thesis statement about loss of innocence

Knowledge and the Loss of Innocence: “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” Essay

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The term “loss of innocence” is now being widely used in different spheres, especially in philosophy. This notion is usually associated with human age, meaning that getting older can lead people far from what they were at the very beginning, in their childhood. Indeed, the older a person is, the less naïve and lighthearted they are, the less confident they become about their own views.

But is this the knowledge alone that makes people lose their innocence? There is an opinion that “A gain in knowledge is a loss of innocence…a greater learning about social reality destroys old verities (truths) and induces uncertainty. Learning about the social world can be a threat”. Obviously, there is a grain of truth in this idea.

Indeed, in the modern world the old verities and values are forgotten, people seem to be really different from what they were in the past. If earlier people were more modest and reserved, now they became really open, and sometimes even rude. The reason for such change is development of communication systems and technologies. An essay “A good man is hard to find” by Flannery O’Connor also illustrates how knowledge about social reality can destroy the old truths.

The main character, a grandmother, who was a real lady, was indignant at how people have changed to worse in comparison with her time. She recalled that in her time “children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else” (O’Connor, 64), and that “People are certainly not nice like they used to be” (O’Connor, 68), etc.

However, the grandmother’s knowledge about society is very little in comparison with the Misfit’s one. He appeared to be a very rude man, who had the family of two parents and three little kids killed. In addition, he shot the grandmother himself, even though they had a nice conversation just before.

He did it in a very cold way: he “shot her three times through the chest” (O’Connor, 84). Why would he do this? Why was he so cruel? The answer is simple: the man lost his innocence because of socializing: “I been most everything” (O’Connor, 79). The man had many occupations, met many people, and some of the experiences were not really pleasant: “I even seen a woman flogged” (O’Connor, 79). Obviously, this experiences made the man tough, and they left no place for sensitivity in his hard.

Another example of how threatening the knowledge about social world can be is the essay ”A small good thing” by Raymond Carver. He author shows how a pair of “happy and, so far, lucky” parents, Howard and Ann, turn into angered beasts ready to kill someone (Carver, 3).

The reason for that is the gain of knowledge about social reality. The doctor, who failed to save their beloved song, Scotty, a negro boy, who was accidentally killed, the baker, who caused pain by reminding about their son – all these people took away the innocence of the pair. The character of baker, too, serves as an example of innocence loss.

The man realized “the sense of doubt and limitation that had come to him in his middle years” (Carver, 37). These feelings were caused by his experience of communication with different social groups, which once more proves, how harmful social world can be for an individual.

The character of another short story also became a victim of knowledge. Josephine from Kate Chopin’s “The story of an hour” was so shocked by the news about her husband’s death, that she demanded: “Free! Body and soul free!” (Chopin, 47). However, the long-awaited freedom only reached her with death.

The heroine died at the moment she saw her husband, who was actually alive and safe. Did she die because of happiness? Doubtfully so. Josephine could not bare the fact that she was mislead by other people; by the time her husband appeared, her soul was already dead. This is one of the horrifying results of learning about society. We can assume that if she did not talk to her husband’s friend, Richard, who told about the news, she would live long and happily. But it was knowledge that killed her.

As it can be seen, gain of knowledge about social world can often be dangerous. Without a doubt, knowledge of this kind leads to the loss of innocence.

Carver, Raymond. Cathedral. London: Vintage, 1989.

Chopin, Kate. The Story of an Hour. London: Vogue, 1894.

O’Connor, Flannery. A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories. NY: Mariner Books, 1977.

• Short Summary
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• The Things They Carried

Tim O'Brien

• Literature Notes
• The Things They Carried and Loss of Innocence
• Book Summary
• About The Things They Carried
• Character List
• Summary and Analysis
• On the Rainy River
• Enemies and Friends
• How to Tell a True War Story
• The Dentist
• Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong
• The Man I Killed and Ambush
• Speaking of Courage
• In the Field
• The Ghost Soldiers
• The Lives of the Dead
• Character Analysis
• Tim O'Brien
• Lt. Jimmy Cross
• Norman Bowker
• Mary Anne Bell
• Henry Dobbins
• Tim O'Brien Biography
• Critical Essays
• The Things They Carried in a Historical Context
• Narrative Structure in The Things They Carried
• Style and Storytelling in The Things They Carried
• The Things They Carried and Questions of Genre
• Full Glossary for The Things They Carried
• Essay Questions
• Practice Projects
• Cite this Literature Note

Critical Essays The Things They Carried and Loss of Innocence

One of the main themes of the novel is the allure of war. This trope, common in war literature, is made more complex here as O'Brien adds the layers of a Conrad-esque "heart of darkness" fascination in the character of Mary Anne.

The seductive allure of war is inextricably linked to the tendencies of human nature in O'Brien's novel. War, more specifically the act of killing, acts as a catalyst for some individuals, causing them to become primal versions of themselves, to become less human, to become killing machines. O'Brien revisits this idea numerous times throughout the text, adding subtle variations on the theme as he introduces different characters that struggle with the same core issue. O'Brien initially creates this tension by offering the counterpoint of O'Brien's daily work duty of declotting slaughtered pigs with his anxiety about his imminent service as a soldier in Vietnam. O'Brien merges the ideas of killing with animals, a symbolic linkage he revisits by describing the soldiers of Alpha Company as animal-like, "humping" their packs and "saddling up" their gear.

O'Brien struggles to hold onto the obverse of this animalism, this barbarism, which is a sort of hyper-civility. He succeeds in doing this by continually offering a highly self-conscious and self-aware cultural criticism that frequently draws on the archetypal works that are the foundation of western civilization like Plato's Republic.

Contrary to the protagonist "O'Brien's" experiential insulation from Vietnamese culture, which is a kind of "uncivilized other" according to the terms of U.S. rhetoric that largely defined the war, Mary Anne Bell is a character who deliberately strove for cultural immersion. For "O'Brien," the landscape and the Vietnamese occupying that landscape, such as the elderly Vietnamese men who watch him revisit the spot where Kiowa perished, are mostly incidental. Mary Anne actively sought out the ways of the Vietnamese, not just to observe from a distance, but to participate in if possible. Mary Anne, who should have behaved according to accepted Western norms, becomes so much a part of the landscape of Vietnam that she becomes "unnatural" to Mark and Rat. For example, the humming they hear coming from the Greenies' hut is freaky and unnatural, somehow not human, but it is Mary Anne's humming. And particularly as a female, she should be "domesticated" and behave in accordance with the readers' expectations of a young woman in a decade prior to the women's liberation movement. Instead she is seduced by the foreign landscape of Vietnam — one which "O'Brien" resists and barely describes — and is reduced to her animal-like primal self, a killing machine. Finally, opposite to "O'Brien," Mary Anne shows no resistance to the landscape, and has the agility and prowess to slip into the jungle like an adept, predatory jungle animal ready for the hunt.

O'Brien relies on symbolism Joseph Conrad created in Heart of Darkness to connect the landscape of Vietnam to the landscape of immorality that Mary Anne succumbs to and "O'Brien" resists. Mary Anne becomes a part of what O'Brien/"O'Brien" most vehemently opposes and what O'Brien/"O'Brien" most fears: the struggle between the light and dark forces of human nature and the predominance of the darker forces. Just as the character of Mary Anne echoes Conrad's character, Kurtz, "O'Brien" is a cousin to Conrad's character, Marlow. Like Marlow, O'Brien struggles against his imagination and the fantastic cultural stories that feed it, in "O'Brien's" case, the stories of World War II he learned from movies and stories of his father's generation. Ultimately, O'Brien shields himself from a fate similar to Mary Anne's through the way he employs stories, just as he did during the summer when he worked at the meatpacking plant, by forcing him to look at the struggle between dark and light within himself.

Previous Style and Storytelling in The Things They Carried

Next The Things They Carried and Questions of Genre

The House on Mango Street Theme of Innocence

The House on Mango Street is a coming-of-age story about a young girl named Esperanza. Like many coming-of-age stories, this one deals with Esperanza's loss of innocence and familiarization with sex. Tragically, her education in these matters isn't voluntary – while Esperanza tries to cling to a childhood that she's not really ready to leave behind, she's threatened by sexual violence as soon as she enters adolescence. Esperanza is forcibly initiated into the world of sex when a group of boys rapes her at a carnival.

Questions About Innocence

• In the chapter "The Family of Little Feet," why does Mr. Benny describe the high-heeled shoes the girls are wearing as "dangerous"? Where else in the text do we hear an adult describe a child's clothing as dangerous? What sort of danger does grown-up clothing pose to the children? Where does the danger come from?
• What happens to Esperanza in the monkey garden? How can this be read as a loss-of-innocence experience?
• Why is the story of Esperanza's rape followed by the story of Sally getting married? What connection do you see between Esperanza's forced sexual experience and Sally's young marriage? What is the tone of the novel at this point?

Chew on This

Esperanza's environment, in which she moves freely as a child, becomes a threatening place as soon as the girl enters the gendered and sexualized world of adulthood. For Esperanza, sexual interactions with men are never voluntary, and always pose a threat to her independence. Esperanza is constantly pressured to accept the greater and greater infractions of her freedom posed by sex.

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W hy's T his F unny?

Timothy Findley

Ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

The Wars takes place during World War I, when Western society’s idealism gradually turned to disillusionment. When Robert Ross , a young Canadian soldier, passes through his hometown on the way to military training, he does not recognize his once quiet, wholesome neighborhood’s transition into a hotbed of the industrial war effort. While the novel frequently alludes to these broad cultural and economic changes, Findley focuses primarily on Robert and his fellow soldiers’ personal loss of innocence in order to provide a more humanized context for the corrupting effects of war on society. By detailing soldiers’ gradual loss of moral innocence alongside Robert’s loss of sexual innocence, Findley demonstrates how forcing young men to witness and commit terrible acts of violence on the battlefield robs them of their virtue, and ultimately threatens to destroy the moral fabric of humanity.

Before the war, Robert and his fellow men are still distinctively boyish despite the adult role they are undertaking as soldiers, a contrast that shows just how innocent the young men are in contrast with the sobering trauma of World War I. After his sister Rowena ’s tragic death, Robert’s mother tells him that he is a “grown man” and must kill Rowena’s pet rabbits. While the family eventually hires Teddy Budge to kill them instead, this traumatic incident (in combination with Rowena’s death) is Robert’s first significant departure from childhood at age eighteen, as Rowena and her rabbits were the ultimate embodiment of purity and innocence. Although Robert’s enlistment in the army marks an acceptance of his fleeting childhood, he and his compatriots remain relatively innocent and immature. Robert’s timidity, insecurity, and sexual inexperience are exemplified by his mortifying night at the brothel during military training. Here, he has an awkward encounter with a prostitute named Ella and is horrified to witness Captain Taffler having sex with a man ( the Swede ). Fellow young soldiers like Clifford and Regis also behave like adolescents rather than men, contrasting the harrowing conditions of war that will inevitably rob them of their boyhood.

Once they have shipped off to war, Robert and his men lose all remnants of this childhood innocence, as they are forced to witness and commit acts that tarnish their formerly naïve view of the world. The extreme moral atrocities they are faced with as soldiers show the traumatic nature of their transition into adulthood in comparison with their former notions of morality. Robert’s forced shooting of an injured horse on the ship journey from Canada to England marks the beginning of his descent into lost innocence. This passage is ironic because the killing of Rowena’s rabbits is what solidified Robert’s decision to escape his family and enlist in the army, yet here he is made to commit the same act that so distressed him. There is no escape from this obligatory transition into manhood, whether from his family or from the military. Robert’s killing of the German soldier whom he mistakes as a threat is another example of how young men lose their moral innocence in war. While Robert is exceptionally empathetic and kind, his preemptive murder of the German in defense of his men again demonstrates how war renders society’s moral norms irrelevant, as he is essentially forced into a terrible act that he would never have committed otherwise.

This loss of moral innocence is a collective one that affects all of Robert’s fellow soldiers and serves as a parallel to Robert’s loss of sexual innocence. This shift shows war’s ability to cause not only death and destruction, but to encourage a pervasive tendency for violence among soldiers that can pervert sex into an act of domination rather than an expression of love. When twelve-year-old Juliet d’Orsey tries to sneak into Robert’s room at St. Aubyn’s convalescence hospital to pull a childish prank, she is instead horrified to see Robert and her sister Barbara having alarmingly violent sex. This moment represents how Robert’s experiences at war have changed him. Just a few months before, he was terrified of sex and disturbed by what he saw in the brothel. Now, the roles are reversed, as Robert’s desensitization to sex parallels his desensitization to the war, and he indirectly corrupts Juliet’s innocence in the same way Taffler corrupted his. Soon after this passage, Robert is brutally raped by four men at Asile Desolé, an insane asylum where soldiers take refuge to bathe and rest. Realizing that his assailants were soldiers (as opposed to the asylum’s “crazies”), Robert burns his only photo of Rowena, as he cannot bear the thought of her purity existing in such a perverse world. This horrific assault demonstrates the moral depravity of war in its potential to corrupt soldiers’ moral standards and degrade fundamental elements of the human experience.

Robert and his comrades’ gradual loss of moral and sexual innocence, culminating in Robert’s rape, is an embodiment of Western society’s collective degradation during World War I. The changes in Robert’s character, as well as his fellow soldier’s willingness to commit this atrocity against him, ultimately demonstrate war’s ability to strip men of their virtue and demoralize the very essence of humanity.

Loss of Innocence ThemeTracker

Loss of Innocence Quotes in The Wars

All these actors were obeying some kind of fate we call “revenge.” Because a girl had died—and her rabbits had survived her.

Nothing he’d read had covered this situation. Whores, of course, had been discussed at school but no one actually ever said this is what you do . They’d made it all up. But what they’d made up was not like this. At all. They’d flown from trapezes and made love in bath tubs and ravished several women to the bed posts, but no one had ever sat in a room with lilac wallpaper and been asked if there was “nothing special you’d like.”

What had become of all the spires and the formal, comforting shapes of commerce he remembered—banks and shops and business palaces with flags? Where were the streets with houses ranged behind their lawns under the gentle awnings of the elms? What had happened here in so short a time that he could not recall his absence? What were all these fires—and where did his father and his mother sleep beneath the pall of smoke reflecting orange and red and yellow flames? Where, in this dark, was the world he’d known and where he was being taken to so fast there wasn’t even time to stop?

Oddly, too, he didn’t feel like sending love to anyone. It seemed unmanly. What he did do was enclose a photograph (official) and say to his father: “This will show you that my draft makes a brawling, husky lot of men. Not quite gunners or drivers yet—just as I can’t quite feel that I am a soldier myself.”

Ord said hoarsely that since he was going to do a boy’s work he must read the “stuff of which boys are made” and smiled. Clifford didn’t appreciate the humor. To him, the war was a deadly serious and heaven-sent choice to become a man.

From the gap, when Robert’s eyes had cleared, he cast a single look back to where the man had been. He saw that the whole field was filled with floating shapes. The only sounds were the sounds of feeding and of wings. And of rafts.

All he wanted was a dream. Escape. But nobody dreams on a battlefield. There isn’t any sleep that long. Dreams and distance are the same. If he could run away…like Longboat. Put on his canvas shoes and the old frayed shirt and tie the cardigan around his waist and take on the prairie…But he kept running into Taffler. Throwing stones. And Harris.

In another hole there was a rat that was alive but trapped because of the waterlogged condition of the earth that kept collapsing every time it tried to ascend the walls. Robert struck a match and caught the rat by the tail. It squealed as he lifted it over the edge and set it free. Robert wondered afterwards if setting the rat free had been a favour—but in the moment that he did it he was thinking: here is someone still alive. And the word alive was amazing.

This—to Bates—was the greatest terror of war: what you didn’t know of the men who told you what to do—where to go and when. What if they were mad—or stupid? What if their fear was greater than yours? Or what if they were brave and crazy—wanting and demanding bravery from you? He looked away. He thought of being born—and trusting your parents. Maybe that was the same. Your parents could be crazy too. Or stupid. Still—he’d rather his father was with him—telling him what to do. Then he smiled. He knew that his father would take one look at the crater and tell him not to go.

Robert sagged against the ground. It was even worse than that. Lying beside the German was a modified Mauser rifle of the kind used by snipers. He could have killed them all. Surely that had been his intention. But he’d relented. Why?

The bird sang.

One long note descending: three that wavered on the brink of sadness.

That was why.

It sang and sang and sang, till Robert rose and walked away. The sound of it would haunt him until the day he died.

Robert sat on his bed in the old hotel at Bailleul and read what Rodwell had written.

To my daughter, Laurine;

Love your mother Make your prayers against despair. I am alive in everything I touch. Touch these pages and you have me in your fingertips. We survive in one another. Everything lives forever. Believe it. Nothing ever dies.

I am your father always.

Robert I discovered was a very private man. His temper, you know, was terrible. Once when he thought he was alone and unobserved I saw him firing his gun in the woods at a young tree. It was a sight I’d rather not have seen. He destroyed it absolutely. Other times he would throw things down and break them on the ground…he had a great deal of violence inside and sometimes it emerged this way with a gesture and other times it showed in his expression when you found him sitting alone on the terrace or staring out of a window.

Robert thought of a Saturday crowd at a football game where everyone would link hands on the cold, fall afternoons and the long chains of singers would weave back and forth in the stands till the whole arena would be swaying from side to side.

Robert sat on the mutilated mattress and opened his kit bag. Everything was there—including the picture of Rowena. Robert burned it in the middle of the floor. This was not an act of anger—but an act of charity.

He got out the Webley, meaning to shoot the animals not yet dead, but he paused for the barest moment looking at the whole scene laid out before him and his anger rose to such a pitch that he feared he was going to go over into madness. He stood where the gate had been and he thought: “If an animal had done this—we would call it mad and shoot it,” and at that precise moment Captain Leather rose to his knees and began to struggle to his feet. Robert shot him between the eyes.

Robert called out very distinctly (and there are twenty witnesses to this): “We shall not be taken.”

It was the “we” that doomed him. To Mickle, it signified that Robert had an accomplice. Maybe more than one. Mickle thought he knew how to get “them” out.

Loss Of Innocence In Catcher In The Rye

Loss of innocence is a major theme in The Catcher in the Rye. The novel’s protagonist, Holden Caulfield, is an angst-ridden teenager who is struggling to find his place in the world. He has been kicked out of several schools and is now on the verge of being expelled from his latest school, Pencey Prep. Holden views the world around him as phony and hypocritical, and he longs for something real and genuine.

The loss of innocence is a key factor in Holden’s journey towards self-discovery. He starts off the novel as a child-like figure, naïve and innocent. However, through his interactions with the people around him, he gradually starts to lose his innocence. He becomes jaded and disillusioned with the world, and this leads him down a path of self-destruction. The novel ends with Holden finally accepting that he has lost his innocence, and that he needs to move on with his life.

While The Catcher in the Rye is a coming-of-age story, it is also a tragedy. The loss of innocence is often associated with tragedy, as it is an irreversible process. Once someone has lost their innocence, they can never get it back. This makes The Catcher in the Rye a truly heartbreaking novel, as we watch Holden struggle to cope with the loss of his own innocence.

When Holden is at the Museum of Natural History, he provides a fine example of his personality. He mentions how wonderful it is that despite the fact that you may visit the museum many times throughout your life, it never changes. Every exhibit would be completely identical. It saddens him to think about Phoebe going to the museum and changing every time she goes. Certain things should not be altered. You should be able to put them in one of those huge glass cases and leave them alone.

The world changes too much (Salinger 103). This is significant because it shows how Holden is unable to accept change and progress. The idea of change is something that is difficult for him to grasp, which ultimately leads to his downfall. Another good example of Holdens character comes when he is talking with Phoebe on the carousel. He says, The thing is, though, Id like to be sort of . . . I mean Id like to stay young all the time so I wouldnt have to come out here and see everybody every time they got old.

Theres nothing very nice about it when you stop and think about it (Salinger 172). This quote really shows how Holden has trouble dealing with the concept of time moving forward. He does not want to face the responsibility of growing up and having to deal with the unpleasantries of life. This is a major reason why he is constantly running away from reality.

The loss of innocence is a major theme in The Catcher in the Rye. Holden views the world as a cruel and harsh place. He has trouble dealing with change and progress. The death of Allie was a turning point in his life, and ever since then he has been struggling to find his way. The catcher in the rye is a symbol of hope for Holden. It represents his innocent view of the world.

The rye field is a place where children can play and be carefree. Holden wants to protect the children from losing their innocence and becoming corrupted by the world. The catcher in the rye is a symbol of hope and innocence, but it is also a reminder of Holdens own lost innocence.

The death of Allie was a turning point in his life, and ever since then he has been struggling to find his way. The Catcher in the Rye is a novel about the loss of innocence and the struggles of growing up. Holden Caulfield is a teenager who is struggling to accept the fact that he must grow up and face the responsibilities of adulthood.

The two lines that make up Holdens personality are represented by these two lines. When Holden is watching Phoebe on the carousel in the rain, his dream is figuratively crushed, and the novel’s conclusion arrives. The children and Phoebe are all reaching for a gold ring on the carousel, and Holden is concerned she will fall off. It’s important not to pull away when kids reach for the gold ring; you must allow them to do it and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off; if you speak to them while this happens, though, it’s incredibly rude.

The Gold ring is a symbol of childhood and innocence. The fact that Holden says you have to let them go for it, shows how his character has changed. The loss of innocence is a key factor in The Catcher in the Rye and is what tears Holden apart.

Innocence is something that is lost very easily, especially in todays society. The media plays a big role in the loss of innocence. With all of the violence, sex and drugs that are shown on TV and in movies, it is no wonder kids grow up so fast these days. The internet also plays a role in the loss of innocence. There is so much information at our fingertips that its hard to know whats true and whats not. With access to all this information, kids are growing up faster and losing their innocence at a younger age.

The Catcher in the Rye is a novel about the loss of innocence, and about growing up. The main character, Holden Caulfield, is a teenager who is going through this process. The book is set in New York City in the 1950s. The story follows Holden as he gets kicked out of school and decides to run away from home.

He has many adventures, some good and some bad, but in the end he learns some important lessons about life. The Catcher in the Rye is not just a coming-of-age story; it is also a portrait of a lost generation. The teenagers of the 1950s were different from any other generation before them. They were more rebellious and less respectful of authority figures.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — To Kill a Mockingbird — Loss of Innocence in “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee

Loss of Innocence in "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee

• Categories: Coming of Age To Kill a Mockingbird

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Published: Nov 5, 2020

Words: 922 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Representing the Death of Innocence Through the Characters

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A Long Way Gone

Write a theme statement about loss of innocence?

a long way gone

One important themes in the novel is that of lost innocence; the loss off security, love, and a sense of wonder.

"Whenever I get the chance to observe the moon now, I still see those same images I saw when I was six, and it pleases me to know that that part of my childhood is still embedded in me"

"Our innocence had been replaced by fear and we had become monsters."

Loss of innocence as a result of social life and growing up in the conditions modern world

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Loss Of Innocence

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Missouri inmate convicted of killing couple is executed despite innocence claim

Missouri on Tuesday evening executed inmate David Hosier, who was convicted of a 2009 double murder and had maintained his innocence .

He was convicted in the September 2009 shooting deaths of a Jefferson City couple and was sentenced to death after a jury unanimously recommended that penalty.

“I’ve been able to speak the truth of my innocence. I’ve been able to set an example of resistance to lawyers who bully their clients,” Hosier said he planned to say in a final statement, which had been shared with NBC News. “I’ve been able to reminisce with family and friends new and old. I’ve been able to learn to be the fullest version of me.”

Hosier was executed by lethal injection at the state prison in Bonne Terre and was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m., said Karen Pojmann, spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Corrections.

Hosier, 69, said earlier that he also planned to thank his spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeff Hood, who has been involved in other high-profile death row cases, including the first execution in the U.S. using nitrogen gas earlier this year.

His legal team didn’t respond to requests for comment before the execution.

In previous interviews from prison, Hosier told NBC News that he was frustrated over how his lawyers presented his clemency petition by focusing on his childhood and the effects on his mental state rather than the circumstances of the crime.

A  19-page clemency petition  notes childhood trauma from the murder of his own father as a mitigating factor in Hosier's case. Hosier's father, Glen Hosier, was an Indiana state trooper who was killed in the line of duty when Hosier was 16.

"David fell into a lifelong depression, and while at times he seemed to be on the verge of some success, his mental health struggles would ultimately dictate his life's course," the petition said, while also underscoring his "record of service" by joining the Navy and becoming an EMT and firefighter as an adult.

Hosier said he disagreed with the angle his lawyers took.

"Fifty-three years ago, my dad was killed," he said. "I told them I didn't want any of that used. It doesn't have anything to do with this case."

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson rejected Hosier's clemency submission Monday, saying the execution would be carried out because "he displays no remorse for his senseless violence" and "earned maximum punishment under the law."

Hosier was convicted in the shooting deaths of Jefferson City couple Rodney and Angela Gilpin. He admitted to having an extramarital affair with Gilpin while she was separated from her husband.

But Gilpin ended the relationship with Hosier and she reconciled with her husband,  according to court documents . A month later, prosecutors said Hosier broke into their apartment and killed the couple.

Prosecutors painted Hosier as a scorned ex-lover who was out for revenge, saying Gilpin's purse contained an application for a protective order against Hosier, as well as a document saying she was afraid Hosier might shoot her and her husband.

After the bodies were discovered, Hosier was arrested in Oklahoma, where law enforcement recovered 15 firearms, numerous rounds of ammunition, a bulletproof vest and a knife from his car. According to court documents, all of the guns were loaded except for a World War II-era submachine gun, which prosecutors said was the murder weapon. Ballistics testing results, however, had been "inconclusive," a criminalist testified at Hosier's trial.

There was also an incriminating note in the front seat of Hosier's car, prosecutors said, that read in part: "If you are going with someone do not lie to them" and "be honest with them if there is something wrong. If you do not this could happen to YOU!!”

Hosier said he wasn't trying to flee when he was arrested in Oklahoma, saying he liked going for long drives to clear his mind and often took his guns with him because he hunted.

"I know two people were killed. I know I got blamed for it," he told NBC News recently, adding that there were no eyewitnesses, fingerprints or DNA evidence tying him to the crime scene.

Hosier was convicted of first-degree murder, armed criminal action, first-degree burglary and unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon.

Hosier’s final meal, served at 11 a.m. Tuesday, was a New York strip steak, a baked potato with butter and sour cream, Texas toast, Dutch apple pie and orange juice and milk, the state Department of Corrections said.

In May, Hosier was moved from his prison to a hospital, where he was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, which causes a highly irregular pulse rate. During an interview from prison last week, he was winded and short of breath.

In his final words from the execution chamber, he intended to say, "I leave you all with love."

"Don't cry for me," his written statement says. "Just join me when your time comes."

Abigail Brooks is a producer for NBC News.

Erik Ortiz is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital focusing on racial injustice and social inequality.