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gnatsaredancing t1_jdzdqqd wrote

Reply to comment by Bookanista in This one by LM Montgomery did not age well by Bookanista

I get that but you think of it in in modern terms. A perv who wants children.

Life was hard throughout most of history. When so many people suffer, innocence is a wonderful quality. An innocent is unaware of the suffering. An innocent doesn't suffer. Even just seeing an innocent can soften the harshness of the world for a short while as you see life through their eyes.

To be able to keep someone childlike and innocent was a great gift and achievement. It essentially means you were able to spare them the suffering of the world. And not at all in some creepy pop culture lolita adult acting like a child way.

Sexuality is one of the gateways to losing innocence because while sex and intimacy and love can be wonderful, it's also the gateway to heartbreak. To learning the ways of sexual manipulation. Of romantic betrayal and so on. The turning from boy or girl to man or woman. A loss of illusion and protected innocence and a gaining of greater understanding of the world.

A young woman could be seen as innocent and childlike while at the same time being competent and lustful (but inexperienced). It has nothing to do with modern views on such phrases.

Eric kissing Kilmeny isn't a sleazy abuse. It's just a turning point from one phase of life to another. You're just hung up on how we see those words instead of what they actually mean in the context of the story.

Frankly, even today we can easily write about a 60 year old with a childlike sense of innocence as they take joy in imagining shapes in the clouds. The meaning of the words hasn't changed that much except for people who are dead set on interpreting them one way only without a care for context.

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vivahermione t1_je3i2kn wrote

>Sexuality is one of the gateways to losing innocence because while sex and intimacy and love can be wonderful, it's also the gateway to heartbreak. To learning the ways of sexual manipulation. Of romantic betrayal and so on. The turning from boy or girl to man or woman. A loss of illusion and protected innocence and a gaining of greater understanding of the world.

That's interesting. I always assumed sex for young women was taboo back then due to the risk of pregnancy out of wedlock, and not necessarily from any concern for the woman's emotional state. But I like your reasoning better.

Death of a loved one was also a gateway to losing innocence. This shows up in Montgomery's novel The Golden Road. When Beverley's cousin passes away, the rest of the cousins >!start thinking about their adult futures and go their separate ways.!<

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gnatsaredancing t1_je3xzis wrote

>That's interesting. I always assumed sex for young women was taboo back then due to the risk of pregnancy out of wedlock, and not necessarily from any concern for the woman's emotional state. But I like your reasoning better.

That was also part of it. Unsurprisingly the whole thing is rather multifaceted.

Your Montgomery example is a good example if what I meant. Innocence is easily lost and often under painful circumstances. Which is also why it's valued and people desire to protect it.

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Bookanista OP t1_je0w6px wrote

I didn’t say he was a “sleazy abuser,” though. I said the story as a whole was “borderline yikes.”

And the reasons Kilmeny was kept sheltered/innocent are disturbing and not at all admirable. The major family theory for her inability to speak and be in the world is >!that she had to suffer for the sin of her mother being stubborn and refusing to forgive someone!<

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gnatsaredancing t1_je0ypjd wrote

>I didn’t say he was a “sleazy abuser,” though. I said the story as a whole was “borderline yikes.”

The only reason you seem to be doing that is that you have zero sense of context though.

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