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Lorelee Sanmiguel Rivera

Dr. Cynthia Aradillas

ENGL 1301-205

5 April 2023

John Milton once said, “Innocence, once lost,

can never be regained. Darkness, once gazed upon, can

never be lost (Milton Paradise Lost & Paradise

regained).” Adults have lost their innocence about

themselves and the world unlike children who still

have hope for the future. Children themselves aren’t

always aware of what is going on around them or the

people close to them. Adults don’t realize that younger

children mimic everything they do and are more likely

to pick up the bad habits of adults. Children shouldn’t be exposed to smoke, alcohol, or drugs at

a young age when they should be exposed to the joy and happiness they bring. Children still have

time to learn that the world isn’t all bad, it still has a great amount of color outside a box.

In addition to the advertisement, the creator uses only about a handful of color in the

advertisement. The black and white might represent, according to color meanings, depression,

sadness, pessimism, boring, cold, empty, distant that adults feel or see in their lives. That can be

interpreted as the world of a smoker or maybe a person who has lost their innocence either

within themselves or within the world. The blue crayon represents confidence, peace, honesty,

and reliability. Children often have qualities of honesty and confidence in themselves and in

others. The orange crayon represents the youth, creativity, warmth, positivity, optimism,
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enthusiasm that a lot of children have every day. The pink crayon represents compassion, love,

playfulness, kindness, and warmth that a lot of children have especially girls. The purple crayon

represents imagination, wisdom, creativity, compassion, and fantasy. Children often love to be

creative about a lot of things and about themselves. The green crayon represents harmony,

safety, growth, health, generosity, hope, prosperity, and luck. Children have the best in mind

when it comes to their future and don’t worry much about the tomorrow only about the today.

The red crayon represents action, strength, passion, courage, and confidence. Children have so

much to learn about the world and what type of people they can be.

Although a lot can be said about color, actions often speak louder than words or images.

Children are still understanding the difference between good and bad, right and wrong. No child

truly understands their actions until they find out for themselves or a adult tells them. However, a

adult almost always seems to know what they do and don’t always realize the consequences of

their actions. Adults often rely on drugs, alcohol, and other chemicals to try and help deal with a

lot of stress, depression, or just pain. Adults don’t realize that children aren’t the ones who need

to know that in order to deal with pain is to numb it with drugs but to actually face them.

Children should learn to use their hands for coloring, playing, making a mess, and having fun,

they shouldn’t have to see adults, peers, heroes throwing away their lives to drugs, alcohol, and

chemicals. All in all, children shouldn’t have to see adults making a choice between 5 minutes

with a cigarette or 5 minutes spent with them playing and laughing.

In a similar way to what you do see, its often what you don’t see that becomes a key

factor of what you never expected. The ad, itself, is talking about smoking and children, but what

it doesn’t talk about is or show. Adults don’t see how the image itself is talking about the future

of themselves and of the children who are the future. Children are often talked about as the future
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leaders, politicians, advocates, teachers, etc. but what can we teach children if we ourselves don’t

show any interest in ourselves and in our own futures. The future for the past was our present,

and now our present is going to become our past. How can we tell children that we want them to

change the future when we ourselves can’t change our own lives? How can we look at a

generation of people and tell them, “I did everything I could to change the future,” while doing

drugs and smoking and wasting away life. No one should ever talk about creating a better future

if you aren’t going to be a part of the solution. No child should lose the innocence of laughter,

joy, happiness. Instead let them lose the tainted world that adults create and show children.

In conclusion, children aren’t the ones who should not have their innocence tainted at

such a young age. No matter what a child cannot lose sight of his/her dreams. To view the world

with color, it is a world where there is still hope for the future and for their dreams.
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Milton, John. Paradise Lost & Paradise Regained. Portable Poetry, 2017.