The Symbolism of Masks in Lord of the Flies by William Golding

834 Words2 Pages

Mask
Red, brown, green, blue, colors that surround us everyday, yet somehow the human fascination of applying them to their face makes them seem all the more fun, and interesting. This newfound interest could even leak through to the mind beneath, giving way to a whole new person. In his 1954 novel, Lord of the Flies, William Golding illustrated this idea in a way that captured the hearts of many and led the story to fame, concocting a reality that had since resided only in the nightmares of children. Inventing a world in which masks of paint were not a fun thing you got at a fair, but a living horror and uncontrollable enemy. Masks are common in our world. They are worn on holidays and to parties. Nearly everyone can recognize at least on super hero or villain who hid behind a mask. These allow people to act as something they are not, producing a faux freedom. Freedom that once the mask is applied, can allow one to do whatever they please. William Golding uses the mask for the same purpose, in creating freedom. To him the mask induces freedom from responsibility, appropriate behavior and ordinary human kindness.
Though a mask may just be a paper cut out, a molded piece of plastic, or in the Lord of the Flies, a painted face, they all have the same ability to create a feeling of freedom from responsibility. They may make they wearer feel more important or powerful and too good for work, leading to a lack of fulfillment of their responsibility. This belief in freedom from responsibility is best exemplified by Jack, the first one on the island to begin wearing a mask. He used a mask because he felt it gave him power and skill, giving him reason to take up hunting as a prime responsibility, opposed to keeping the fire going. In their...

... middle of paper ...

...er mock Piggy, when he “made a move toward Piggy…[and] mimicked the whine and scramble by saying, ‘Jus’ you wait-yah!’” By doing this, Jack causes all of the younger hunters to laugh, giving him even more power over them all because of the new power that the mask gave him, by allowing him to be cruel and unkind.
The mask is one of the most powerful symbols in Lord of the Flies. It symbolizes freedom from all of civilization’s measures, violence and hatred. However, it also represents leadership, and the new society in which the boys have made for themselves, based on violence and the nature of the human soul being free for the first time in these children’s lives. Though the mask makes many of the boys feel free, they only continue to lower themselves into a pit of regret, destroying everything they have worked for and hurting others who they could formerly trust.

Show More
Related

  • The Lord Of The Flies Identity Essay

    671 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout the novel, The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the character Jack finds his true identity through a clay mask of his own making. At the beginning of the novel, Jack is unable to kill a pig for food, however, he later puts on a mask in order to blend in with nature and not drive the pigs away. To the contrary, by putting on this mask Jack gains a newfound confidence that was nonexistent in his own skin. For example when Jack first put on the mask he “looked in astonishment, no longer at himself but at an awesome stranger” (63). By putting on a mask Jack is able to lose his identity a little bit and act and feel like a whole new person. This idea of taking on a whole new role when putting on a mask can be seen in many modern tv shows and movies.

    Read More

  • Jack Responsibility In Lord Of The Flies Essay

    850 Words  | 2 Pages

    A plane abruptly crashes into an abandoned island, risking the passengers in the plane. Luckily, the boys in the plane survive this devastating event. These boys, isolated from the supervision of adults, cooperate for rescue. A particular boy, encouraged that he can lead the boys successfully, instructs the others. Unfortunately, this responsible boy disguises himself with a mask, which brings a major transformation. For this boy, Jack, a major character in William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies, his desire for power is greater than his hope for rescue. By Jack putting on the mask, Golding displays a responsible British boy, who focuses on survival, transform to an irresponsible, aggressive human being who is consumed by violence.

    Read More

  • Use of Symbols to Portray the Descent from Civilization to Savagery in Golding's Lord of the Flies

    666 Words  | 2 Pages

    D.H. Lawrence once said, “This is the very worst wickedness, that we refuse to acknowledge the passionate evil that is in us. This makes us secret and rotten.” Sir William Golding tells about the evil and sadistic things that can be expressed throughout humanity in his novel, Lord of the Flies. Lord of the flies is a translation of a Hebrew name for Satan, Beelzebub. In the novel, William Golding portrays the boys’ descent from civilization to savagery through the following symbols: the conch shell, Piggy’s glasses, and the Lord of the Flies.

    Read More

  • Jack: Almost the Hero of Lord of the Flies

    1279 Words  | 3 Pages

    From the beginning of the novel Jack intimidates the other boys with his flaming red hair, his long black cape, and the brutal way he shouts orders to his choir. Although he is not a good-looking boy, he is amazingly arrogant. He always has to look good in people's eyes. Not that he cares if people like him, but more that they respect him. The only way he knows how to gain people's admiration is by getting them to fear him. He spots Piggy as an easy target and immediately starts to humiliate him in front of the others: "You're talking too much," said Jack Merridew. "Shut up, Fatty."(21) He sizes up Piggy right from the beginning knowing that Piggy wouldn't stand up to him and by making fun of him he was letting the other boys know that he not one to be messed with. When he feels that people are about to think him to be weak or gutless, he uses his knife as if it were a symbol of his superiority: "Jack slammed his knife into a trunk and looked round challengingly"(33). His knife gives him power, a weapon that he would use against anyone who dares to mock him.

    Read More

  • We Wear The Mask And Lord Of The Flies Comparison Essay

    1256 Words  | 3 Pages

    While exploring an unknown island and struggling to survive, a group of schoolboys reveal their primitive, barbarous identities in William Golding’s work, Lord of the Flies. Similarly, Paul Laurence Dunbar, an African American poet, describes the hidden nature of individuals in order to protect themselves and conceal their pain. Golding’s novel and Dunbar’s poem, “We Wear the Mask,” both express masks as means of escaping reality and a source of strength; however, the pressures of society suppress the characters in Dunbar’s poem while the boys in Lord of the Flies unleash true feelings through their innate savageness.

    Read More

  • The Mask

    822 Words  | 2 Pages

    The mask is a form of deception or illusion. Sometimes, it can be worn as both. It hides the true emotions of slaves, keeping the slave master from knowing what is going on in their minds. The mask also allows the slave to have an identity without the master’s detection. The mask gives the illusion that the slave is exactly how the masters believe, ignorant, incapable of true emotion, and unable to think for themselves.

    Read More

  • Masks In Lord Of The Flies

    732 Words  | 2 Pages

    In William Golding’s “Lord Of The Flies”, a group of boys is stranded on an island that completely changes them. The boys turn totally different from how they act from society as if they were putting on masks. It’s not just the boys that wear masks, but a lot of people try to hide from other people. What a mask does is that it hides a person’s trait and shows something completely different. I have made a mask like one of the boys, Ralph, that tries to show that he’s a leader, but hides a different personality. Here are some of the qualities of my mask.

    Read More

  • Jack Merridew's Savagery

    838 Words  | 2 Pages

    Being stranded on an island can be rather popular in today’s literature. However, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, is very much unlike any other book one has ever read. Through his intense metaphors and amazing character development, Golding has created a work of art. He has created so many realistic characters, and everything means something more than it appears to, one just has to dig beneath the surface. In fact, through the character growth of both Jack Merridew and the beast, Golding insinuates that fear can make people do terrible things. His savagery represents how he lets his fear control him during his time on the island, and caused a lot of problems because of it.

    Read More

  • What Does The Mask Symbolize In Lord Of The Flies

    516 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Lord of the Flies, a novel by William Golding, human nature and its animalistic qualities are represented by Jack and his mask and chief personas. In the middle of the novel, Jack’s inner savage begins to appear and Jack paints his face like an animal. Golding writes, “He capered toward Bill, and the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness” (Golding 89). This illustrates how Jack’s inner savage (the mask) is beginning to dominate Jack and his humane qualities, demonstrated by the loss of his “shame and self-consciousness,” which are very humanic tendencies. The mask is a “thing on its own” as Jack can no longer be described as a human. As Jack becomes less human, he becomes more like an animal, and to Jack, the mask is his physical manifestation of him being “liberated” from

    Read More

  • Conch Symbolism

    1220 Words  | 3 Pages

    This is significantly apparent all throughout symbols and characters in his book, Lord of the Flies. The symbol of the pig’s head on a stick represents the devil and the terrors that he brings to influence the boys to go on with violence and savagery. The face paint used by the hunters, in the book, is also a very prominent motif in depicting evil, for these masks strip away the boys’ inhibition and allow their inner wickedness to take control of them. The conch shows how the boys have order in the beginning, but wear down over time and reject the moral code they were taught. Fire, initially used for survival, gives the boys a sense of hope, yet also represents how the boy’s society slowly becomes uncontrolled as their violence increases. Piggy’s glasses, as it continually gets foggy and cracks, represents the boys’ society and how it progressively deteriorates as the story goes on. The jungle depicts the consequence of human action in reference to how it is pristine and attractive at the beginning of the novel, yet with the boys inhabiting the island, it is ultimately burned down. Golding plays with different things inside his novel to explain the evil that is man. For whether it be the influence, the Lord of the Flies, the allowance, the painted

    Read More

  • Symbolism In Lord Of The Flies Research Paper

    696 Words  | 2 Pages

    William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, houses an immense collection of symbolism, most of which follows the central theme: civilization vs. savagery. The group of boys, having been stranded on an island, face the difficulties of upholding a civilized society in attempts for mutual survival, or succumbing to savagery and reverting to a more primitive form. In consequence, objects such as the conch shell, Piggy’s spectacles, and “the beast” become powerful symbols in the boys’ battle of nature vs. nurture.

    Read More

  • The Importance of Masks in William Golding's Lord of the Flies

    592 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, we find a group of British boys stranded on a tropical island while the rest of the world is at war. Their plane has been shot down and they find themselves without adults to tell them how to act. As they struggle to survive, they encounter conflicts that mirror the decayed society from which they have come. We see Golding's theme come about as we watch the boys begin to lose their innocence and let their natural evil overwhelm their otherwise civilized manner. While formulating the theme of the story, Golding utilizes much symbolism, one of these symbols being the masks, or painted faces, that the boys wear.  The masks, and painted faces, became a producer of evil circumstances, give a sense of anonymity, and represented the defiance of social structure.

    Read More

  • Symbolism in Lord Of The Flies

    935 Words  | 2 Pages

    Imagine a group of young boys who have just crash-landed on a deserted tropical island with no adults or supervision. William Golding showed in his ground breaking novel Lord of the Flies, what may happen in just those circumstances. In his very complicated and diverse novel Golding brings out many ideas and uses many literary devices. Above all others though comes symbolism of three main important objects being the conch, fire, and "Piggy's" eyeglasses. Through each of these three symbols Golding shows how the boys adapt and change throughout the novel. These symbols also help to show each of the boy's ideals on a variety of elements from human nature to society and its controls. All three of these symbols also change and are one of the most important elements of the story.

    Read More

  • A Sociological Perspective of Lord of the Flies

    1022 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout Lord of the Flies is a display of humankind’s thirst for power. Most of the boys, for example, transition to savagery and animalistic behaviors to free themselves from powerless lives. Jack, the leader of the hunters, becomes the first of the boys to paint a mask on his face. “Jack planned his new face. He made one cheek and one eye-socket white, then he rubbed over the other half of his face and slashed a black bar of charcoal across from right ear to left jaw…Beside the pool his sinewy body held up a mask that drew their eyes and appalled them. He began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness,” (63-64). Under his mask, Jack feels no shame, and therefore is free to indulge in power as he desires. In fact, later in the book, Jack and a few other boys commit one of the ultimate crimes of violence and power—rape (although only metaphorically.) Jack...

    Read More

  • Contrasting Ralph and Jack in Lord of the Flies

    1114 Words  | 3 Pages

    but himself and how he can benefit.   Jack simply wants to hunt and have a good time.  He makes fun of Piggy, humiliating him, making him feel small and unworthy.  "You would, would you? Fatty and Jack smacked Piggy's head" (Golding 78). Jack is a lost boy who begins to discover the evil within him.  When he proposes to the group that he should be the new chief, they do not respond in his favor, and Jack runs away, hurt and rejected.  He swallows his hurt ego and throws all of his energy into the only thing he seems to know how to do - hunting.  He puts on face paint and hides his conscience.  This changes him into a savage, evil, The colorful mask allows Jack to forget everything he was taught back in England.  "The mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness" (Golding 69).  As the plot progresses he becomes less and less attached to any societal norms. Near the end of the novel, he feels no shame about the deaths of Simon and Piggy, or his attempt to kill Ralph. & nbsp;                   Another difference found is that Ralph symbolizes innocence, whereas Jack symbolizes experience and the inner shadow that Golding believes Ralph, Piggy and Simon represent the good side of the boys.  Simon is pure, and the only one who realizes what the beast really is.  Piggy is the voice of reason and stands for the world the boys once knew- adults, discipline, rules and civilization. As chief, Ralph knows right from wrong.   When everyone followed Jack except for Piggy, Samneric and himself, he did not just give up and follow what he knew was wrong, he tried to reason with the rest of the boys and tried to talk some sense into them.  At the end of the novel though, he too realizes that man is not a kind creature by nature.  "Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man' followed, regardless of reason or morals. "

    Read More

More about The Symbolism of Masks in Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Open Document