Innocence In Lord Of The Flies Essay

Adolescence is thought of as a time of innocence where children can be carefree without worry. However, as time goes on, they learn more about the world around them, and that innocence deteriorates as the years go by. Golding has a more pessimistic philosophy regarding childhood innocence and the loss of that innocence. He portrays the loss of the boys’ innocence as terrible, yet inevitable. Lord of the Flies presents innocence as a beautiful lie, and with the loss of that innocence comes the painful truth of the world in which Golding uses the setting, characters, and symbols to convey this meaning. Golding describes the island as an idyllic paradise that resembles the Garden of Eden and is the embodiment of the boys’ innocence, and as the …show more content…
The beast is symbolic of the evil within mankind, which is personified as “the snake-thing” by the littluns. “The snake-thing” alludes to the serpent from the Garden of Eden which tempts Adam and Eve into eating the forbidden fruit, which led to the loss of innocence. The dead parachutist at the beginning of chapter six represents the beast approaching the island, the beginning of the end of innocence, which is later mistaken as the beast by Sam and Eric. The sow’s head on a stick represents the embracement of the beast, “‘This head is for the beast. It’s a gift’” (137). Later, the sow’s head becomes known as the Lord of the Flies and is the physical representation of the devil himself, and he tells Simon the true nature of evil. The symbol that allowed the boys to embrace the beast, however, was the paint. The paint gave the boys freedom from their identity, allowing them to mercilessly kill, “and the mask became a thing of its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from his shame and self-consciousness” (64). All of these symbols contributed to the loss of the boys’ innocence; they each lead the boys down the path of evil, also known as human