“In chapter 25, has Todd committed a crime severe enough to cause him to fall from his state of innocence?”
Answer:
In The Knife of Never Letting Go, the adult boy Todd does loses his state of innocence right after he committed the violent act of killing the Spackle. The of loss of innocence is a vital theme in a literature centred on young adult, as this losing of innocence typically connotes the beginning of adulthood and end of childhood. The Prentisstown boys become men when they commit any violent act (Kennon). Although, Viola is responsible for keeping away Todd from doing such activities. However, in this specific situation due to Todd’s psychoanalytic issue of being a man, the Spackles presence does not make any sense to Todd, as he trusts that Spackles are supposed to be dead. The Spackle was fearing and Todd pounce on when he noticed it reached its lance. After stabbing the Spackle, he realises that he is no different from the Prentisstown men. He throws up and Viola said that whatever he was taught by thee Prentisstown was all a lie. After knowing this he was engulfed by darkness and he felt himself to be a foolish. However, seeing Viola making the sacrifice, by sacrificing her innocence; Todd comes to the grimy supposition, that “I think maybe everybody falls”(p.468) (Ness); which clearly establishes that, even after an adolescent or an innocent person try harder still it is unavoidable that they will lose their innocence by falling from the refinement, and ever can change that. My opinion is simply that I agree with Todd’s perspective regarding the loss innocence and I also feel that the whole situation that Todd has faced backs up this belief.
References:
Kennon, Patricia. “Monsters of Men: Masculinity and the Other in Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking Series.” Psychoanalytic Inquiry 37.1 (2017): 25-34.
Ness, Patrick. The Knife of Never Letting Go: Chaos Walking: Book One. Vol. 1. Candlewick Press, 2010.
