The Case Of Briony Tallis s Atonement And Ralph From...

Is there a way to pinpoint the exact moment one becomes an â€Å"adult†? Many argue that this moment is created by a series of revelations and exposure to the world of adulthood. In the case of Briony Tallis from Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement and Ralph from William Golding’s Lord of the Flies we see two children sharing comparable internal struggles associated with a loss of innocence. Due to their lack of parental support upon their loss of innocence both Briony and Ralph enter into a territory completely foreign to what they once knew. For both children we see them comparing the differences between the reactions of children and adults in serious situations, as well as sharing an occurrence of switching between the two states (children versus adult), where they find a blurred boundary between the two causing various levels of confusion. Finally although both children find themselves losing their innocence, the nature of their reactions to it are different from on e another. Both novels explore in detail the difficulty in realizing that the world you have always known is not the only one. The starting point of Briony and Ralph’s loss of innocence is with the initial discovery that there are significant differences between the thoughts of children and adults. In Atonement Briony reads a letter addressed to her older sister containing topics and phrases mostly foreign to her. From only her sister Cecilia s flustered reaction upon discovering that she had read the letter, Briony