Naïveté
Agnesyoung girl, affects to be simple and ingenuous. [Fr. Lit.: L’Ecole des Femmes]
applied to easily deceived or naive persons. [Folklore: Jobes, 169]
traditional representation of innocence and inexperience. [Western Folklore: Jobes, 190]
couldn’t determine true nobility. [Am. Lit.: Monsieur Beaucaire, Magill I, 616–617]
nursery rhyme heroine exemplifies innocence. [Folk-lore: Jobes, 398]
Canadian mountie do-gooder. [TV: “The Dudley Do-Right Show” in Terrace, I, 229–230]
foster child; confronts world with wide-eyed innocence. [Comics: Horn, 217–218]
seven-year-old believes the best of everyone. [Am. Lit.: Little Lord Fauntleroy]
17-year-old ingenuously circulates through fashionable London. [Br. Lit.: Evelina]
Ted Baxter’s pretty, ignorant wife. [TV: “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” in Terrace, II, 70–71]
meek little girl reared by grandfather. [Br. Lit.: The Old Curiosity Shop]
innocent and ignorant American girl put in compromising European situations. [Am. Lit.: Daisy Miller]
innocent and noble-minded daughter of Prospero. [Br. Lit.: The Tempest]
loved for his innocence and frankness, lack of sophistication, and kind heart. [Russ. Lit.: Dostoevsky The Idiot]
archetypal innocent; sold soul to devil. [Ger. Lit.: Peter Schlemihl; Fr. Opera: Westerman, Tales of Hoffman, 274–277]
narrator’s mentally backward and utterly artless wife. [Am. Lit.: Shosha]
childlike young woman who thinks herself wedded to Tito and obeys his command to tell nobody of their supposed marriage. [Br. Lit.: George Eliot Romola]
young slave girl; completely naive. [Am. Lit.: Uncle Tom’s Cabin]
flowers indicative of naivete, callowness. [Flower Symbolism: Flora Symbolica, 175]
Allusions—Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.