Cleanliness In Lord Of The Flies Essay

Everyone, when they were young, was self-conscious about their image, or felt the need to alter their appearance. Nevertheless, kids want to change their looks, such as how much apparel they wear or if they paint themselves and become superficial. This usually ends up in dramatic alterations in behavior and the way people interact with their community. In the novel, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, the boys’ appearances parallel the changes of their sense of community and ideas on appropriate behavior because of war paint, the amount of clothing they keep on, and their cleanliness.

In Lord of the Flies, the war paint has an unfavorable effect on the boys’ sense of community and their ideas of good behavior. When some of the boys begin

The group of boys lack the healthy amount of personal hygiene as the book progresses, leading to skin crusted with dirt and soaked with sweat. This modifies their image and ideas on how a group of people would act and look. Towards the beginning of chapter seven, Ralph notices, while watching the other boys, that they are filthy. Ralph can see that the deprivation of a quality cleanse has been going on for quite some time, based on the amount of dirt on their bodies. “They were dirty, not with the spectacular dirt of boys who have fallen into mud…” (110). At this point, Ralph also realizes that they are in need of a hair cut. “... hair, much too long, tangled here and there, knotted round a dead leaf or twig…” (110). This evidence shows that the boys no longer believe that it is necessary to clean themselves over long periods of time. This displays the change in their ideas of appropriate actions and behavior. He discovers that they are accepting this as normal. This is essential because it displays the adaption that the children have made in the everyday image of an average person. The absence of a good cleanse harshly affects the boys’ sense of their community and their opinions on proper