Essay On Lord Of The Flies Allegory

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WWII was a nightmare for a lot of people, now imagine this nightmare but in child’s form. That is basically what the book, Lord of the Flies, is about because it’s an allegory to the war. Meaning almost everything and character in the story somehow ties into or symbolizes a part of this war. In his novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding uses symbolism and characters to create an allegory for WWII which is demonstrated through Ralph and the Beast. Ralph is just a kid who was elected chief of the tribe on the island, and he is an allegory for WWII that represents the United States’ part played in the war. Accordingly, Ralph was the one of the few kids on the island who actually saw the situation as it was and tried explaining this to the …show more content…

Incidentally, the beast which sort of represents fear caused the kids to fight harder even though it was, “A snake-thing. Ever so big” (Golding 35). The Beast, although just a figment of their imagination, made the children go insane enough to murder their own friend savagely because they were scared. Propaganda during WWII was very similar, it was made so that people would see it and it would give them a sense of fear and would trick them into doing stuff they wouldn’t have considered before. Similarly enough, they did ended up gathering enough courage to attack what they believed to be the beast and, “At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, lept on to the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore” (Golding 153). Although this necessarily wasn’t actually the beast they grew to believe and was consequently Simon, they did muster up the strength to attack the “beast” for the greater good of the island and for their own survival. During WWII, without the propaganda people wouldn’t have been so confused due to the misleading information therefore their judgement on the situation wouldn’t have been as clouded. Fear through all different nations was the reason that Germany got away with doing what they did which makes the book Lord of the Flies an