Allegory In Lord Of The Flies, By William Golding

Humankind urges to suppress their savage instincts, but no matter how structured a civilization they may be a part of, one cannot escape something that is born in them and all those that surround them. The book Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, portrays a group of school boys who are stranded on an island when their plane crashes. As they struggle to survive, they progressively lose their innocence. In chapter nine, Jack and his tribe throw a party with all the boys on the island except for Simon, who discovers that the “beast” they've all been fearing is nonexistent. He limps back back to the boys, while still recovering from his faint, to tell them his good news when he is surrounded by the savage remains of the once innocent boys who
Golding displays his beliefs by using characters, objects, and events to symbolize the cruelty in society. At the end of chapter nine it says “Simon's dead body moved out towards the open sea” (Golding 136). This sentence confirms that the figure that the boys attacked was Simon. Simon is meant to be a symbol of innocence and virtue. He helps the littluns pick berries, gives Piggy some of his meat when no one else would, works hard, and takes the time to enjoy the beauty of the island in the midst of his terrible situation. When his life is taken, the last shred of the group’s humanity goes with it. In the events leading up to this moment, a storm forms among the boys. “Over the island the build-up of clouds continued…the air was ready to explode” (129). The storm embodies the maliciousness building up among the boys; in particular, the gas and fog that accumulates with the growth of a weary uneasiness that intensifies in this chapter. When an argument begins to arise between Ralph and Jack, Jack orders the boys to dance to distract them from the storm brewing in their land no shelters. The boys continue to descend deeper into savagery because of their civilization with a “no rules”, “just have fun”
Many times in the Lord of the Flies, Golding hints at the shift in character that is beginning within the boys. In chapter seven, the boys take Robert in the middle of their “dance” that goes too far as the boys begin to feel that “the desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering” (101). This is the moment the reader realizes that the boys long for the bloodshed of more than just pigs. The title of the chapter, “A view to a death”(129), refers the Simons death at the end of the chapter. Also, the phrase “revolving masses of gas piled up and the air was ready to explode” (129) refers to the tension rising between the boys that will be shown when the boys kill Simon. At the end of the previous chapter the rotting pig’s head, known as the Lord of the Flies, says “You know perfectly well you'll only meet me down there” (128). This line can be connected to the evil that is seen within the boys in chapter nine, when they kill Simon in cold blood. All of these events are just some of the ways Golding builds up to the moment the boys finally lose their sense of order and turn savage, lose their humanity, their innocence, the moment they kill