Loss Of Innocence In Lord Of The Flies

Lost on the Island, Loss of Innocence

Golding wrote Lord of the Flies to portray World War II’s destruction on to mankind that he himself experienced first-hand during the war. "The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away” (82). War and violence ruined the civilized, British world that the boys in his novel had once lived in; Jack’s aggressive means ruined the semi-civilized tribe at the lagoon. Therefore, since the boys were accustomed to such cruelty back at home, they mirror the brutal actions on the island. In Lord of the Flies, Golding uses the contrast between characters, symbols, and locations on the island to show that in a world where violence and war are prominent, an individual often loses their sense of

When presented, the butterflies symbol peace and calmness to Simon: “Nothing moved but a pair of gaudy butterflies that danced round each other in the hot air...The deep sea breaking miles away on the reef made an undertone less perceptible than the susurration of the blood” (47). Simon uses his special place where the butterflies live to escape from the other boys’ destruction. Yet, when Jack and the hunters kill the sow in Simon’s special place, the butterflies are subdued by flies that surround the sow’s head. The flies represent evil because they appear as a result of the head of the Lord of the Flies. The Lord of the Flies is misinterpreted as the beast to the boys, which, “represents the inner savagery of the boys” (Lorher) because the beast is actually in themselves. Therefore, the beginning of the novel is understood as being good and innocent, full with butterflies, while the end, is considered to be dark and evil, full with

Toward the beginning of the novel, Jack and the hunters are dressed in their choir clothing, but they remove their clothing and paint themselves when they are affiliated with savage, uncivilized actions, such as hunting: “Jack planned his new face. He made one cheek and one eye-socket white, then he rubbed red over the other half of his face and slashed a black bar of charcoal across from right ear to left jaw”(53). When Jack hunts, he removes his signs of civilization and transforms into the beast of the island to hunt. It is ironic that Jack becomes a beast in order to “kill the beast”. Also, nakedness is associated when Jack leaves Ralph’s tribe and becomes the strict leader of his own: “The chief was sitting there, naked to the waist, his face blocked out in white and red. The tribe lay in a semicircle before him” (143). When the boys are painted and naked up they are viewed as frightening people who do not negotiate with others. The naked boys bring fear upon the innocent. As Sam timidly stated when they were going to approach Jack at the top of Castle Rock, “‘He’ll be painted, you know how he’ll be-’” (154). The presence of paint is the physical appearance of savage