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Childhood In Lord Of The Flies Essay

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Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a novel that’s shaped by its representation of childhood and adolescence. Golding portrays childhood as a time marked by tribulation and terror. The young boys in the novel are at first unsure of how to behave with no adult present. As the novel progresses the boys struggle between acting civilized and acting barbaric.

Some boys in the novel symbolize different aspects of civilization. Ralph represents leadership, civilization, and order. He decides to build huts and find ways of being rescued while the other boys play and have fun. This is why Ralph is elected leader by the boys. Ralph also refuses to give into his savage instincts over the course of the novel while the other boys gradually …show more content…

At first there really is no beast, it is just the product of their imagination but a dead parachutist lands on the island and the boys believe that it is the beast. This belief is only fueled when the twins, Sam and Eric, say that they saw the beast. The sow head that was staked and stuck in a clearing was considered by Jack’s hunters, a sacrifice to the beast on the island. The sacrifice was supposed to help the boys feel more at ease on the island, like this gesture could protect them from evil. The sow head was placed in Simon’s clearing. When Simon sees it he faints and has a vision where the head talks to him. The head reveals the truth that the boys are the beast on the island. This truth allows Simon to fully understand his own idea that the beat was “only us.” It becomes clear to him that when he said this he meant that the beast is the darkness residing inside them.
Lord of the Flies is a story where its representation of childhood and adolescence shape the meaning of the work as a whole. The boys struggle with giving into their evil instincts. Most of them give in. Golding uses this novel to show that children are not naturally good. They are evil and without the constraints of society that savagery shines through. The children are representative of all human beings. Adults have the evil instinct within them as

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