The Truth In Lord Of The Flies

William Golding’s 1954 novel Lord of the Flies is about young British boys seeking for civilization. The novel is set on an uninhabited island that first seems like a paradise, but the boys find out it is really not what it first seems to be. The main characters discover what they are really like on the inside through the many challenges and fears they are faced with on the island. The characters struggle to get along with each other as they have very different ways of doing things; logical, impulsive and a split between the two. These differences in personalities cause a series of tragic events that no one is willing to speak of and therefore lie about them. This denial of the truth comes in the form of the refusal to talk about what happened
He has not been seen since the attempt to build a signal fire went terribly wrong and set one side of the mountain, the side on which the boy had been playing, on fire. Evidence of the boy’s absence is seen when Piggy says, “That little ‘un had a mark on his – face – where is – he now? I tell you I don’t see him,” (Golding 47). Piggy, being the most intelligent person on the island, is the first to realize that this boy is missing and likely knows that he is dead. But he is trying to avoid the thought of death as much as possible, as they have just arrived on the island. After this incident the avoidance of this topic is apparent, although the narrator mentions the boy one more time. The narrator is talking about Henry when he says, “He was alst6o a distant relative of that other boy whose mulberry marked face had not been seen since the evening of the great fire,” (62). Although Henry is related he is too young to understand that the boy is ceased. The narrator mentions the dead boy, but no one on the island will talk about the truth and therefore avoid
Although they may know the truth, they choose to deny it for their own wellbeing. They deny what happened to the mulberry marked boy to avoid feeling guilty. Similarly, when Simon is murdered, they attempt to avoid the topic to keep away from feeling responsible for his death, although all the boys on the island took part in his death. Piggy is a representation of truth and knowledge, this is the reason why he is not well accepted by any of the boys on the island. Golding used the theme of denial very cleverly. This theme is very important to the structure of the novel, without this theme the outcome of this writing would have greatly differed and would have caused many changes throughout the