The loss of innocence is an evident theme in both Walter Dean Meyers' "Fallen Angels" and Tim O'Brien's "The Man I Killed". Both pieces depict young men as they lose their innocence in the Vietnam War facing the inhumane acts that comes along with war. Although they are quite similar they also have vast differences as the characters go through their different endeavors thus enabling them to eventually lose their innocence. These experiences contribute immensely in their coming of age, as both characters realize how malicious the world can be.
The concept "Loss of Innocence" deals with a period in one's life, usually during adolescence when they are exposed to troubles of life and see evil, pain, or suffering in the world around them. During, this stage of life it leads the individual to a coming of age moment, where they become aware of the troubled reality going on in the world. Thus far, this is shown as the young men go into the Vietnam War sheltered and not really being revealed to immorality in the world. Comparatively it is evident in both pieces from Myers' with Lieutenant Carroll calling the dead soldiers "angel warriors" because usually young boys were the ones who fought the war; despite the fact that they were quite young and most of them couldn't vote. This is ironic since the young men were out in combat defending their country, yet they were not even mature enough to truly understand what they were fighting for in Nam along with them not being legally able to make a difference in their country. Whereas in "The Man I Killed" the theme is evident after O'Brien kills the man and is feeling guilty. He begins to imagine what the man's life might have been before the war started where he saw him as an young boy who loved mathematics and only reason for joining the war was because in his family the highest honor for a man was to defend the land of his people, such as the man's father and uncle had done.
FALLEN ANGELS FCA's:1. ... When soldiers are killed in action, they become "Fallen Angels." ... They transform into warriors but are still angels on the inside. 2. ... His attitude changes again when he kills a man for the first time. ... He was wounded twice, seen his own friends killed with his own eyes, and was almost killed his self. ...
"O, Angel - I am almost glad - because now you can forgive me!... How can I divorce you?... Angel immediately puts Tess into the same category as fallen women. ... However, in the end, she kills him and tries to receive forgiveness for the sins she has committed. ... "But I still maintain that her innate purity remained intact to the very last; though I frankly own that a certain outward purity left her on her last fall."" ...
Milton first blames Man, that is to say, Adam and Eve, for the fall, as it is their "mortal taste [that Brought Death into the World" (I, 2-3). ... Looking at the fallen Satan, we see that his emotions are very human: "Envy" and "Revenge" (I, 6) are created out of his guilt, woe, confusion and pain from the mistake he made in Heaven. Satan speaks to his Angels and brings up a point that can be directly linked to Adam and Eve: he says, "All is not lost; the unconquerable Will...never to submit or yield" (I, 106-7). ... Description of Eve's hair as t...
He also says, "I hadn't been too worried about going to Nam. From what I had heard, the fighting was almost over any way."" ... On their way back to the camp Jenkins steps on a land mine and is killed. ... In "Fallen Angels-, I believe that there is one character that really makes the story more interesting and he is Harold Gates also known as Peewee. ... "My father used to call all soldiers angel warriors,"" he said. ...
Tess forgives Angel, but Angel cannot. ... So strong is the girl's love for her husband and so powerful her disgust is at what the other man has forced her to become, that she kills the other man. ... Never have I been so immersed in a book and so moved by a book. ... What I want to say most about this novel is purity. ... I admire the author's determination to create a sexually fallen character who he consider "pure" when he himself knows that would shock most of the readers of his time, and reading through the novel I can feel truly what he really wants to express is that the loss ...
His plan was to start a race war in which the blacks would overthrow the whites and kill them all. ... The book also speaks of "angels with breastplates of fire." ... However, in Revelation 9 there were five angels, but there were only four Beatles. Manson believed he was the fifth angel which held the key to the bottomless pit (Conley). ... When she got to the front gate she noticed a fallen telephone line and an unfamiliar car in the driveway. ...
Part of that passage was "..and you will know my name is the Lord, when I lay my vengeance upon thee." ... Throughout the whole scene, "Son of a Preacher Man" was playing in the background. ... He sent to their rescue the man they call The Wolf. He was the lifesaver to the two partially fallen angels. ... This is another reason why Jules is not killed off. ...
tic, a drunkard and drug addict "who walked the streets, in madness or melancholy, with lips moving in indistinct curses"" by the Reverend Rufus Griswald to "fallen angel who remembered heaven" by Baudelaire (Asselineau 11). ... In "The Tell Tale Heart" when the old man's eyes is closed he would not be killed because his eye is not considered ugly. ... I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights-every night just at midnight-but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the ol...
I told you it would happen thus: Your form and face have slain us- (Marie de France). ... There she tells her son who his real father is and gives him the sword, which he uses to kill his step-father on the spot. ... They were seen as lovely, fair, and angelic "your love would never forsake you, and if she did, it would be the end of the world. ... She was so blessed/ and beautiful, I implored her to command me- (Dante 81). ... However, he had fallen in the snare, And had to bear his cross as others bear- (Chaucer 89). ...
