Each writer tends to emphasize one facet to the neglect of others nonetheless, there can be no truly complete or realistic picture until every aspect has been considered.Īt the present time in the United States, fictional books and magazines dealing with sexual realism are grave political issues. But for the interests of a better understanding of the subject, it is incumbent upon those who seek a thorough knowledge of the situation to investigate everything relating to the subject. Authors have tended to elucidate the psychological or sociological overtones of corrupted innocence solely: few have delved into the somatic and visceral aspects combined with the psychological. However, few writers have investigated the detailed steps by which an innocent girl has been corrupted.
There is also the long suppressed chapter from Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Possessed where Nikolay Stavrogin corrupts a teenaged girl and secludes himself to watch her commit suicide in her despair. And we may also cite such graphic classical studies as Stephen Crane's Maggie: Girl of the Streets (which Crane wrote under the pseudonym of Johnston Smith), Emile Zola's Nana and Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. The "fallen woman" played a major role in much of Victorian popular literature.
Dante Alighieri, for example, portrays the seduction and execution of the adulteress Francesca da Rimini with a deep sense of compassion. It is as if the ancients believed that the innocent remain innocent the corrupt were always corrupt. On the other hand, the tales surrounding the Roman empress, Messalina, are stories of total corruption with no mention of a one-time innocence.
Both are innocents who lament their loss of virtue by force, but they retain their basic integrity and dignity. In the Greek myths concerning the rape of Europa, for example, or the kidnapping/seduction of Persephone, the theme of corrupted innocence is nowhere evident. It appears also in the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh, and it has come down to contemporary man primarily through the Judeo-Christian tradition. The theme of corrupted innocence is as old as the Garden of Eden.
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