Allusions In Lord Of The Flies Research Paper

Throughout history, there is one element of storytelling in literature and film that has always maintained and always will maintain to be extremely popular despite its banality: happy endings. Deep down, most people enjoy a typical satisfying resolution to a story and many often become disappointed when a novel or film fails to accomplish the “happily ever after” that they had hoped for. After all, who would desire to read a book where Harry Potter does not defeat Voldemort or watch a movie where the Avengers fail to save the world? However, in the book Lord of the Flies, author William Golding, who once actively affirmed in an interview that: “I am… by intellectual conviction a pessimist”, accomplishes that worst case scenario where a happy

Golding first establishes an allusion to this story by creating a setting at the beginning of the novel that is very similar to the Garden of Eden, where the Fall takes place (Dodson 24). A bunch of schoolboys find themselves involved in a plane crash that leads to them becoming stranded on a deserted island without any adults: “This is an island. At least I think it’s an island. That’s a reef out in the sea. Perhaps there aren’t any grownups anywhere” (Golding 2). And this island is depicted to be beautiful: “The shore was fledged with palm trees. These stood or leaned or reclined against the light and their green feathers were a hundred feet up in the air” (Golding 5). These depictions of the island parallel the perfect paradise of the Garden of Eden in the Bible. Genesis 2:8-10 says, “The Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food... A river watering the garden flowed from Eden….” The seclusion of the location, the presence of water, and the abundance of trees from the Garden of Eden are all eerily reflected into the setting of Lord of the Flies (Sinclair