Everyone has gone through the metamorphosis from innocence to experience. Innocence is generally considered a quality of purity, devoid of evil, immoral acts, as well as a lack of knowledge to understand certain situations or things. In order to grow and progress in life, we encounter different instances where we gain experience and thus are exposed to everything that comes with the loss of innocence. The transition from innocence to experience is depicted very well in Seamus Heaney's "Mid-Term Break" and Gary Soto's "Oranges", although the catalysts come from two very different situations. In “Mid-Term Break”, there is a solemn beginning despite the title. The speaker takes us back to his much younger self, when he experiences the death of his brother; it is the main representation of the theme of innocence to experience. The young boy comes home from school and says, “…I found my father crying… / He had always taken the funeral in his stride…” (lines 4-5). The boy then discovered another side of his father that he had not yet been exposed to. The boy now sees a more emotional man. I thought it was a memory of the boy's father that would always resonate with him, largely because we – especially boys – look to their father as a pillar of strength. The speaker has now lost this innocent and biased perception of his father. As I read this poem, I can feel the speaker's innocence slipping away as he walks across the stage in his home. In the third stanza, the speaker says, “The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram” (7). The theme of innocence is vivid here, the speaker uses imagery and we can imagine a solemn scene with a happy baby. The baby is still pure and has no knowledge of his brother's recent death and therefore displays no...... middle of paper ...... there are clear descriptions of how the process unfolds and what each character feels. It is generally hoped that during childhood we are sheltered from pain, worry, and death and encounter only happy days of creative expeditions. Both poems show a child's loss of innocence through different experiences and both remain very relevant. The theme of innocence to experience occurs primarily during childhood and the encounters that bring about change can be both rewarding and heartbreaking. Works Cited Seamus, Heaney. “Mid-term break”. Responding to literature: stories, poems, plays and essays. Fifth ed. Judith A. Stanford. New York: McGraw Hill, 2006. 239-240. PrintGary, Soto. “Oranges” in response to literature: stories, poems, plays and essays. Fifth ed. Judith A. Stanford. New York: McGraw Hill, 2005. 240-242 Print