Loss Of Innocence In Annie John

Annie John is a very interesting story. It uses the voice of a child, the epitome of innocence, to describe the lost of it. In the book Annie John uses stories of different points of her life to describe the progressive lost of her innocence.

I’ve been able to find several passages that mark the progression of Annie loss of innocence, and the majority of them are related to death. An example of this resides on the passage where she explains how her mother had to prepare the death body of her friend’s child. About this event, Annie commented: “I then began to look at my mother’s hands differently…I could not bare to have my mother caress me or touch my food or help me with my bath” (pg. 6) This passage marks the beginning of Annie loss of innocence.

For the innocent Annie as well as many other children in her position, a mother’s hand represents

I base this opinion on my own experience. For year I had a recurring nightmare, about a woman insulting and attacking my parents; it was a hazy dream that most of the time was forgotten by the time I woke up. I never commented the recurring situation of the dream with my parents, mostly because I thought it was just a bad and silly dream; it wasn’t until I was 10 years old and by chance I met the woman in my dream; to make a long story short, she was my father ex-wife, and my supposed dream was an actual fight between my parents and her, when I was 4 years old. My point is, it took me years to recognize the event, let alone understand the nature of the feelings behind it. Mostly, because I was not exposed to those feeling and my innocence was not very disrupted. If Annie John was able to analyze that situation and understands the meaning behind it, it not due to just intelligence, but also prior knowledge that took place on the outside of her regular