Nostalgia. We all feel it at one point or another. It's that feeling we get when we find some artefact of our past, be it a place, an object, or even a person. It's that vague feeling that although we cannot entirely recall the events connected to this artefact, we know that they were, in some way, approaching perfection. Now, at this point, we may recall that just as life is not perfect now, it was not perfect then; but we just can't shake the feeling that we have been cheated by time, moving from something superior to something inferior.
So it is in Graham Greene's short story, "The Innocent." The narrator has, after some long space of time, returned to his childhood home, and he is bombarded with old memories. He recognizes, for example, the almshouses. Lola remarks that they are not what she expected of the country, and the narrator goes so far as to call them ugly buildings. However, he muses that because they are a part of his past, he cannot see them as anything other than beautiful. Of course, this is only seen in the narrator's mind: Lola simply sees another run-down little town. This is the power fo the nostalgia that the narrator is feeling at the moment: it is changing his perception of the world around him.
Of course, the narrator has not sunken back into his past completely. He remarks on feeling apart from his past, almost as though he is a different person. He is coming from the city, with a woman who has nothing to do with his childhood. Every time he finds something changed, he grows confused or angry, sensing that he cannot simply relive his childhood on account of the time that has past. The narrator comes from a different world; William Blake might call it the Realm of Experience. He can interact with the Innocence of his childhood, but he cannot leave his world to join another: he has lost this innocence, and although he tries to retrieve it, he finds that he has gained (or, perhaps, lost) too much.
Thus, when he recalls the slip of paper that symbolises his epic love for the anonymous girl, he becomes very excited. He cannot recall what is written on the paper, but he knows that is was the result of all of his passion put to paper. Upon finding the paper, therefore, and the crude picture that is drawn on it, he feels cheated. His memories seem to have lied to him: what he remembered as true love seems to be only an obscene fantasy. It is only later that the narrator realizes the significance of the slip of paper. It was, in fact, meant to be a depiction of love and passion; it is only the narrator's mind that interprets the drawing as obscene.
This instance demonstrates the true separation of the worlds of Innocence and Experience. The narrator has spent the whole story attempting to relive the time of innocence. This attempt has proven futile, as the narrator attempts to impose his current understanding of the world on his experiences as a child. He cannot truly relive his childhood, as he has lost the innocence that defined it. Therefore, I pose the question: Is it impossible to understand youth and innocence from the viewpoint of the experienced and jaded? Or is it only the narrator's attempt to live in both worlds at once that causes his failure? How is it that something can seem "unique and beautiful" to a child, but appear obscene to an adult?
1 comment:
Upon reflecting on Eddie’s post, my mind turned to a quote from The Great Gatsby : “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Even as we grow up and grow apart (physically and mentally) from the pieces of our past, we are somehow mysteriously drawn back to them. The narrator in “The Innocent” comes back to his childhood and its innocence during a mature experience. He cannot help but return to his childhood in the memories sparked by the tiniest of details. His recollections suggest the full extent of his long gone childhood innocence, such as the equating of the “sand heap by the canal” to the “seaside” (43). All of these memories create, at first, a unique and beautiful “re-experience” as an adult. However, as we see in Gatsby’s life, being borne “ceaselessly” into the past can taint or even destroy the innocence that exists only in memory. The narrator no longer experiences love in an innocent way. He knows (as a reminiscing adult) that his childhood love never had a chance of lasting (Of course, neither does his purchased “love.”). When he sees the expression of that pure, innocent love on the piece of paper without the same innocence, he only sees futility. His “thirty years of life” makes the picture “obscene” (46). As Eddie said, the narrator tries unsuccessfully to live in two worlds at once. No matter how many times we are “borne back ceaselessly into the past,” the past can never be the same.
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