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The Blue Bouquet Short Story

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The Unexpected Encounter with Reality
Individuals often have simplistic, innocent idealistic perceptions of the world. However, once they unexpectedly encounter the ruthless, cruel reality, they experience internal conflict with themselves as they attempt to preserve their previous naïve worldviews. Eventually, individuals are forced to accept that innocence is not everlasting and that the brutal truth of reality must be accepted. In the short story “The Blue Bouquet”, Octavio Paz suggests that when individuals experience the unpredictable evil reality, their innocent, idealistic perceptions of the world immediately succumb to reality; as a result, they no longer view the world the same way as their innocence has completely disappeared. During …show more content…

After the attacker leaves from the protagonist, the protagonist “leaned against the nearby wall”, demonstrates that he is longing to go back and wishes that he had never experienced the dark, ruthless aspects of the world. However, though have these wishes, he realizes that it is inevitable to experience reality and that eventually, he must accept the truth of reality. Later, he “ran an hour through the deserted town”; this illustrates that though reality has hit him, he is does not want to encounter another confrontation with reality as he yearns his previous innocent, positive, hopeful view of the world. The next day, the protagonist decides to leave the deserted area as he is too afraid and does not want to experience the dark, brutal predicament again. He realizes that this unexpected confrontation has significantly changed his perception world as he no longer perceives the world with the same idealistic, enthusiastic beliefs that he had previously. When individuals experience the harsh reality, they are in denial to accept the horrid truth and reality. However, eventually they are forced to succumb to reality since they are no longer able to maintain their innocent beliefs despite their continuous struggle against realism. Idealism will always capitulate to realism since innocence is incapable to prevail against experience. Once one has experienced the shocking effects of realism, this experience will be eternal as one no longer has same idealistic perception as

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