In the short story Zero Hour, Ray Bradbury questions the innocence of children by allowing their imagination to control their actions and invade an ideal community. In the beginning of the story, Bradbury sets a peaceful, harmonious tone as a Utopian society by describing the perfect setting, “The children catapulted this way and that across the green lawns, shouting at each other, holding hands, flying in circles...such tremulous joy, such tumbling and hearty screaming. The city hummed. The streets were lined with good green and peaceful trees only” (222). The neighborhood children running around and playing games together symbolize child innocence and imagination because they’re imagining themselves being adults with careers like astronauts and firefighters, acting as if they were in a fantasy. However, this innocence was terminated when all ‘the children in every yard on the street brought out knives and forks and pokers and old stovepipes and can openers’ (233). These tools are not normal items that children all play with on a casual day, signifying a change in their actions. Martians found a weakness in its process of invading earth: children. Drill stated “There’s- something …show more content…
The yoyo, a childrens toy also shows their technical strategy of using these innocent kids to get what they want and luring them to perform this tenacious act. When the explosions finally went off, “The children screamed with delight, as if at a great fireworks display,” (243) indicating that these kids have been completely brainwashed, not realizing how serious of a situation this is. At the end of the story when Mink found her parents midst of the attack and said “peekaboo,” implying that she still thinks shes playing a game, using her imagination unknowingly bringing harm and death upon her
Geoffrey Canada, the author of Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun; A Personal History of Violence, grew up and worked his entire life near or in the underclass society. Through his keen observation on behavior of children in these regions, he has noticed how with the introduction to guns, in particular to children created even more dangerous neighborhoods. Throughout his lifetime in New York, he tells us that violence has changed to be less organized and the social stability of the children is tested with (fire) power that they are too young to fully understand, it was an evolutionary decent. His observations on the violence that children can commit to each other parallels well with fictional story Lord of the Flies written by Nobel prize winning writer, William Golding. Golding, like Canada, looks what kind of environment is needed for violence to prevail in children. Although Golding’s 1954 book Lord of the Flies is fiction, it describes our current impoverished America’s epidemic on violence very well.
Are adults overprotective of their children? To what point do we protect children? Where should the line be drawn? Along with those questions is how easily children can be influenced by these same adults. Two poets, Richard Wilbur and Billy Collins, express the ideas of how easily children can be manipulated and how sometimes adults think they are protecting their innocent children, when in reality they are not. Wilbur and Collins express these ideas in their poems through numerous literary devices. The literary devices used by Wilbur and Collins expose different meanings and two extremely different end results. Among the various literary devices used, Wilbur uses imagery, a simple rhyme scheme and meter, juxtaposition of the rational and irrational, and a humorous tone to represent the narrator’s attempt to “domesticate” irrational fears. Conversely Collins uses symbols, historical interpretations, imagery, diction and other literary devices to depict the history teacher’s effort to shield his students from reality. In the poems, “A Barred Owl,” by Richard Wilbur, and “The History Teacher,” by Billy Collins, both poets convey how adults protect and calm children from their biggest, darkest fears and curiosities.
Children were strong and ambitious. They were the money makers of the family. This paper will argue how the mindset of a child has advanced in Canada, through the 1800s to the present era, in representing a different perspective of how a child evaluates the perception of how they approach life. Canada holds many histories of the past. The differences with children from to the past to the present are that children worked and produced a lot of labor, to keep the families from starving through the 1800s, present children rarely need to work. The educational system of the past has differed a great deal from the system they have created thought out the times that have developed. Children would use their imagination to create games and play, until the generation of television came into effect. Times have changed and children are one of the many. The social construction of childhood from the 1800s is a whole lot different from the construction of childhood from the 1970s. The agenda of children have changed and adults are not concerned with children working because the standard of living in families has developed a whole new concept, for how families should live life.
In the essay, “The Boredom Effect,1952, writer Ellen Ruppel Shell acknowledges the child’s mind and how creative their mind are. The purpose of this essay is to persuade the readers that a child should never be bored and that they should always have something to do with their spare time. She felt that children should taste their freedom by exploring the world. Also, she said guardians should not try to create activities or put them in sports to keep them occupied. Ellen writes “Back then, parents pretty much stayed out of children’s business.” In her thesis, she mentions that parents should let children be bored. I agree with Ellen, parents should let their children be children and let them be creative. However, parents shouldn’t control their
Children are seen as adorable, fun loving, and hard to control. Ida Fink uses a child in “The Key Game” to be the key to this family’s life. The setting is placed during the start of World War II; Jews all around were being taken. Fink uses a boy who doesn’t look the traditional Jewish, “And their chubby, blue-eyed, three-year-old child” (Fink). As they read on the emotional connection is stronger because there is a face to go with this character. Fink draws a reader in by making connections to a family member the reader may know. A blue-eyed, chubby child is the picture child of America. A child in any story makes readers more attached especially if they have children of their own. The child is three way too young to be responsible for the safety of the father, yet has to be. Throughout the story, we see how the mother struggles with making her child play the game because no child should be responsible like
The setting of a novel aids in the portrayal of the central theme of the work. Without a specific place and social environment, the characters are just there, with no reason behind any of their actions. The Age of Influence centers around the Old New York society during the 1870’s. Most of the characters are wealthy upper class citizens with a strict code to follow. The protagonist, Newland Archer, lives in a constant state of fear of being excluded from society for his actions. Archer’s character is affected by standard New York conventions as well as the pressure to uphold his place in society, both of which add to Wharton’s theme of dissatisfaction.
The novel "I'm Not Scared" explores the playful and interesting world of childhood through the eyes of a nine year old kid. In the hot, dry summer of 1978, Michele, the main character, and his friends have nothing better to do than play new games and dares. Their small town Aqua Treverse only occupies four houses. Michele and his friends usually ride on their bikes across the deserted countryside, while the adults stay indoors shielding from the enormous heat. This gives the children the freedom to do anything they want.
Inevitably, there comes a point in everybody’s life at which they have an experience that completely alters their view of the world. This moment is when one loses his or her innocence, or comes of age, and he or she realizes that they do not live in a utopian Golden Age. Parents are charged with the monumental duty of protecting their children’s innocence, but everybody inescapably grows up. This experience can be anything from an embarrassing situation at school to coming within seconds of death. In the short story “Ambush” by Tim O’Brien, the author tells the true story of his daughter confronting him and asked him if he had ever killed anyone. In an effort to be a good parent and protect the nine-year-old’s innocence, the author does not share with her the story he goes on to tell to the reader. He explains how many years ago, he was serving in the army and was taking a shift guarding his troop’s campsite when all of a sudden, a young man from the opposing army came walking up the trail. Without a second thought, O’Brien killed the boy with a grenade, and he lost his innocence after realizing he had killed a defenseless man without hesitation. Tim O’Brien develops Ambush as a coming of age story through the use of literary devices.
This short story written by Richard Wright is a very well written, and has a very good plot and keeps the reader entertained throughout. From the dialogue to the characters, who inhabit the world crafted by Wright its very intriguing. On the surface it appears to be just a story about childhood disobedience in general, but the overall theme is much deeper than that.
Children explore. Adults are content to walk the same way, hundreds of times, or thousands; perhaps it never occurs to adults to step off the paths, to creep beneath rhododendrons, to find the spaces between fences. I was a child, which meant that I knew a dozen different ways of getting out of our property and into the lane, ways that would not involve walking down our drive.” This brilliant passage shows us how different children and adults are at the core. Children possess so much creativity at their young age. This creativity seems to go away in a lot of people as they get older. Adults tend to conform when they hit adulthood. They think and act very much alike. Older people don’t want to steer off the direction that others are going. Children are adventurers at the core while adults are conservatives at the
Elie’s loss of innocence and childhood lifestyle is very pronounced within the book, Night. This book, written by the main character, Elie Wiesel, tells the readers about the experiences of Mr. Wiesel during the Holocaust. The book starts off by describing Elie’s life in his hometown, Sighet, with his family and friends. As fascism takes over Hungary, Elie and his family are sent north, to Auschwitz concentration camp. Elie stays with his father and speaks of his life during this time. Later, after many stories of the horrors and dehumanizing acts of the camp, Elie and his father make the treacherous march towards Gliewitz. Then they are hauled to Buchenwald by way of cattle cars in extremely deplorable conditions, even by Holocaust standards. The book ends as Elie’s father is now dead and the American army has liberated them. As Elie is recovering in the hospital he gazes at himself in a mirror, he subtly notes he much he has changed. In Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie loses his innocence and demeanour because he was traumatized by what he saw in the camps, his loss of faith in a God who stood idly by while his people suffered, and becoming selfish as he is forced to become selfish in the death camps to survive.
Francis Alÿs’s Children’s Games is a series of fourteen videos, started in 1999 and filmed all over the world, still in process. Alÿs explores the universes of children’s games, using a child’s point of view to explain and reinterpret the world. It doesn’t matter which culture or generation it belongs to: children’s games are strikingly similar all over the world. The apparent innocent, unpretentious nature of a children's game allows the artist to reveal deeper issues or thoughts. It allows him to express, in an often poetic way, how from heaviness lightness can arise. We are going to show first how Reel – Unreel is not the only deliberate utilisation by Alÿs of a child point of view to convey deeper meanings, and then we’ll interest ourselves more specifically into the violence and the poetic aspect in the work disclosed through childhood.
“Downtime is where we become ourselves, looking into the middle distance, kicking at the curb, lying on the grass, or sitting on the stoop and staring at the tedious blue of the summer sky” (Quindlen 82). Anna Quindlen is an author of children’s books and is well known for her comments on contemporary life. In her work “Doing Nothing is Something”, Quindlen makes an observation about the lack of free time that children have in their lives. She begins with a comparison to her life as a child, explaining the boredom that she used to have during the summer. However, she continues with how children now are as overscheduled as their parents, which reduces the amount of time they have for creativity. Furthermore, she explains that this is because of the parents’ expectations for what their child will do in the future and what they could do if left alone. As a final point, she illustrates her belief that children can still have free time, despite the immense number of activities that can take place. Despite Quindlen’s point, she has missed the importance of children being able to find creativity in such a busy schedule.
"The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" explores the beauty of a child's innocence in a time of war:
Abstract In this essay, I intend to explain how everyday lives challenge the construction of childhood as a time of innocence. In the main part of my assignment, I will explain the idea of innocence, which started with Romantic discourse of childhood and how it shaped our view of childhood. I will also look at two contradictory ideas of childhood innocence and guilt in Blake’s poems and extract from Mayhew’s book. Next, I will compare the images of innocence in TV adverts and Barnardo’s posters. After that, I will look at the representation of childhood innocence in sexuality and criminality, and the roles the age and the gender play in portraying children as innocent or guilty. I will include some cross-cultural and contemporary descriptions on the key topics. At the end of my assignment, I will summarize the main points of the arguments.