Lord of the Flies Essay free essay sample

Following his career in the Royal Navy, William Golding began to compose his most famous novel, Lord of the Flies. Shortly after their plane crashes on a solitary island, a group of English school boys attempt to maintain order and civilization. Ralph, the chief of the group, struggles to gain power and leadership from his followers, especially, the defiant, violent boy named Jack. Throughout the years, critic’s have argued that the novel is a religious allegory that has numerous biblical allusions within the work. Lord of the Flies is, in fact, a religious allegory in which the island represents the Garden of Eden, the beast symbolizes the fall of man, and Simon acts as the Christ figure. First, the novel displays religious allegory characteristics through the islands similarities to the Garden of Eden. Golding describes that â€Å"The shore was fledged with palm trees. These stood or leaned or reclined against the light and their green feathers were a hundred feet up in the air† (Golding 9). We will write a custom essay sample on Lord of the Flies Essay or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The captivating imagery of the island corresponds to the flawless description of the Garden of Eden. According to Genesis 2:9 â€Å"The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground-trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. † The abundance of fruits and plants around the island provides visual similarities to the beautiful Garden of Eden. Although there are numerous graphic characteristics to the Bible, the innocence between Adam and Eve and the stranded boys also exist throughout the novel. After first arriving on the island, most of the boys were stripped of their clothing, but they do not experience any ashamed feelings at first. Golding expresses their innocence when he states â€Å"Some [boys] were naked and carrying their clothes; others half-naked, or more or less dressed†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Golding 18). Their innocence is correspondingly similar to Adam and Eve during their time in the Garden of Eden. As the Bible states â€Å"Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame† (Genesis 2:25). The innocence they had was pure, but after they sinned and ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which they knew was forbidden, they felt shame in their bodies and tried to cover themselves. The resemblance demonstrates the same qualities that the boy’s portrayed, on the island, after their attempt to kill the first pig. The shame towards their nakedness occurs when jack begins to paint his face to hide his embarrassment. â€Å"He [Jack] 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† (Golding 63). The shared characteristics among Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and the group of English schoolboys on the island are clearly demonstrated in the novel, as well as similarities to the beast and the fall of man. The immeasurable amount of evil inside every human can either be disguised as holy and kind actions, or it can be flourished with anger and violence. The proper English boys thinking there is a beast on the island is a parallel to when Adam and Eve are tempted by the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve chose, with their own sinful mind, to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Therefore there is an evil within all of our souls. One of the younger boys describes as seeing a snake-like beast, and from that point the boys are frightened that a beast may be hunting them. Little do they know, the â€Å"beast† is only the evil inside of each of them. Simon travels to his serene, beautiful field where he goes at times he needs to be alone. While he observes a pigs head on a stick, he experiences hallucinations as he hears the dead pig head speaking to him. The sow describes to Simon, â€Å"Fancy thinking the beast is something you can hunt and kill† (Golding 143). This indicates that the beast is merely a figure of their imagination, which represents the serpent which tempts Adam and Eve. By making them think they need the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, is the same as the â€Å"beast† in the boys makes them think they need to kill to survive. It causes them to become more and more savage. 2 Corinthians 11:3 states â€Å"But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. †. As the boys believed the beast was coming after them, the more violent they became towards one another. Simon, who is shown as the Jesus figure, had to show the boys that there was hope they would get off the island. Finally, the novel displays intriguing similarities between Simon and Jesus, and they are shown throughout Lord of the Flies. Throughout the Bible, Jesus leaves his disciples to go to a solitary place to calm and pray, â€Å"Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed† (Mark 1:35). Simon, who symbolizes Jesus, was a wise and holy person. He was realistic to the other boys of the group, and he attempted to restore hope that they would be rescued. Although he was always kind and helpful to the group, his â€Å"friends† betrayed him when he came to warn them about the parachutist. This is similar to when Jesus was let down by his disciples. When none of the other boys would help Ralph build the huts, Simon was the one who stood by his side and encouraged him. Golding shows how loyal Simon was in Chapter three, â€Å"All day I’ve been working with Simon. No one else† (Golding 50). When Simon was killed by the savage boys is a comparison to when Jesus was left by his disciples and crucified. The similarities between Simon and Jesus prove, once again, that Lord of the Flies is a religious allegory. When the island represents the Garden of Eden, the fall of man is shown by the beast, and Jesus is expressed by Simons hopeful expressions, Lord of the Flies, the famous novel by William Golding, is proved to be a religious allegory. As their attempt at a humane and civilized group fails, the correspondence to the Bible increases. Simon provides more hope of rescue to the boys and is helpful in building huts, as Jesus was also helpful. The beautiful Garden of Eden resembles the island the boys have crashed on, and provides the boys opportunities to become more savage. In conclusion, Lord of the Flies is, indeed, a religious allegory. Lord Of The Flies Essay free essay sample # 8211 ; What Evil Lurks In The Heart Of Jack? Essay, Research Paper By Sean Rioux The fresh Lord of the flies by William Golding nowadayss and defends a subject that human nature is indispensable immorality, and that a individual removed from society will be allowed to allow their evil inherent aptitudes to attest themselves as the individual becomes progressively barbarous. In this novel, Golding nowadayss a character ( Jack ) who takes on and exemplifies this passage to savagery through out the class of the book as the evil inside him is set free. We see Jack, who at foremost can non even kill a hog caught in the creepers, autumn deeper in deeper into his barbarian ways as his violent death of one hog, and his focal point on the Hunt turns to bloodlust. Then as it progresses his bloodlust begins to drive more than merely the Hunt for nutrient as he leaves the dead as forfeit for the animal, and he begins to turn his force out towards the other male childs, non merely his pray. We will write a custom essay sample on Lord Of The Flies Essay or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page As a concluding decent into the immorality that has consumed him the pray becomes one of the male childs as Ralph is hunted with the purpose to kill, forfeit and perchance even eat in an act of cannibalism. Before the immorality began to turn in strength within Jack, he was a boy much like the others and like the others he found the construct of killing another populating thing was non something easy to digest, but Jack learned. How of all time hard it was for Jack to first kill a hog, sloping its blood on his bare custodies, one time he had foremost killed another populating thing his way towards evil and savageness was good one its manner. Early on in the novel we find Ralph, Simon and Jack walking through the forest when they come across a little hog tangled and caught in the creepers. Although Jack does hold a knife with him his vacillation combined with the overpowering world of the state of affairs keeps Jack stunned in his topographic point and the hog escapes untasted. Jack swears to himself and the others that he will kill the following hog and this force per unit area to execute to turn out himself a true and worthy huntsman, leads him to compulsion over the Hunt. To Jack the Hunt becomes more than merely a game, or a beginning of nutrient, it becomes his mission, responsibility and aim on the island. When Jack makes his first putting to death he is spellbound by the power of life and decease he ex erts on the hog and is fascinated by the warm blood that pours from the lesion he cuts to slice the hogs pharynx. Now the Hunt has become something more for Jack as lecherousness for blood Begins to stir in him and the hungriness for that feeling of power over another existences mortality grows. The others on the island Begin to take involvement and exhilaration in the Hunt as Jack has provided meat, and the draw of the Hunt and its bloody Gore Begin to stir in the other male childs. This acts as a accelerator to the autumn of the brickle society Ralph protects as the male childs through Jack see the helter-skelter and barbarous game of the Hunt and the chance of more meat far more amusive and delighting than even acquiring place. Jack denies the importance of the fire or shelters proposing he is in complete obeisance to the draw of the Hunt, and the built-in immorality that comes with. Cruel as slicing a hogs pharynx may at first seem to Jack, as the lecherousness for blood that st irs in him begins to intensify, so does the power of evil deep within him, and for Jack the Hunt becomes that much more lust full and cardinal. As Jack # 8217 ; s grasp on the disregarded world he left behind fades off, the new more barbarous ways of his folk of huntsmans Begins to determine a civilization around the immorality of the island. Jack # 8217 ; s putting to deaths, as clip passes become more and more barbarous and without clemency as he begins to loss any morel construction or compassion for other living existences. When runing one twenty-four hours he manages to track a sow with immature still suckling at her nipple and he leads the male childs in a perverse, and lust full slaughter of the female parent hog. He does non see what harm he is making or the morality that would come into to play had he non been so far from modern civilisation. The caput of the sow is mounted on a stick as a forfeit to the animal who to the barbarians that where one time male childs, has become a kind of symbolic vengeful and evil God who the male childs commit incorrect behaviors in the name of. The animal in the fresh represents t he evil T chapeau exists within Jack and the boys themselves and therefore the forfeit to the animal represents them giving in even further to their ain immorality. The male childs are giving into their ain barbarian, cardinal ways more and more as the artlessness that they bore when they arrived on the islands begins to come crashing down even further. Jack focuses his violent energies for the most portion into the Hunt, but as the Hunt and the cardinal forces of immorality he exerts on the Hunt go more and more a portion of him it begins to ooze into the interactions he has between him and the other male childs. As Jack, through his action, denies rank to any civilised society on the island he beings to demo egoistic behavior toward any group but the huntsmans and his separate folk and begins to see his endurance as more of import than that of the others. Upon recognizing that the other group had fire ( which both groups needed ) and his did non, he decides that his group as the strongest deserved the rite to the fire, and that they would take it by force conditions necessary or non. This demonstrates the cardinal ways of nature in its Torahs of endurance of the fittest, and Jack # 8217 ; s belief that he was the strongest and therefore deserved to populate the most, and have the fire over any other. In modern civilisation we have ethical motives we instill in our egos to assist the weaker, and portion what we have to determine a better hereafter for those in demand. Ralph # 8217 ; s is really much willing to portion the fire but Jack gives them no opportunity and merely sees them as the w eaker link ready to be picked off, in his tribal island universe. With Jack # 8217 ; s contempt for the weaker less cardinal, less barbarous male childs of the island combined with Jack # 8217 ; s weak fond regard to society and its ethical motives, the immorality in him becomes of all time so powerful and enables him to disregard whatever societal construction that one time guided him and take his cardinal Hunt to a whole to savage degree. Jack # 8217 ; s concluding descent into the deepness of his ain darkness and savageness occurs when the mark of the Hunt, putting to death, and forfeit, turns off from the hog and towards Ralph. As Ralph # 8217 ; s little opposition to the immorality and lawlessness on the island takes its concluding blow with the devastation of Piggy and the conch, Jack chooses to stop what small is left to remind him of the civilised behaviour he one time knew by killing Ralph. Not merely slay him in cold blood, but Hunt and slaughter him like an animate being, and leave a meaningful and overpoweringly existent forfeit for the animal, Ralph # 8217 ; s caput on a stick. Ralph being sacrificed to the animal is meaningful in the context of the book as Ralph after the devastation of the conch represents all that is left on the island of society, and civilisation and therefore good. Jack is so dead set on seeing Ralph dead because he can feel that Ralph opposes the savageness traveling on. For Jack a nd the male childs they have given up on the thought of place and bury the artlessness they one time had. Now with Piggy dead and the conch ruined Ralph exists as a painful reminder that, some one is still believing about place, and the society they left so distantly behind. Jack goes every bit far as firing the woods of the island down to blush out Ralph without even sing that the wood is their lone beginning of nutrient. He has lost his internal balance of good and evil and therefore he can no longer ground and his actions and determinations have become like cardinal physiological reactions, everything for the putting to death. William Golding nowadayss this novel to us as a thesis statement on human nature, proposing that we are all inherently evil but it is society that keeps us civil and good. This construct although it might non use to the existent universe is portrayed rather nicely through the character of Jack who finds himself making things his society would look down on without the slightest spot of consideration. He hunts armed with nil but his inherent aptitude and a lance, lecherousnesss after the sight of blood. He even pursues a human pray, and bows to a sacrificial immorality God. What about this book that really has a footing in world and applies even to the fictional character Jack is that their is a delicate balance between good and evil and that it takes so small to countervail the balance that we as a society must protect and function these values we hold so beloved.