The Family Pedigree Analysis, Essay Example

Many people refer to childhood as the “Period of Innocence” mostly because this is a time where children are not aware of the harsh reality of such a cruel world.  Parents do everything they can to shield their children from such horrible sights as murder, rape, stealing and other immoral crimes.  However, there always comes a time in every person’s life where their innocence slowly strips away or is violently ripped away from them.  This loss of innocence is further analyzed by the paleontologist Loven Eisley as he wrote in his autobiography “to grow is to gain an enlargement of life… Yet it’s also a departure.  There is something lost that will not return.”  Eisley is not only speaking about the physical growth that everyone experiences as a natural consequence of growing into an adult, but also the departure of the innocence that every young person enjoys at one time or another.

This loss of innocence is strongly illustrated in the several movies.  For instance, the movie Men of Honor begins telling the story of Carl Brashear as he grew up on the farm fields of Kentucky.  The movie begins with a scene of him running and diving into a deep pond and smiling as he makes his way through the rubble at the very bottom.  He is fully enveloped in his youth and enjoys a small ounce of innocence until one morning he realizes that his father is killing himself to plow a field to provide housing and food for his wife and family.  At this point, Carl’s innocence is almost completely shed as he makes the decision to stay at home instead of going to school so that he can help his father provide for he and his mother.  This is perhaps one of the moments in Hollywood where a child literally shows a struggle between remaining a child and embracing his or her innocence and growing up to become a responsible man or woman.

In the film, “The Butterfly Effect” there are several different occurrences of children losing their innocence.  This film starring Ashton Kutcher focuses on a young man’s ability to use mental powers to go back in time to correct unfortunate flaws to change how he and his friends would turn out.  Kutcher’s character loves his best friend, a young childhood friend he knew from his childhood, and he focuses on trying to save her life so they could be together.  As each past unfolds differently, each character experiences a different loss of innocence.  In one past, the girl is raped over and over again by her father and forced to star in child pornography that is filmed in their basement.  In another past, the girl’s brother attempts to blow up a mailbox and instead of it killing the homeowner and her baby; the woman and child are saved and it leads to the girl’s brother turning into a born-again Christian.  The most important aspect of the loss of innocence in the film turns into the future or present characters after they have grown up.  The girl has turned into a prostitute in the present following her rape and pornographic childhood.  This suggests that when as a person grows through childhood and into adulthood, they not only lose their innocence but all hopes and dreams that included any possible future that could have happened.  By losing innocence, this film suggests that each person begins a direct path to their inevitable future.

Staples and Moody also provide excellent insights into the impact of growing older based upon their own experiences.  For instance, Staples clearly describes that his innocence is definitely lost as he is forced to take care of his family amidst poor economic circumstances, an alcoholic father and even being forced to watch members of his own family perish in front of his eyes.  Clearly, Staples was forced to abandon his childhood innocence and grow up much quicker than a child should.  However, Moody also had the unfortunate circumstance of watching his sister die unexpectedly as well as deal with depression and substance abuse.  As these two authors grew up something was taken from them – their innocence.  Each author has a different story to tell, but each clearly shows how they were forced to cope with difficult circumstances and face the harshness of the real world.  We cannot be children forever and there comes a time when we must each grow up.

In my own experience, I can agree with Eisley because something is definitely lost by growing.  After a childhood history that involved divorce, working at a young age to help my family pay utility bills, and seeing my father unemployed for over two years; my innocence was completely lost.  Nevertheless, I would never have changed any of my past because it helped me grow into the responsible, respectful, and humble person that I am today.  Therefore, Eisley is correct when he wrote that something is lost.  While I believe that innocence is lost, we also lose our childish behaviors that are unfit for society and can often cripple our ability to interact socially.  Still, many of us always look back to remember the “good old days” of our childhood.  Something is lost, but it is not something that is always forgotten.