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Innocence In Lord Of The Flies

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Obviously every child has to become an adult at some point. They grow up and experience the hardships of adulthood. Even the children from Lord of the Flies eventually grow up and lose their innocence. In the story of Lord of the Flies, a group of boys are stranded on an island. They all rush to start their own form of government while Ralph is the leader. Eventually Jack tires of following Ralph, and becomes obsessed with killing a pig. Jack becomes a true savage and kills other boys and tortures them. After facing such savage experiences throughout Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Ralph, Jack, and Roger all provide evidence for the theme of loss of innocence. During the course of the novel, Ralph’s innocence starts to dissipate. In …show more content…

He became the leader of the tribe which shows just how savage he has become. The more savage the boys become, the further they get from their childlike innocence. After Ralph was chosen as their leader, some of the boys go out for food. They come across a pig and Jack almost kills it but does not. When the other ask him about it he replied, “’I was choosing a place. Next time-!’ He snatched his knife out of the sheath and slammed it into a tree trunk. Next time there would be no mercy” (17). Jack feels that he failed and should have been able to take the life away from that pig. His statement of having no mercy the next time gives great insight to his changing mindset. He will not hesitate to take a life anymore, he has lost a significant amount of his innocence because of this. After this encounter Jack goes on another hunt and is successful this time. He and the other bring the carcass back and tell Ralph, “’ I cut the pigs throat,’ said Jack, proudly, and yet twitched as he said it. ‘Can I borrow yours, Ralph, to make a nick in the hilt?’ The boys chattered and danced. The twins continued to grin. ‘There was lashings of blood,’said Jack, laughing and shuddering, ‘you should have seen it!’” (40). Jack is so extremely excited to share his triumph with Ralph. By explaining in detail what the blood was like, it shows that he shows pure enjoyment of killing the animal. By enjoying the kill, his childlike

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