Innocence In Irene Hunt's Across Five

Aprils
Irene Hunt’s Across Five Aprils is about a family struggling through difficult
times. Jethro, the main character, has gone through an awful lot for being
such a young boy. He has gone through the loss of his siblings to disease and
war. He now is understanding more of what war is like because his brothers
are fighting thousands of miles away from home. Jethro has been living with
the consequences of his brothers actions; which led to an attack on his farm
as well as his water supply being compromised. Due to the significant amount
of hardship, I believe that the theme is lost of innocence.
A defining moment in the theme loss of innocence is when Jethro changes his
mind about war. At first, “ He liked stories of war”(15). At this point in the
book, Jethro enjoyed the thought of war because he imagined war as brass
instruments playing and uniforms on all of the soldiers. Because of the
argument about slavery at the dinner table, Jethro eventually realized that
people are split between war. Later that day he stated, “The thought of war
had given him a secret delight only a matter of hours before” (31). This
elaborates the fact that Jethro is having second thoughts about war.