Innocence In Brave New World Essay

Innocence is something that can only be lost once. Within both The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley there are various characters that lose their innocence in very dramatic ways. A character can lose their innocence due to the death of someone else. They can also lose their innocence by just being looked at from a different perspective by others, this can be seen through the characters Bernard and Rachel. When a person is introduced to something new it can also affect their innocence. Someone who has lost their innocence changes their personality and perspective on life, which results in them acting in situations differently than they would before. When someone loses their innocence from the death

This is greatly shown through John the savage as he comes from living in a world full of culture and moves in a world of sexual desire and drugs. As John is entering and learning everything about this fascinating city he says the words “O brave new world” (Huxley 139). This is showing how fascinated John is with this great new place, during this part he still retains his innocence because he does not know the downfalls of this place yet. John slowly learns more about the new world he has been introduced to until he finds out about a drug called soma. He learns about this through his mother who is an addict to it. He thinks that taking soma is a sin itself and tells his mother to stop. He slowly sees the darkness of the world he has been shown and is losing his innocent self. While morning the death of his mother some children make fun of him it is said that, “They had mocked him through his misery and remorse, mocked him with how hideous a note of cynical derision! Fiendishly laughing, they had insisted on the low squalor, the nauseous ugliness of the nightmare.” (Huxley 184). This shows the ultimate downfall of John’s mental state. John has gone through this new world as a curious man, but in the end this new world takes away his innocence. Just like how John loses his innocence to a major change in the way he lives, but the entire price family also shows a change in innocence when they must live in the