Innocence

Innocence (n.)
a : freedom from guilt or sin through being unacquainted with evil : blamelessness 
b : chastity 

c : freedom from legal guilt of a particular crime or offense 

d (1) : freedom from guile or cunning : simplicity (2) : lack of worldly experience or sophistication

e : lack of knowledge : ignorance

 

     When we discussed Chet Raymo’s “A Measure of Restraint” in class, I found it very interesting that he weaved the idea of innocence into the piece. He starts it off with the six-year-old girl that “rubbed the glowing dust on her body” (¶ 1, lines 7-8) then goes on to talk about the Curies’ four-year-old daughter Irene and, lastly, describes his experience as a child with glowworms. 

     Definition e suits the first example the best; being a child, the girl did not see the possible negative impact of the “magical material.” It seemed like fairy dust to her. Because of her lack of knowledge, or innocence, she died. 

     The second example is more like definition d. Irene calls the night she sees the luminous radium “the evening of the glowworms.” Her simplicity is revealed because she does not realize what the radium can do. She relates it to harmless glowworms.

     The third example is similar to the second. Raymo describes his experience with glowworms as a child. He knew that is he pinched the body gently, the glowworm would light up.
     Raymo’s metaphor of squeezing the glowworms gently is very clever. It means that we (as humans) need to know when to stop research. If the glowworm is squeezed to tightly, it may be killed. We need to understand that there should be a limit for what we do.