William Golding Lord Of The Flies Mask Analysis

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Golding's use of symbolism in Lord of the Flies conveys many different meanings to ordinary objects. For example a conch shell represents power and the beast represents the devil. William Golding's Lord of the Flies is about a group of boys that are stranded on an island. The book shows the boy’s changes morally and physically. During the book most of the boys change to savages to gain power. At first they have rules and its peaceful, but then Jack leads the hunters to savagery. There are many different factors that lead the boys to savagery such as fear. In William Golding's Lord of the Flies The mask symbolism changes from Jack's anonymous identity to his empowerment and eventually savagery. In the beginning of the story, the mask adds to Jack's identity by making him feel anonymous. Before he puts the mask on he is scared to kill the pig, but the addition of the mask makes him feel anonymous and he builds up the courage to kill the pig. Golding writes, “He capered toward Bill, and the mask was a thing of his own, behind which Jack hid liberated from shame and self consciousness . (Golding 64)” When Jack has …show more content…

The symbolism of the mask has made a full change from empowerment to savage as the boys are now killing everything in sight. They are doing many cruel acts and not even thinking about the consequences of their actions. Golding writes “Then Maurice pretended to be the pig and ran squealing into the center and the hunter circling still pretended to beat him and they danced and they sang. “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Bash her in.(Golding 75)” This is the result of the mask because they all feel like savages as they pretend to beat their friend. This eases them into murdering because they think that this is only pretending to hurt Maurice The mask changes from a symbol of empowerment to a symbol of