Loss Of Innocence In Cartoon Physics

The Death of Innocence Innocence and death are two abstract elements that oppose one another. It’s often conceived that with death comes an inevitable loss of innocence—a lost shard of purity that one will never retrieve; however, although notoriously reputed as the entity that steals the naivety in ignorance, death sometimes exposes what it is known to take away. The excerpt from James Agee’s A Death in the Family that narrates the interactions between Hannah and Mary before discovering that Jay is dead combined with Nick Flynn’s poem Cartoon Physics compliment and juxtapose the idea that death breathes the purity of innocence. It all starts with the way in which the two texts depict the idea of innocence. Flynn’s Cartoon Physics is heavily

The varying degrees of hopefulness and hopelessness presented in the two pieces offer a distinct discrepancy in the overall tone of each text. In Cartoon Physics, the damage has already been done, and the outcome is already known. Right from the beginning we know that galaxies “are swallowed by galaxies,” and that our universe is “inexorably pushing into [a] vacuum” (Flynn). There’s no room for interpretation, no time to change what has already happened, and therefore no purpose or need for hope. Agee, however, leaves more to the unknown, and it is this that allows Mary to believe in the likeliness that Jay is still alive. Unable to “dismiss the possibility entirely from [her] mind,” (Agee) Mary still believes that “sinking ships have lifeboats,” (Flynn) and that there’s still a possibility of survival. It all boils down to Mary’s uncertainty of the state that her husband is in. She is obliged to consider both options: the one where Jay lives and the one where he dies. Of course, she is going to indulge in the one where he lives—to, even for a moment, relax in the possibility of life over death, of innocence over