Lord Of The Flies
In his classic novel, Lord of the Flies, William Golding utilizes many elements
of symbolism to help accomplish his motif, which is "man is basically
evil." Symbolism can be anything, a person, place or thing, used to portray
something beyond itself. It is used to represent or foreshadow the conclusion of
the story. As one reads this novel, he or she will begin to recognize the way
basic civilization is slowly stripped away from the boys. Let us know look
closer at the ways Golding uses this form of symbolism. From the very beginning
of the story the boys inwardly strip themselves of the remnants of the basic
civilized world. This is shown when the boys shed their clothes; their school
sweaters, then the rest of their clothes are torn off. Their hair becomes
increasingly disheveled, long, and entangled with small twigs. Since the boys
are left without any adult supervision they have to turn to their collective
unconscious. The collective unconscious was discovered by the renown
psychologist Carl Jung. Let us now look further into each individual character
in the novel, and discover how they each contribute to portray the ending of the
story. Ralph is one of the older boys on the island and remains the leader
throughout most of the novel. He is described as a pure, English lad. Such
details as his fair hair and the fact that he is wearing his school sweater
symbolizes many things. First of all the fact that he has fair hair represents
that he will be the positive force throughout the novel, as opposed to Jack who
is described as having red hair. The fact that he keeps his school sweater
symbolizes his desire to keep the island somewhat civilized. He does everything
he can to keep the boys under some kind of society. He makes laws including the
freedom of speech. Ralph becomes very popular in the beginning, however as the
novel proceeds and the society deteriorates, the popular leader is abandoned for
a strong-armed dictator; Jack Merridew....
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