.
A Good Man Is Hard To Find does a great job at building the grandmothers character.

Ultimately, she is the last family member alive toward the end in which she regressed back to innocence considering the fact she has never experienced death. When she began to continuously saying Jesus name her reaction to the new experience began to affect her thought process. This led her into more babbling than anything. However When the Misfit Gave his input about Jesus it allowed her mind to think deeper into his situation as well as her own.” “It ain’t right I wasn’t there because if I had of been there I would of known. Listen lady,” he said in a high voice, “if I had been there I would of known and I wouldn’t be like I am now.” His voice seemed to crack and the grandmother’s head cleared for an instant”” (720). Death is probably as complex as life can get, yet despite the fact that death awaits her, her last few words are as straightforward as they come. “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my

children!”(720).
Ultimately, the experiences in life bring us to and complex understanding which leads to a straightforward way of going about life. It is easy for a little girl to think that cleaning her mouth with ivory soap will prevent her from lying, but what happens after she finds out it doesn’t? After the experiencing the soap and gaining a more complex understanding about lying the girl will most likely develop a straightforward view to stop lying. The complexity of life directs a reaction that understands a more detailed existence of what was once simple, but it also compels one to be more straightforward about the situations he or she faces.