Loss of Innocence in Lord of the Flies
Loss of Innocence
“Lord of the Flies” by William Golding
We were innocent before we started to begin feeling guilty and deep inside the nook of our minds and hearts we have found a hidden treasure that we once had and now seek. One of the most precious gifts one can obtain in life is the gift of innocence and once it has been taken away it can no longer be returned. The term innocence is interpreted as “the freedom from guilt or sin through being unacquainted with evil”. Once a child is exposed to blind ideas such as believing the world is a perfect place and then realizes the cruelty which inhabits within it, innocence is lost. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies outlines how civilization allows man to remain innocent and once the needs for survival become crucial, the primitive instincts of man must come to parity with the necessities one needs to survive. While loss of innocence is a predominant theme in the novel, the symbols of the beast, the painted faces, and the forest glade help to illustrate the importance of savagery created within the boys over their time on the island. Man will always try to convince themselves that there is no evil inside of them by making something or someone else seem to be the cause of evil; this is mainly evident in the idea that the boys instill fear in themselves due to the existence of the beast. Realistically, the beast symbolizes the “inner beast” inside all of the boys on the island and eventually leads each of them to lose their innocence and increase their savage like instincts based on their fear and expansion of belief in the beasts existing. A significant part in the novel in which the beast is introduced is in Chapter 2, page 34 where one of the little boys claims that he had seen the “beastie” somewhere inside of the woods. At this early point in the novel we are able to see the imagination in which all the boys have put into effect on what exactly the “beastie” looks like and it is quite evident that Golding
“Lord of the Flies” by William Golding
We were innocent before we started to begin feeling guilty and deep inside the nook of our minds and hearts we have found a hidden treasure that we once had and now seek. One of the most precious gifts one can obtain in life is the gift of innocence and once it has been taken away it can no longer be returned. The term innocence is interpreted as “the freedom from guilt or sin through being unacquainted with evil”. Once a child is exposed to blind ideas such as believing the world is a perfect place and then realizes the cruelty which inhabits within it, innocence is lost. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies outlines how civilization allows man to remain innocent and once the needs for survival become crucial, the primitive instincts of man must come to parity with the necessities one needs to survive. While loss of innocence is a predominant theme in the novel, the symbols of the beast, the painted faces, and the forest glade help to illustrate the importance of savagery created within the boys over their time on the island. Man will always try to convince themselves that there is no evil inside of them by making something or someone else seem to be the cause of evil; this is mainly evident in the idea that the boys instill fear in themselves due to the existence of the beast. Realistically, the beast symbolizes the “inner beast” inside all of the boys on the island and eventually leads each of them to lose their innocence and increase their savage like instincts based on their fear and expansion of belief in the beasts existing. A significant part in the novel in which the beast is introduced is in Chapter 2, page 34 where one of the little boys claims that he had seen the “beastie” somewhere inside of the woods. At this early point in the novel we are able to see the imagination in which all the boys have put into effect on what exactly the “beastie” looks like and it is quite evident that Golding