How Does Golding Create Mood In Lord Of The Flies

In Lord of the Flies, Golding creates a mood through indirect characterization, symbolism, and imagery in order to communicate his concern about people’s competing impulses of morality and savagery.
Golding uses symbolism to create a tense mood about the savagery that lives within all the boys. Throughout the book, it is seen that at one point or another, all of the boys end up letting out the savagery within them. They spend most of the book looking for this beast and trying to find a way to kill it or make peace with it: “Jack spoke loudly. ‘This head is for the beast, it’s a gift,’” (Golding 137). The boys killed a pig and took the head, which Jack claims they will give to the beast as a gift. The pig is symbolic of their innocence that

Jack had a sudden and drastic change in mindset when in the beginning, he struggled to find his inner savagery, to at the end, being the most savage character in the story. In the beginning, Jack attempts to kill a pig for food: “He rushed out of the undergrowth and snatched up his spear. The pattering of pig’s trotters died away in the distance,” (Golding 49). Jack couldn’t even kill a pig because a part of him was too scared to do it. He’s struggling between morality and savagery because he wants to kill the pig, but he’s being held back by his morals. Later, however, Jack led his group to kill a human being: “At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt onto the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws,” (Golding 153). From struggling to even kill a pig, to killing an entire human being, it is clear that Jack had a rapid and intense shift in mindset. Jack lost almost all of what seems to others as common sense, but in his mind he’s just doing what it takes to survive. Jack’s fight is more difficult than others, and he’s let the savagery win. It concerns the author because he worries how many people in real life may let savagery

Ralph is one of the most moral characters in the story, his only goal is to get rescued, but when put in the right situation, even he taps into his inner savagery. When Ralph saw a ship, he got so excited at the thought of being rescued: “Ralph ran stumbling along the rocks, saved himself on the edge of the pink cliff, and screamed at the ship. ‘Come back! Come back!’ He ran backward and forwards along the cliff, his face always to the sea and his voice rose insanely,” (Golding 68). Ralph is a moral thinker, seen by his actions when the ship came by. He doesn’t want to stay on the island; he wants to leave, unlike some of the other boys. He would’ve done anything to get the attention of the ship and was extremely upset when he failed to catch their attention. However, when put into the situation where the rest of the boys are killing Simon, he is seen to partake in their savage ways: “Piggy and Ralph, under the threat of the sky, found themselves eager to take a place in this demented but partly secure society,” (Golding 152). Even though Ralph had no interest in this savage way, he still partook in the killing of Simon. He felt pressured, and threatened by the other boys, but also found that the society that the other boys had created felt somewhat secure. While it’s possible to believe that some people don’t struggle between