The Ashes of Humanity

 A response to Fahrenheit 451

A phoenix stands in its nest, waiting for the sun to rise a little higher. As it waits, it recalls the things it has learned in it’s life; the discovery's made, the inventions created, the people met. The phoenix has forgotten a few things, some he would not remember knowing if one were to remind him, and some are forgotten for the moment, like the repeated memory of the end and beginning of all of his past lives. The sun has risen farther, and soon, the nest begins to smoke, then burn, and a fire suddenly roars to life. As the flames engulf the scrawny bird, the searing pain summons the memories forgotten of the ends of the lives past, too late. After a while, the flames shrink, then flicker, then become nothing more than smoldering embers and ash. After a while, some disturbed ash tumbles down the heap that once was the phoenix, and a small feathered head rises from the dust. The young new phoenix, already stronger than the old one was in his beginning, tests it’s new wings, then flies away, the memories of his past lives still with him, though some important ones still forgotten for good, and the memory of his recent death already at the back of his mind. Fahrenheit 451 shows us that humanity is much the same way. Humanity has been destroyed and resurrected many times, and each time, the legacy of what came before stays with us, though some important details are always forgotten. Humanity is like a phoenix, destroying itself then building itself back up again in an eternal cycle of reincarnation.

The phoenix was a Egyptian bird which supposedly set itself on fire, then rose again, stronger more power than before; a pattern that is almost exactly the same as humanity’s. Rome is a good example of this. Rome had many ideas and inventions that worked well. Then, after Rome’s fall, the societies that came after used and improved those ideas and inventions, resulting in some of the modern day things known so well, such as Rome’s method of making buildings taller and stronger leading to the invention of skyscrapers. The key word here is improved; the phoenix got stronger and more powerful after it rose from the ash, and to become more powerful, one must adapt and improve the tools they have. In Fahrenheit 451, America had improved its technology so much, it had things like planes that could fly faster than the speed of sound and even faster than that, and America became more powerful, winning two atomic wars because of it. Another instance in the book would be after the city was blown up and the book-keepers go to see of there’s anyone still alive in the ruins. The book-keepers had something from the legacy of the old society that would help the people build a new one; the knowledge they obtained from books. The knowledge would allow them to see their mistakes and adapt so as to not repeat them, and thus become more powerful, just like the phoenix.

Like the phoenix, humanity becomes progressively more powerful, but all the power in the world is useless unless one remembers their mistakes and what was learned from them. An undeniable fact of life is that there must be mistakes and failures before there can be success or experience gained. If one forgets their experiences, their failures and mistakes, anything gained from them would be useless, and that person would be forced to repeat the very mistakes they forgot. Taking a look at Mildred, a person who tries hard to forget her mistakes and never learns from them, can prove this point. Mildred almost died from an overdose of sleeping pills, maybe because she kept forgetting that she’d already taken some before and kept taking more and more and more. However, what makes this even worse than it already is, is the fact that she’s done this who knows how many times before, and forgotten what happened each time. Mildred had no chance to become a better person or to become more powerful because she chose not to learn from her mistakes or even remember them, and in the end, there was no phoenix to rise from Mildred’s quite literal ashes. Granger also makes a good point about humanities mistakes and defeats. Granger says, quite truthfully, how humanity must have been related to the bird, as we build up fires then jump into them because we forget to not repeat our mistakes until it’s already too late.

Humanity’s mistakes and it’s uncanny ability to forget them has resulted in a repeated cycle of destruction and reincarnation. Time and time again, a great civilization has risen, only to fall under its own weight of mistakes, failure and misleading ideas. Rome, once again, can show this process. Rome was a powerful nation full of great people and their ideas. However, Rome had many flaws; it was too big to be easily controlled, its churches became too powerful and began to conflict with the working of the empire. Its army had even become lazy and too weak to wear their heavy armor in battle. All these things and more lead to the eventual fall of the Roman Empire, and from the legacy of the fallen nation, other societies were able to rise. Fahrenheit 451 continues this into the future, where America, one of the nations who were able to use Roman ideas to become powerful, is destroyed by it’s flaws and mistakes. It was a combination of mistakes, both new, like ignorance and detachment of society, and lack of respect for life, and some near repeats of Rome, such as wars, and a sense of being invincible and letting their guard down a bit, lead to the ultimate destruction of Montag's city. Though tragic, the destruction of society opened the door for the book-keepers to come and show the people society’s mistakes and help them rebuild it into something new. The destruction and rebirth of society and its uncanny resemblance to the phoenix goes on until the day the humanity finally remembers not to repeat its mistakes.

The cycle that humanity goes through is always the same. Humanity rises and becomes powerful, only to be destroyed by its repeated mistakes and then rise again, stronger than before. The mistakes humanity makes are all the same; war, detachment, lies, and other such things. They are always present in humanity and human nature, but so are the abilities to learn and to remember. The phoenix will always be setting itself on fire and rising from the ash, and humanity has been doing the same thing. The difference between humanity and the phoenix is that humanity doesn’t have to. Granger points out this difference, that we remember what we’ve done, and humanity's knowledge of history can prove this. Humanity keeps destroying itself and building itself back up, but that doesn’t mean it has to.

Death of a Salamander

A salamander sits on a log in a fire, thinking himself invincible. While sitting, it looks around and sees some people sitting near the fireplace, talking and laughing. The salamander looks at them, disapproving, and maybe even a little jealous, before deciding he will not take this. The salamander jumps from the fire, the flames traveling with him scorching the carpet near the people, sending them into hysterics as they try to run away. As the fire quickly spreads, burning the house as the people flee, the salamander look on in satisfaction, until he discovers he's starting to feel a bit warm. The growing fire becomes extremely hot as it rages out of control, and before the salamander can get away, the fire he thought himself impervious to burns him to death. In Fahrenheit 451, Beatty’s death goes much the same way. He took everything he could from Montag, and Montag returned the favor, taking Beatty’s life. However, Beatty’s death may stand for more than just the death of Montag’s rival, which makes it and important scene in the book.

Beatty’s death could be described as the salamander dying in its own flame. He did in fact build up and create the very flame that ultimately destroyed him, but the flame that killed Beatty wasn’t just the fire of the flame thrower; it was also the raging inferno of anger he had built up inside of Montag. Beatty knew that Montag was unhappy, so he picked at it. He waved everything in front of Montag’s face, he criticized him, he taunted him every step of the way, but more than anything, Beatty was the very image of the problem Montag had had to face from the very beginning; society. Beatty was everything about society that Montag had found he disliked, so when Beatty told Montag to burn his problems, it’s no surprise that Montag turned the flamethrower on him. What is a surprise is how Beatty didn't seem too scared of being burned to death, and kept a straight face right up until Montag pulled the trigger. This may have been Beatty underestimating human emotion, which is a sub theme in the book. People in this time were out of touch with their emotions, so it would be quite easy for Beatty to overlook that part of his plan as Montag turned on the flame thrower and burned the effigy of his greatest problem.

The salamander's death by flame could also stand for events that have yet to happen, from a world view. If Beatty stood for his society, which is in fact the American society, Montag may not have stood for himself, but for the world apart from the American society. In Fahrenheit 451, the rest of the world doesn’t live in nearly as much luxury as the people of America do. If one who had very little in life suddenly had everything taken from them by one who had virtually everything, why wouldn’t they feel feel upset? The technology of the time, which is another theme in the book, would have taken this further, as people were so absorbed in their luxuries they hardly ever acknowledged the rest of the world. After all, if one has everything they need right at home, what’s the point of leaving home? It would be just like Montag and Beatty, and once you throw the fire in, the result couldn’t be anything other than war. This may mean that later in the book, society may ‘die’ in some way due to the war society itself started.

Though there are many ways it can be interpreted, no matter how one views the scene or what one sees in the symbolism, it’s quite obvious that Beatty’s death is an important point in both the book and Montag’s life. The end of Beatty also marks the end of Montag the fireman, but it also marks the beginning of a different Montag, which plays with the themes of Life and Death. In the end, Montag seems to walk away a different man, like a phoenix risen from the the ashes, figuratively and a bit literally. This wouldn’t have happened if Beatty hadn’t died, as Montag, instead of burning Beatty, would have ended up in prison, and never would have changed or learned any of the things he did afterward. Beatty’s death was indeed vital, and nothing would have been the same without it.

Beatty’s death could be interpreted in many ways; a symbol of Montag’s struggle, a foreshadowing of the the future, and as many other things. But what stands firm is the fact that Beatty’s death is more than just the death of the story’s villain. It stands for more than that, whether one sees it as a big step in Montag’s journey, or Montag the salamander becoming Montag the phoenix. There are many important things that can be learned from this equally important part of the book.

The Corruption of Power

You're home alone on a Saturday morning. Your parents are out running errands and left you in charge of the house. As you stroll through the kitchen, you spy the family cookie jar on the counter, full of you favorite cookies. The temptation to take one is awful-the cookies are right in front of you!-but you know you shouldn't. Wrestling with your conscience, you stand there, indecisive, until you realize your parents put you in charge of the house and everything in it. Besides, they wouldn't miss one little cookie, would they? You pop the lid open and take a cookie, soon reaching in for another and another, saying they couldn't possibly miss just one more, until you find that the jar has become quite empty. This is what happened to the pigs in Animal Farm. The pigs were put in a position of power and they used it to gain more and more until there was no more to gain. George Orwell points out how, when it comes to greed and human weakness, power taken out of selfishness is no different that cookies taken out of a cookie jar.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely, but many people don't see this because power corrupts a little bit at a time. When a kid steals cookies from the cookie jar in the kitchen they don't take all the cookies at once. They take one cookie at a time, to avoid a situation where the stolen goods have been missed, and the thieves have gotten themselves into trouble. The same is true with power; the one in power starts out with a few extra privileges, then, after a while, they've given themselves so many extra privileges that people are wondering how things got to be this way. The pigs started out giving the orders during the harvest rather than doing any work. Then they took the milk from the cows, rather than give some to all the animals on the farm. From there they slowly took grew in power, taking the beds, drinking alcohol, changing the commandments, and stuffing themselves to the point of obesity while the other animals starved. Each time, the changes seemed so little by themselves that no one noticed them, but once the results were seen as a whole, the reality of the situation was much worse than the animals had realized. This could be shown with Napoleon's secret army; the power hungry pig took the dog pups from their mothers and raised them, secretly, keeping them away from the other animals until they were all but forgotten by the time they were set upon Snowball. The sad truth was, the pigs took advantage of their position of power and made the situation for their "comrades" much worse than when they had started, under the rule of Jones.

When power corrupts people like this, it's not confined to one person, as people, no matter how greedy, tend to share their findings, whether rightfully earned or not, with their friends and allies. Before the Russian Revolution, the Czar held all power in Russia, some of which he gave to the church to better preach the citizens to lives in the manner he saw fit. The rest, the Czar used to keep himself and his family amused and away from work, wasting untold riches gained from his kingly privileges on decorative eggs, only good for collecting dust, rather than using these riches to feed his starving subjects. Farmer Jones, the Czar of the farm, then later Napoleon, giving in to greed, did much the same, living in a warm house among pleasurable trinkets, eating more food than they could ever possibly need, while the subjects of the farm, the slave driven animals, slept in an old barn with barley enough food to live off of. And it wasn't just Jones or Napoleon who enjoyed these special treatments; Jones shared the farm with his hired hands, Napoleon made sure ALL of the pigs had only the best living, food, and education. Like a child sharing stolen cookies with friends hiding under the slide in the playground, the Czar, Jones and Napoleon shared the spoils of their power, and through it their corruption, exclusively with those who could keep them in power.

When a person in a position of power and those around them take advantage of privileges they've been given and use it to gain even more power, they drain the equality and freedom of all people. In communism, all power and ownership is eliminated and everything belongs to everybody; all people are equal. The exact second someone takes something for themselves without distributing it among others who have need for it, they've gone against everything communism is about, not only taking ownership, but conjuring themselves up a small bit of power by having more than the others around them. Equality is shattered and, because of human weakness, there are very small chances that restoring it will be easy. The pigs in Animal Farm did exactly this before they began to walk on two legs, before they brought about the secret police, before the Battle of the Cowshed had even occurred, during the harvest. The pigs stole the milk that the cows had produced, keeping it for themselves, and no one else. In fact, the pigs had shattered equality even before that. During the first harvest the animals had worked on by themselves, without a farmer there, the pigs did no work, but stood there shouting orders to the working animals, taking charge. There is no equality when there's someone in charge. As a result, the other animals got no milk from the cows, slaved away in the fields while the pigs wrote on paper that was burn when the writing as done, had no freedom of speak when the secret police were introduced, and had no freedom by the time it was discovered what the pigs had ultimately become.

There is no greater corruption than power. It twists the hearts of the greatest of people and can turn even the most honest of people into scheming liars. Power made Napoleon greedy, and his greed sent him off in pursuit of more. The one who was supposed to keep order and peace on the farm became the cause of chaos and death, dragging his fellows pigs down to his level. In the end, power made Napoleon and the rest of the pigs exactly what they had hated most, and the worst part was, the pigs didn't even notice. Power is like cookies, everyone wants one, but only a few have them. The pigs are like the children that steal the cookies from the jar in the kitchen, but for the pigs, the cookies never ran out.

Superstition

A response to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Thinking back on childhood, you can think of many instances of childish belief, and superstitions that now seem so irrational and impossible, that it’s hard to imagine that you yourself had once believed in such things. The truth is, however, that you did once believe in such things as black cats bringing bad luck and putting pennies in your shoes to make good things happen, and so went around stepping over cracks in the sidewalk and avoiding ladders at all costs. In Mark Twain’s book Tom Sawyer, every decision that Tom makes is affected by superstitions, from getting rid of warts to deciding whether or not he was going to get a new suit; he lost plenty of his prized marbles because of one superstition, and was saved from Injun Joe because of another. Superstitions are powerful things, affecting the decisions of those who believe in them, thus affecting the events of their lives, for better or worse.
Everyone in the romantic world of Tom Sawyer has a strong belief in the superstitions they use in every task they perform, even when their superstitious charms don’t work. When Tom loses some of his marbles, he relies on a supposedly fail-proof superstition, which makes all the marbles he ever lost come to collect in one spot, then blames a witch when he returns to his charmed spot and finds that the marbles have not returned after all. He doesn’t take into account the fact that he’d tried this trick several times before, and doesn’t bother to think why a witch would bother the charm him out of his marbles, if witches even exist. Then, to confirm his belief, Tom turns to yet another superstition, the informative ‘doodle bug’, and counts his suspicions as proved when that, too, fails, as the bug appears, only to dive back under the sand in fright at the sight of the boy in front of him. Even the adults in the book, who are supposed to be above such things, have their strong beliefs in superstitions; when the wound on the body of the dead doctor bled, the towns people took it to mean that Muff Potter was the murderer-though it turned out to be a false accusation-and used bread stuffed with quicksilver in the attempt to find the allegedly drowned boys, bringing forth fruitless results.
Strong beliefs in superstition can change or cause events in a person’s life. During the time Tom and Huckleberry Finn were digging for treasure, they postponed their hunt due to the day being Friday, as well as Huck having a nightmare about rats; both were bad signs in the boys’ superstition, so they stopped digging for the day rather than explore the haunted house, where Injun Joe would have caught them. The whole reason Injun Joe was even after Tom and Huck was because they had been in the graveyard at the time he murdered Doctor Robinson, trying to get rid of warts with an old superstition involving devils and a dead cat. If Tom and Huck had not gone to the graveyard, they wouldn’t have seen the ordeal and wouldn’t be witnesses of Injun Joe’s crimes and deceptions, which would mean Injun Joe wouldn’t have a reason to be after them. In the real world, people can go around avoiding ladders and black cats for most of their child hood, but, because they stayed away from these things, there was less of a chance of the ladder or something from the top of the ladder falling down on them, or of catching parasites or illnesses carried by stray cats. Either of these things would have had some kind of affect on the person’s life, though the affects probably wouldn’t be that dramatic.
The changes in the events of a person’s life due to superstition can be good or bad. The dead cat superstition caused Tom and Huck to sneak away during the night, which can be dangerous and would certainly get any boy in trouble, but because they were at the graveyard, they saw the murder, which made the two boys able to save Muff Potter from being hung. The cannon superstition the searchers used to look for the non-existent bodies of Tom, Huck, and Joe wasn’t very smart; shooting off a cannon at random poses more than just minor dangers, as the people shooting the cannon would find it difficult to see innocent bystanders that just happen to be boating down the river. However, the cannon showed the boys on the island that they really were missed, which led to Tom sneaking back home and hatching the plan that brought the three runaways home to a welcome fit for heroes. There’s many a time when children go out on adventures for four-leaf clovers or other superstitious talismans, and experience heartache when it’s discovered that the good luck charms aren’t magic after all, and the day’s been seemingly wasted by a wild goose chase in the park. While looking for these charms, however, a person can find so many other things; the beauty of nature, if looking in woods or parks, the importance of friendship if searching with a partner. Sometimes, though, the wonders along the journey are forgotten, wasted on the searcher, and the only thing gained is the knowledge that good luck charms are a hoax, often not even that, when the superstitious talismans aren’t found at all, resulting in an unhappy child, feeling betrayed by their beliefs.
Superstitions are white lies, imaginary beliefs, playing on the imagination, and affecting decisions of those who care to believe in them. Some have practical purposes; made up by adults trying to keep children out of trouble in ways they would understand better than simply being told, like walking under ladders or breaking mirrors. Others were most likely invented to influence the decisions of others with the future in mind; the superstition that putting pennies in shoes brings good luck was probably meant to teach children to save their money, while avoiding outright telling them. Still other superstitions have no purpose at all, creations of children, adults, coincidence, and even literature; Tom Sawyer’s howling dog prophecy more likely than not began in a story brought to the characters’ attention, as howling dogs are used to symbolize tragic events to come in literature. No matter what the purpose for superstitions, they are powerful things, changing the flow of people’s lives, effecting their decisions, and teaching some important lessons, if a person bothers to watch out for them. Indeed, life as we know it would be very different without superstitions; anyone can deny it as much as they want, but we’d miss so much of what we have now, that superstition could very well be one of the most powerful things there are.

The Pink Tree

"But this tree in the yard--this tree that men chopped down...this tree that they built a bonfire around, trying to burn up its stump--this tree lived! It lived! And nothing could destroy it."~Francie Nolan, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

My project for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was a tree hung with ornaments with quotes written on them. I chose to use a tree because going from innocence is like growing a tree; the tree can't grow with out a seed and experience can't be gained from innocence and gaining experience is like the tree growing. Francie is like a tree, growing into experience from the seed of innocence through out the book. She is also like the tree that grows in her backyard in the sense that the world tried to change her, to knock her down, but she just kept on growing. I chose the quotes I did because I thought that they showed this or show who Francie was the best. The tree I used was a pink Christmas tree. It wasn't pink for any reason other than it was the only kind of tree I could find that was the right size and with lights. The lights symbolize the hope that Francie always gave off and spread to everyone, amd her bright, fighting spirit the refused to be brought down, to be ignored. The tree,and everything in it , symbolizes Francie and all that I think she is. If I could do this again, I'd try to see if I could find a plastic Tree of Heaven, or maybe a living pine tree sapling, because I think that would have worked better, the Tree of Heaven being the one from the book, and the sapling representing Francie's growing into experience as the sapling grew.

Cowardice

A response to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

You’re investigating a murder; a man walking home from work was shot down in the night by a thief after the money in his pocket. You find that the killer had left behind the murder weapon while leaving the scene; a gun, owned by the manager of a nearby store. The gun’s recent history, coupled with a witness claim, leads the police to arresting the store owner, sending him to jail. Only after the alleged murderer had been sentenced do you realize that the ‘witness’ had been the real killer, fleeing from the country, framing the innocent and letting them suffer the punishment he was to cowardly to take; a perfect description of Injun Joe in Mark twains book, Tom Sawyer. Injun Joe might have been able to lie to the entire town while keeping a straight face, but Joe was the definition of coward as he persecuted the innocent Muff Potter to keep himself from harm. Cowardice is not how often a person runs away, it’s why they run away from events and obstacles people face.
When people run away, others call it cowardly, telling them running away makes a person chicken-hearted, but those are biased statements; running away doesn’t make a person cowardly, it’s the reasons for running away that make the difference. When a person picks a fight with a force greater than they are, they put themselves in a position where running away would be cowardly, as the person went out of their way to start something they turned out to be too craven to finish. If it’s the other way around, however, the greater force would become the coward, their decisions leading to the conclusion that they face only those smaller than themselves, being too scared to face forces that would actually have a chance against them; this would be a time when a person could run away honorably. Injun Joe displayed cowardice when he persecuted Muff Potter; Joe was the greater power, when he tricked Muff Potter into think he himself had been the killer, then again when he broke his promise to Potter and told the entire town his lie, being the only known person fully conscious at the time of the murder. Later, Injun Joe became the coward once more, as the man against the greater power, the town, when he used the window in the courtroom to escape the conflict he’d started by murdering Doctor Robinson.
Running away isn't always cowardly, but to eliminate an opponent's chance to walk away is always chicken-hearted as well as unfair. Beginning an encounter by sneaking up on a person and aggressing from behind is unfair and implies the person is afraid to let their adversary identify them. The person being ambushed doesn't know what's going on or that an encounter has even been started, making the confrontation unfair in favor of the aggressor, and abolishing chances for the person to walk away. When Injun Joe and his accomplice tried to assassinate the Widow Douglas, it was just like that; Joe’s plan was to sneak into the house in the middle of the night when Widow Douglas was asleep then attack her without warning, bringing as much torture to the widow as possible. Widow Douglas wouldn’t have a chance to run away or get help in an unfair fight against two grown men with intentions to kill, thus no one would know that Injun Joe had not yet fled the country, giving him an easy escape from the base act.
When cowardly decisions are made, such as running from the results of poor judgment, people can make up for them, but not get rid of them. Burglary is a terrible and cowardly act; people break into a house in the middle of the night, when the owners of the house are asleep or gone away, so that no one can see them steal another person’s property then run away and hide. If, however, by some miracle, a burglar would return stolen items, face to face with the one they stole from, the cowardice of the act would have been made up for, but the act itself would still be over the burglar’s head; they would still be eligible for a jail sentence. Muff Potter ran away like a coward, the reality of the act he’d fictitiously committed too much to bear, let alone the consequences for it, but with his return to the scene of the crime, the cowardice of Potter’s running away was forgiven, but neither of the acts themselves. However much it took Injun Joe to keep a straight face while he wove his lies, he remained a coward, having lied rather than given the truth, on top of his previous acts.
Cowardice isn't how much a person runs away, it's the decisions a person makes in life how they respond to the results. To be cowardly is to lack the heart to finish what is started, hiding from consequences of past decisions, cheating and lying a way to desires. People that oppress those smaller or feebler, using underhanded and sneaky tactics to persecute all others are cowardly as well. People should be fair and honest, seeing decisions through to the end, facing up to whatever happens along the way; with out these things, we’d live in a world where all people are cowardly, backhanded killers like Injun Joe, or worse.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Final)

You're on the playground with the rest of your third grade class. You're playing with the rest of your friends when, suddenly, one kids runs up to you and says that he knows something you don't, you'll never guess what in a million years. You must guess a dozen different things before you finally give up and the kid says, with triumph in a mocking tone, that, for your information, THERE IS NO SANTA CLAUSE. The group of kids around you goes into a shocked silence, then, all at once, some of you're friends start crying, while others start shouting at the kid that there IS, in fact, a Santa Clause, and who did he think he was, saying something like that and ruining their Christmas. You just stand there and, suddenly, what the kid says makes sense; why you have to go to bed early, why your mom and dad stay up almost all night but never see Santa Clause, how the presents you ended up getting for Christmas had ended up in the closet that one year.Even worse, you realize that your parents had lied to you this entire time. In the years to come, you never will completely trust your parents because of this gain of experience in your innocence. Events that occur as a person goes from innocence to experience effect who they become in the future.

Innocence never lasts forever, for it must be replace by experience throughout a person's life. In A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, when Francie compared the baby to the old man, the baby symbolized her innocence and the old man, the coming experience. As she realized that the old man had once been a baby thus the baby would become an old man one day, she realized that she would one day be old, her innocence swapped for experience, like the old man, a thought that frightened her. Later, though, she lost some of her innocence to the doctor, who's scorn for the dirty child in front of him brings Francie experience, regardless of Francie's fear of losing her innocence. It doesn't matter if a person wants to or not, people lose innocence with the gain of experience every day, no matter what they do or where they are, as they grow and gain knowledge. Everything that happens brings experience, from spending time with friends, to being hungry, both of which are things that everyone has ,or will, have happen to them. In short, experience is unavoidable, as is the loss of innocence, to all.

The time when people go from innocence to experience is important for who they will become in the future. During her innocence, Francie was fascinated with the chalkboard erasers that a little girl would bring out everyday, but when the girl re payed Francie for admiring her by spitting in her face and calling Francie names when she didn't cry, Francie hated that girl, and because they reminded Francie of the girl, she hated chalkboard erasers from then on as well. It could have turned out differently; if the little girl had treat Francie with more kindness instead of spitting in her face, Francie and the girl could have been friends, Francie wouldn't have hated chalkboard erasers, and Francie might have ended up a teacher's pet, like she had originally planned. Francie might have gone from innocence to experience in a completely different way and could have ended up as a completely different kind of person. If a person likes something, snakes, for example, and nothing happens to make them think otherwise, they'd go from innocence to experience liking snakes, but if that person had something happen to them to turn them against snakes, something scary, hurtful, all around unpleasant, that person would, more likely than not, go from innocence to experience hating snakes. This is something that could completely change that person's life, from the friends they make to the job they take to where that person lives, which, in turn, would affect who they are in the future and so on. Going from innocence to experience affect a persons entire life, for better or for worse.

The gain of experience from innocence changes a person's perspective. It can happen slowly over time, or abruptly and all at once. The faster a person gains experience, the faster their perspective changes, and the better that person can see that the difference is like going from black and white to color. Francie Nolan found some things out over time; the fact that her mother doesn't know everything, how some people found the way her father came home drunk funny. These were no shock to her and she only saw these things over time, but other things she found out suddenly and they stuck with her the rest of her life. Joanna's baby being hit in the head with a rock helped her realize that there are things in the world that will try to hurt you and there are no exception for age or innocence. Receiving the flowers from her father shows that not even death can keep a father from loving his daughter. Once a person learns lessons such as these, they move further into experience, and can look back on their innocence and see the change of perspective they've acquired through experience in the form of decisions that didn't seem as foolish then, and beliefs that are now purely unbelievable. Since then, lessons have been learned, experience gained, the former way of seeing things forever modified. Francie always remembered her ordeal in the street and the roses from Johnny because what they meant to her was more than just memories, they were lessons that shouldn't be forgotten.

Everything must change with time, from the great Earth, to the people that inhabit it. People gain experience from the loss of innocence, though how experience is gained effects a person and stays with them for the rest of their lives. If a young tree is hit by lightning, the mark of past experience stays with it until the tree itself is no more. So to say, as a tree grows from a seed, so does experience grow from innocence, and so a child becomes an adult. This is how it is and this is how it always will be.