Innocence In Lord Of The Flies

William Golding's The Lord of the Flies is not simply a book about conflict between a group of people. The novel is more about how a person goes from the stages of childhood into the turbulent stages of adolescence. In many books childhood is shown as a symbol of pure innocence. While in adolescence that innocence turns to curiosity as one starts to learn more about the world around them and the truth it bears.

In Lord of the flies childhood is indeed show as a sign or symbol of innocence, but only in the beginning. As the story progresses the kids on the island start to lose that childhood innocence. When piggy points out that they have set a part of the island on fire all the kids are in awe once they realize that there is nobody there to reprimand their actions. Thus acting without the fear of punishment after feeling that sense of power is an example of the boys starting to loose their innocence in the group of boys.

There was one symbol of innocence that stayed throughout the book and that was Simon. He helped retrieve Piggy’s glasses after he was punched in the face by Jack and he also shared his meat with Piggy. Simon also helped the littluns pick fruit and didn’t go around killing things like the other boys. All in all he was the christ like …show more content…
When the boys killed Simon that seemed to have been the breaking point for them for at that point the innocence they had once had seemed to have disappeared as they ripped simon to shreds by using their own hands. This act is also an example of savagery for the boys in all their excitement during the dance they lost control over themselves and plunged head first into the abyss that they called power over themselves. While in reality that power was them losing control over their actions and falling into the savage part of one’s