Innocence is not a strong enough force to combat the corruption from the evils of the world. Innocence can cause one to make bad decisions as they simply know no better. Furthermore, innocence can cause one to commit bad choices in the face of unfamiliar situations. Both All Quiet On The Western Front by Eric Remarque and The Quiet American by Graham Greene explore the concept that when one loses their innocence, it is swiftly replaced by wickedness. Both Remarque and Greene use their protagonists, Baumer and Fowler respectively, to exemplify the vulnerability of innocence and how leads to poor decision-making. Through the use of the protagonists in their novels, both authors would agree with Hemingway’s theory that “All things truly wicked start from innocence.” Although innocence usually receives a positive connotation, it supplies the garden to which wickedness can flourish.
Innocence is often the culprit to poor decisions, due to a lack of personal development and experience. Remarque and Greene both illustrate that bad choices can result in the transformation to wickedness. In All Quiet On The Western Front, main character Paul Baumer declares “I am young, I am
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Both Remarque and Greene demonstrate that vulnerability leads to evil. In The Quiet American, Fowler says that Pyle “never saw anything he hadn’t heard in a lecture-hall, and his writers and his lecturers made a fool of him.” This quote explains that Pyle was susceptible to the evils of Vietnam due to his innocence as a scholar back home. Similarly, Remarque uses Baumer’s belief that himself and his comrades “are not youth any longer,” to explain to the reader of the novel that these formerly innocent youths are now men destroyed by the evils in which they participated. Both authors use the demise of youths, who are generally associated with innocence, to demonstrate the power or wickedness as an influence on innocent