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Savagery In Lord Of The Flies

Decent Essays

Mary Shelley once said in her novel Frankenstein, "No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.", this describes how savage choices may not seem savage when they are made. In Lord of the flies, by William Golding, the main characters start off civilly immediately after they crash on a deserted island, then become savage slowly, then all at once when there are no rules to govern right and wrong. William Golding uses the change in the boy's hair to show that savagery overcomes civility when people are influenced by a lengthy period of time without structure. Throughout Lord of the Flies the boys appearances are more important when they act civilly than when they turn to savagery. At one point, …show more content…

In the beginning Ralph was just a fair-haired boy, but he changed and became darker, “His hair was full of dirt and tapped like the tendrils of a creeper. All over he was scratched and bruised from his flight through the forest. By the time his breathing was normal again, he had worked out that bathing these injuries would have to wait.”(183). This illustrates the effect of being hunted has on him physically, (his wounds), and mentally, (putting his safety over comfort in survival mode).Ralph's hair looking like the creepers the littluns once feared is a metaphor for how the others and himself view him: as something different and dangerous. It is made clear that piggy does not go through the changes the others do, “Piggy wore the remainders of a pair of shorts, his fat body was golden brown, and the glasses still flashed when he looked at anything. He was the only boy on the island whose hair never seemed to grow. The rest were shock-headed, but Piggy’s hair still lay in wisps over his head as though baldness were his natural state and this imperfect covering would soon go, like the velvet on a young stag’s antlers.”(64). He has not accepted the island and is still civilized, which is supported by the metaphor of piggy's hair being like velvet on a young stags antlers, so it seems as if he should change soon but remains his natural state. His and Ralph's hair reflects on their respective mindsets-chaotic versus

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