While exploring an unknown island and striving to survive, a group of adolescent boys reveal their primitive, barbarous identities in William Golding’s work, Lord of the Flies. Similarly, Paul Laurence Dunbar, an African American poet, describes the hidden nature of individuals in order to protect themselves and conceal their pain. Golding’s novel and Dunbar’s poem, “We Wear the Mask,” both express masks as ways for individuals to escape reality and as a source of strength; however, the characters in Dunbar’s poem are restricted by the pressures of society while the boys in Lord of the Flies unleash true feelings through their innate savageness.
In Lord of the Flies, the newfound freedom on the deserted island and liberation from authority allows the adolescents to completely change their attitudes and live a new life altogether. Through a change in appearance, Jack, a prominent figure in the novel, enters a new fantasy-like world that he could never dream of while in his hometown. Filled with a hunger for power, Jack uses red and brown colors to create his “new face” to not only distinguish himself as "an awesome stranger" but to appear dominating (Golding 63). Golding’s diction illustrates Jack’s attraction to the nature of the island which manipulates him into thinking that he can experience a different life and live independently without the masking of Britain’s society to preserve civility. He uses the words “stranger” and “new face” to demonstrate the vast change in