The Nature of Sin in The Scarlet Letter and Lord of the Flies Both The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Lord of the Flies by William Golding are novels with underlying themes of humanity. In both novels, the main characters are pressured by society and respond in a way that reveals much about humans and their tendency to sin. In Lord of the Flies, the boys begin to lose their sense of civilization causing their innate savageness to be released. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester and Dimmesdale’s affair is viewed as a crime by society even though it wasn’t. Using these themes and symbols, Hawthorne and Golding explain human nature and the nature of good and evil.
A common theme between both novels is that sin is a natural human quality. In The Scarlet Letter, Dimmesdale is a Reverend meaning he is a role model for all the people in Boston. Despite his high status and responsibility to lead the community, Dimmesdale sins by having an affair with
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Sin that is evil is shown to overtake a person’s soul to the point where they have no awareness of their self. In The Scarlet Letter, Chillingworth is so obsessed with vengeance that “Sometimes a light glimmered out of the physician’s eyes, burning blue and ominous” portraying that the spirit of vengeance over takes his soul (Hawthorne 193). In Lord of the Flies, the absence of order causes the Hunters, especially Jack, to be ruthless and be motivated by power. They all of a sudden forget about being rescued and have a desire to kill. During Simon’s death, “the chant lost its first superficial excitement and began to beat like a steady pulse” illustrating that they have become so vicious that they lose their awareness of their environment, and the killing becomes second nature for them. (Golding 218). None of the children are mindful of the change from civil to savage until the end when they start crying after seeing the naval