Innocence In The Blue Bouquet

Innocence is a trait that disappears with experience; we are unable to earn it back once we have lost it. We often correspond innocence with the idea of adolescence and unknowing and experience with wisdom and maturity. This is true in all cases, we grow each and every day and have many experiences where we learn new and different things, but we can never unlearn what was already taught we can only forget. “The Blue Bouquet” by Octavio Paz portrays this idea of the personal journey from innocence to experience or adolescence to maturity through showing the contrast between foreigners and commoners in Mexico. Through this contrast we discover how both characters had went through a journey from innocence to experience, this was shown through

Often we feel that because we’ve had experiences than our knowledge can never change, we assume. Assuming can easily open doors to more experiences, where we gain more knowledge. This idea is portrayed throughout this short story in many ways. For example we notice how the foreigner has caution with his surroundings at first but as he goes outside he feels confident and experienced. He assumes that because he may have had experience with the outside world then he will be safe from danger. The boardinghouse owner was portrayed as a man who has had an experience before, with his one-eye. His experience in the past shows his understanding of danger, but the foreigner ignores the owner’s wisdom and believes in his own. This shows that he is unknowing and ignorant, he confides in his own opinion due to his past experiences and ignores the wisdom of the owner. We also see this ignorance portrayed through the commoner that wants to take the foreigner’s eyes. His continuous insistence that all foreigners have blue eyes shows his ignorance, his denial and disbelief leads to a moment of realization where he discovers that his initial assumption was incorrect. With both the commoner’s and the foreigner’s assumptions they both learn how they cannot be ignorant with their decisions and they cannot assume due to past experiences because experiences