Violence and innocence are in almost directly related. One who is not innocent is not necessarily violent, but the inverse is true. Someone who is violent is not an innocent person. Elisha, and other characters in "Dawn," are a perfect example of how one can lose his or her innocence.
In the book, Elisha is shown as a seemingly nice person, but is in no way innocent. Elisha had lost his innocence the moment he lost his ignorance of, or gained knowledge of violence. In a sense, the Holocaust took Elisha's innocence. Elisha lost his sense of happiness and ignorance of violence, and was then turned towards violence towards those whom hurt him. Although Elisha had seen all of this pain and torment, I feel he was still somewhat innocent. His learning to maim and kill was solely to help get back at those people that caused pain to him and everyone he ever knew or loved. Elisha did still maintain some innocence up until the moment he pulled the trigger at the end of the book. Until that moment of the story, through his entire hesitant and consideration stages, Elisha still held onto that one little bit of innocence he had left in his life. The moment he pulled the trigger, that act of violence removed all of his innocence. Regardless of whether or not he pulled the trigger, someone would have lost their innocence in the kidnapping murder. If Elisha had not pulled the trigger, someone else in the house would have. The violence of someone else in the action would have caused them to lose their innocence. All of these events caused a transformation in Elisha. Throughout the story, Elisha does nothing but consider his options in the matter. Elisha thinks of what he could do, and why he was doing what he was doing. All of these thoughts showed a strong feeling of care for life outside of his, and a strong presence of innocence. .
The moment Elisha pulled the trigger, as said before, he lost his innocence.