Fall Of Innocence and A Change In Identity Environment and surroundings can change a lot in people. Like Lord Of The Flies by William Golding, a few boys were stranded and alienated from the rest of the world and had a change in personality from their surroundings. The historical novel, Nip The Buds, Shoot The Kids by Kenzaburo Oe, contains a theme that is very similar to Lord Of The Flies in terms of losing innocence. Fifteen reformatory teenage boys were sent to a village to be evacuated out because of the war occurring at that time.
When they arrive to the village, they get assigned a job to bury deceased animal carcasses, and as they do so, they find out that a deadly plague has broken out in that village. As soon as the other villagers hear about the plague, they all flee away from the area without any notice, leaving the boys alienated and they all begin to panic. This is when most of them start to lose their innocence, and start panicking wildly, unsure of what to do. The boys encounter a downfall of innocence and a change in personality through their environment, relationship, and from realizing their new tasks to survive.
People throughout history have adapted their personality to their surroundings. Whether it is from other people or the environment around them, a part of anybody’s personality comes from their surroundings. For example, when the plague has been discovered and many people start to die, they all start to lose control as the narrator describes, “Suddenly a couple of us started shouting, clinging to the wooden door that led to the outside. That infected us all and set off a general panic. We yelled and banged on the door, pressing our bodies against it as if we wanted to be as far as possible from the corpse” (Oe 63).
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Different types of people have separate views on change. Some like change, others dislike it and there are those that accept it but wish for most experiences or even life to remain unchanged. There are also people who may learn from the change that was so unwanted. Good examples of these types of people are found in the following texts. Sky-high by Hannah Robert, Post Card by Peter Skrzynecki and ...
The narrator itself discusses how the boys were already beginning to panic, from viewing one death, and being quarantined. It is like a chain reaction of the boys: when one does something, the others do likewise. After the narrator views the death of many people around him, he thinks to himself, “‘Death’, for me, was my non-existence in a hundred years’ time and, in a few hundred years time, my non-existence in a boundless far future. Even in that distant future wars would break out, children would be sent to reformatories, some would prostitute themselves with homosexuals and some would have fairly healthy sex lives.
But then I wouldn’t be there. Biting my lips, seething with anger, my chest constricted by anxiety, I pondered. By now, countless germs must be spurting out of the two corpses, making the air in the narrow valley glutinous” (88).
The narrator over thinks too much about what may happen and it affects the way he acts. It affects the way he lives and responds to the other people around him, and that affects their ways of thinking, and it all leads into a chain reaction of thoughts. The way they respond with their surroundings is just like how they react with others around them.
The relationship between each character has lead to a change in devotion towards each other, negatively and positively. For instance, Minami and the narrator fight more often than they usually do because of their different ideas on what is occurring. It is presented when the narrator explains, “’…you’re afraid of the plague. The village folk ran away terrified of the plague, abandoning us in the middle of swarms of germs. ’ (-Minami) The agitation caught everyone. I thought I must restore their balance. Otherwise they would become desperate and start getting violent. It was a pressing problem for me as well. ‘Plague?
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I never thought of anything like that’” (76).
Minami believes the negative side because he is in a state of panic, while the narrator controls himself, and tries to maintain the mood of the other boys who are listening to their conversation. Through the days in the village, each of the boys have changed, leading to their own ideas and thoughts on what is occurring which have made them all have their own differences, leading to rivalries against each other. Another example is when the narrator’s brother’s dog dies, when the narrator illustrates, “The oak branch came down, and the dog collapsed on the snow with a thud.
We all looked at it in silence. Biting his lips, eyes full of tears, his body shaken by sobs, my brother started to stagger forward. But he couldn’t look down at the twitching dog, whose black blood was gently soaking the fur over its ears” (152).
The narrator’s brother’s dog most likely was contaminated with the plague, and the dog bit the girl that the narrator loves, so Minami believes that the dog will contaminate more people, so he decides to kill the dog, leaving the narrator’s brother heart broken.
This act leads to a drastic emotional rollercoaster of the narrator’s brothers death because he seems to just give up on living, and after being heart broken, his feelings must have become even more crushed because he was never seen again. As it was mentioned earlier, most of the downfalls in this story occur from chain-reactions leading to one mass event. The teenage boys are alone and at a risk of death. The only thought that flows through their mind is survival. As young boys, they are not fully aware of their new “adult-like” tasks and have drastic personality changes through their time in the village.
The narrator takes his job as a leader and presents a strong authority towards others when he presents, “You, stay inside, keep watch… Stay and wait, I’ll punish anyone who comes out” (67-68).
The narrator, trying his best to manage the rest, shows an act of command. He went from being a juvenile boy, to a young man to take control, which is a large transition of personality. On the other hand, Minami has tried to take authority in making things right, but at the same time, has gone too far and has caused extremes.
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For instance, when Minami talks about the narrator’s brother’s dog containing the plague, he states, “It’s your fault that the plague’s broken out. Everyone’ll die because of your dog” (151-152).
Minami starts to over react about the dog containing the plague, and starts to aggressively yell at the narrator’s brother. This event led to the death/disappearance of the narrator’s brother, which could have been prevented, if Minami were to be a bit more cautious with his attitude. Small incidences like these lead to large downfalls just because of careless actions from a loss of innocence.
Environment and surroundings can change a lot in people. Not only that, but also from relationships and a realization in a new authority changes the personalities and innocence in people. In Nip The Buds, Shoot The Kids, fifteen troublemaking young boys learn to adapt to their surroundings, respond to other people, and react to their surroundings, while being quarantined in a village contaminated with a deadly plague. Each of the boys has become someone completely different from who they were originally.
It was an unexpected journey for all of them, yet through their environment and surroundings, relationship with others, and discovery of new tasks, they resulted in a new change of personality and some in a loss of innocence. Works Cited “Daily Kos. ” : Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburo. N. p. , n. d. Web. 15 Apr. 2013. Oe, Kenzaburo, Paul St. John. Mackintosh, and Maki Sugiyama. Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids. London: Marion Boyars, 1995. Print. “Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids’s Blog. ” Nip the Buds Shoot the Kidss Blog. WordPress, n. d. Web. 15 Apr. 2013. <http://nipthebudsshootthekids. wordpress. com/summary/>.
