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Theme of innocence and experience in the tempest

The theme of innocence can be seen through the eyes of Miranda whereas the theme of experience can be seen through the eyes of Prospero.
Miranda is a pure child of Nature like Wordsworth’s Lucy, “created of every creature’s best.” She is the only woman character in the play. Her name is the equivalent of ‘the wonderful one’ or ‘the one who causes admiration’ and her name is symbolic of her beauty, innocence and modesty. When the play opens Miranda is almost fifteen and for the previous twelve years, she has lived on the island and has known only Prospero and Caliban. 
The striking feature of her character is her “soft simplicity, her virgin innocence, her total ignorance of the conventional forms and language of society. It is most natural that in a being thus constituted the first tears should spring from compassion, suffering with those that she saw suffer; and that her first sigh should be offered to a love at once fearless and submissive, delicate and fond. She has been taught no scruples of honour like Juliet; no coy concealment like Viola; no assumed dignity standing in its own defence” (Mrs. Jameson). She knows no guile, no convention, no concealment and frankly declares her love to Ferdinand. Nay, she even weeps at her own unworthiness to be his wife. We should not expect a girl of the twentieth century to behave in a like manner in such a situation. She is indeed a perfect child of nature.
The simplicity and Innocence is a natural product of the circumstances she was brought up in. She had been cut off from all interaction with human society at the age of three. She had seen no other man than her father. Of the human world she had no knowledge. Her exclamation at the site of Ferdinand is characteristic of her: “What is’t? a spirit! Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, Sir, It carries a brave form. But ‘tis a spirit.” The same sense of Wonder is expressed when the shipwrecked party appears before her.
The dominant trait in her character is her pity and compassion. This is shown at the beginning. The very first words she utters reveal her deep pity. The suffering of the shipwrecked party melts her very heart: “I have suffered with those that I saw suffer.” The cry of the suffering knocked against her very heart. Hence her piteous appeal to her father:

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