Lord Of The Flies Allegory

Lord of the Flies is a book by William Golding, a book about a group of boys that have been stranded on an island due to their plane crashing after trying to escape the ongoing war in their country. Throughout the book, Golding uses his characters and certain events to create a religious allegory, that supports his idea: humanity cannot be saved, no matter the faith of the individual. Because Golding was an atheist, he firmly believed that natural sin lies within everybody, and no god can save people from their own evil. An allegory is a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning. Symbols are used throughout the different types of medium in order to help convey the allegory that the creator wants to achieve.

In the chapter, “A View of Death”, Simon was attempting to deliver a message to the rest of the boys in order to achieve salvation, just like Jesus did. “The blue-white scar was constant, the noise unendurable. Simon was crying out something about a dead man on a hill. ‘Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!’”(Golding 152). The quote is leading up to Simon’s eventual death, while he tries to send his message to the boys about the dead body he found on a hill. Unlike Jesus, Simon does not achieve salvation. This ties to Golding’s theme of religion not being able to save humanity because in the bible Jesus was saved, but Simon was not, even though he had similar intentions as Jesus. Another religious connection with Simon is that while Simon is being murdered by the

Lord of the Flies in hebrew translates to ‘Beelzebub’, which is an alternate name for the devil and is actually used to reference the devil in the bible. In the chapter “Gift for the Darkness”, Simon has a first hand encounter with the Lord of the Flies. While walking alone in the jungle, the Lord of the Flies appeared to Simon. Lord of the Flies tries to tempt Simon into sinning and letting his evils take over him, but Simon resists. Lord of the Flies then tells Simon how the boys are going to kill him anyways. “‘--Or else,” said the Lord of the Flies, ‘we shall do you? See? Jack and Roger and Maurice and Robert and Bill and Piggy and Ralph. Do you. See?’” (Golding 144). Similar to the encounter in the book, while Jesus is on is forty days of solitude, Satan showed himself to Jesus and tried to lure Jesus into going off of the righteous way and becoming a sinner. The Lord of the Flies is attempting to do the exact same thing with Simon. At first, he’s trying to coax him into it, but then resorts to threats. The interaction between Simon and Lord of the Flies is important to Golding’s theme because although the Lord of the Flies isn’t able to coax Simon into sinning, Simon is dragged into the treacherous ways of the evil that lies within everyone when he was slaughtered by the boys. This shows that the evil within always wins, whether it's in the form