The Symbolic Masks In William Golding's Lord Of The Flies

After eating so much, the boys decide to have a “dance”, in which they find a creature crawling out of the forest, which happens to be Simon trying to tell them about the beast, and kill him out of pure savagery which has blinded them. “‘Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood’” (Golding, 152) The boys, kill a friend they know and chant as though Simon was the beast, which they want to kill, but really the beast is the savagery inside of them. To regress into brutish beasts enough to kill one’s own friend is pure savagery.

The first example of this is the “mock hunt”. In this hunt Ralph trails behind Jack and his group when they are looking for a pig. He is overwhelmed with excitement when he knicks a pig in the snout. Ralph realizes he lost his humanity while on the hunt and it confuses him. Another instance of Ralph being influenced by fear into doing inhuman things is the scene where Simon is murdered.

Jack feels the need to alter his appearance simply to please his developing savage tendencies. This demonstrates Jack’s willingness to kill on account of the fact that he feels inclined to become a new person, just to kill an animal. Consequently, this shows his loss of innocence because he is simply no longer just a choir boy. He is a cutthroat hunter and future leader of the tribe of children. Furthermore, Jack has changed so much, both physically and personality wise, that Ralph, a kid who he has gotten to know on the island, can barely recognize him: “A little boy who wore the remains of an extraordinary black cap on his red hair, who carried the remains of a pair of spectacles at his waist…” (80).

It brought a sense of order when everyone gathered around to listen, Jack feared the day where it could bring order once again. Ralph tried to hold strong with the boys he had left, as the others left and discarded the original tribe to be hunters with Jack. Jack grew his own tribe on the foundation of one central power, which was himself. They started getting more and more violent to the boys in Ralph’s tribe. The the final line was crossed when Jack ordered his tribe to steal Piggy’s glasses, to start fires.

However, living in savagery will only lead to evil power and destruction. This can be foresee in the novel when Jack’s tribe, Ralph and Piggy killed Simon in impulsive manner. Savagery way of life lead the boys to become primitives as Jack’s begin to obsessed with hunting and he sacrificed the pig’s head known as “The Lord of The Flies” to the beast due to the boys fears toward the beast. The reality is the “beast” does not exist and the “beastly” behaviour lies within them. Jack’s tribe also manhunt Ralph after Piggy’s death by setting up fire in the jungle.

Lastly, “A stick sharpened at both ends,” conveyed to the children the danger of each other and Roger, the wielder of the stick, used this symbol of destruction to lead them on a hunt to kill the protagonist Ralph. The symbols with the greatest influence and power were mostly derived from a negative connotation. William Golding used both power and symbolism to create an Allegory novel that gives insight on how they have a deadly end result. The washed up Conch and Sow’s head had many differences, the most simplistic being that the head was evil, containing fear, while the Conch wielded order and civility. The plot of this novel shifts around power and what the result is of having it fall into the wrong hands.

Ralph wins the argument but Jack leaves the group and forms his own hunting group. They paint their faces and put mud on their body and they start looking for a pig to hunt. After finding a pig, they brutally kill it and cut its head off and leave it as an offering to the beast. This shows that the boys have completely forgot civilization and have become savages. Simon finds the head and sees that it’s the “Lord of the Files”.

4th period “You don’t deserve a point of view if the only thing you see is you” (Unknown). In the lord of flies by William Golding, Jack turns evil and is not himself. A former choirmaster and “head boy” at his school, he arrived on the island having experienced some success in exerting control over others by dominating the choir with his militaristic attitude. His main interest is hunting, an endeavor that begins with the desire for meat and builds to the overwhelming urge to master and kill other living creatures. One character trait that jack shows throughout the story is selfishness.

At first, the beast is nothing more than a product of the boys ' imaginations. The smaller boys are afraid of things they see at night; rather than be blindly afraid of The Great Unknown, they give their fear a name and a shape in their minds.The boys fear the beast not even realizing that the are committing the evil actions of the beast. Only Simon reaches the final realization of what the beast for what it truly is, their own evil existing inside of them when he says “Maybe there is a beast… maybe it 's only us.”. Paradoxically, immediately following Simon’s awareness of the beast he is murdered **quote** ; signifying the destruction of natural human instinct and civilized instinct. As the boys grow more savage, their belief in the beast grows stronger.

Based upon the boys actions in the novel such as, killing one another, sexual assault and abuse, and their animalistic behaviors, shows that savagery exists within all human beings. The most obvious reason to why the boys seem savage are the murders. The boys begin on the island well-behaved and innocent. As the novel progresses the littluns and biguns become bloodthirsty hunters which lead them onto murdering each other. This shows their loss of innocence and their own humanity.

In the two short stories, The Most Dangerous Game and The Cask of Amontillado, Zaroff is more evil than Montresor. General Zaroff is a hunter that can kill any animal. He is so good, that he doesn 't enjoy hunting. In order to be entertained, he starts to hunt a different animal, humans. He hunts humans because he wants to be challenged.

Golding addresses Simon as the beast to portray the boy’s perspective. The killing of Simon shows that the boy’s fear prevented from discovering the truth about the beast. Their fear was so powerful, that even the harmonic character of Simon and the truth that he bore were destroyed. If people become isolated from civilization, the beast inside of us can break the bonds from society and unleash evil within using the power of

Simon’s death is more accidental than intentional, considering how the boys thought he was the beast. With their lust of seeing the beast dead, they killed Simon without realizing it was him.

The first murder is of Simon, “a blue-white scar was constant, the noise was unbearable. Simon was crying out something about a dead man on a hill. ‘Kill the beast! Cut his Throat! Spill his blood!’” (168) Jack’s tribe, overcome by their inner savagery, without thinking kill Simon thinking he’s the beast, this shows that the boys on the island have lost the part of civilization inside them.

Mostly, every object in the story symbolizes something more important than what it really is. One of the symbols that were best represented was evil is the beast. Everyone is in a complete shock and in the state of fear, and they do not want to accept the fact that there is a beast on the island. As the talk about the beast in fear continues, the boys begin to blame each other for it. Jack said, “ So this is a meeting to find out what 's what.