You know children are naive and silly, how they think nothing bad could ever happen and that everyone lives forever? Then one day, there pet goldfish dies, their house gets robbed, and their parents divorce thus learning how cruel the world is. They have now lost their innocence and childness. They are no longer the naive cheery little children they once were, they are now wiser. In John Steinbeck's, Of Mice and Men, loss of innocence occurs because people are selfish and lack compassion. Steinbeck declares that Lennie, George, and curley's wife all exemplify innocence and loss of innocence it in very diverse ways. Steinbeck asserts that Lennie's mental disability makes him into a child, with a child's innocence. Lennie enjoys being with George and petting soft things. There is a problem, he is a child trapped in the body of a powerful man. Innocence may protect Lennie, because he never has to deal with the reality of what he's done. Lennie's innocence doesn't protect the people and sometimes pets around him. However George crushes out his innocence to stay alive.
In "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold he advances the statement we all need someone to love us, but the world is not like that instead it, "lies before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain"(Arnold, ln 31-34). In this previous quote Arnold states how the world we live in lacks love and happiness. In Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men Lennie and George provide happiness and love for each other. Steinbeck suggests George has someone who lacks his innocence in life. Lennie is mentally disabled and George cares for him. George's lack of experience with the world and with the bad things that happen in life have disappeared. He acts mature and takes care of Lennie and himself. Also George knows what to do to stay alive and also doesn't let his childness take charge of him.