The Mask Of Symbols In Lord Of The Flies

Similar to William Golding’s idea of mankind, William James, who was an American philosopher, had the idea that, “We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.” This idea transfers nicely to William Goldings’ book, Lord of the Flies, which follows British boys who have been stranded on a deserted island, and now must survive, using their surroundings, as well as their wit. However, it isn’t all smooth sailing for the boys, and eventually almost all of them become savage-like, and disconnected from the outside world. The conch, and the mask are both important symbols in the book, that demonstrate how the boys turn from innocent school-boys to unforgiving beasts, capable of evil.

In the beginning of the novel, Jack’s mask represents hiding from himself and to hide from the responsibility of the real world. Jack is standing over the water when he begins to create the mask out of different colors of charcoal. Once he creates his mask, he sees himself in the reflection of the water, “he began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling. He capered toward Bill, and the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid liberated from shame and self-consciousness” (Golding 64). He becomes a different person and hides from his true self. A sense of anonymity arises to help relieve

Red, brown, green, blue, colors that surround us everyday, yet somehow the human fascination of applying them to their face makes them seem all the more fun, and interesting. This newfound interest could even leak through to the mind beneath, giving way to a whole new person. In his 1954 novel, Lord of the Flies, William Golding illustrated this idea in a way that captured the hearts of many and led the story to fame, concocting a reality that had since resided only in the nightmares of children. Inventing a world in which masks of paint were not a fun thing you got at a fair, but a living horror and uncontrollable enemy. Masks are common in our world. They are worn on holidays and to parties. Nearly everyone can recognize at least on

Symbols in literature are like the Earth, there are multiple layers until you get to the core meaning. In the novel, The Lord of the Flies, William Golding, utilizes symbols in order to get his deeper meaning across. In a novel about boys isolated on an island during the time period of World War II, Golding shows the outcomes of what isolation can have on a group of people. While trying to get these messages across, the author uses symbols as an aid These symbols range from strength, hope, and fear. One of the most important symbols in the book is Jack’s mask. The mask starts out as a way to help Jack hunt and grows from there. Therefore, Jack’s mask begins as protection from Jack’s own identity, evolves to his strength, and

In the “Lord of the Flies,” William Golding uses ordinary items to symbolize bigger universal ideas. These symbols can be seen throughout the text and will evolve as the story progresses. In the beginning of the Lord of the Flies, one of the most frequent topic the boys discuss is hunting and their desire to have meat. However, not a single boy is able to hunt successfully as they are all afraid of killing another living thing. The boys only have a successful hunt when they use the mask. The mask in the Lord of the Flies is one of the many symbols used to communicate Golding’s universal ideas. When the mask is used in the Lord of the Flies the mask serves the purpose to hide the boys from the pigs when they hunt. However, when the text is examined in an allegorical means, the mask can be defined as hiding from oneself, strength, and savagery. The allegorical definition of the mask, proves how the mask does not only hide the boys from the pigs, but also hides the boy’s inner connections with their former selves. The mask in the Lord of the Flies initiates as hiding from oneself, evolves to strength, and ends a savagery.

The novel Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding is a very iconic book in my opinion. This novel consists mostly of symbolism. Lord of the Flies talked about the relationship of teenage boys who survived a plane crash together. The boys are all on their own and struggling. They encounter many incidences that comply symbolism. A couple of the acts of symbolism are the beast the boys kept imagining, Piggy’s glasses, and the conch. The boys are all afraid of the beast, Piggy’s glasses demonstrate the fact that he saw everything more clear then the boys and how he started the fire. Lastly, the last of the most important symbolisms in the novel is the conch, showing the civilization and order.

My contrasting mask was Creon. This masks opposes Antigone´s, and is full of darker colors, scary features, and words with a negative connotation. The dark colors are for his control, and love for power. Creon´s picture in my mind is a very scary person, therefore skulls and fire were included on this mask. Words such as control and power were added as well. Creon had all the wrong ideas about ruling a kingdom, for he was controlling and

“Beside the pool his sinewy body held up a mask that drew their eyes and appalled them. He began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling.” Often in literature symbols are used to portray a concept or idea. Lord of the Flies is a prominent user of symbolism, whether it’s characters or objects, many things in the story represents something that it does not physically appear to represent. While using all of this symbolism, the author of Lord of the Flies, William Golding, expertly uses show don’t tell. One very unique and interesting use of symbolism he uses is in the way the characters are dressed and the way they look as symbols. The outward appearance of the boys on the island is used as a symbol to show the mental state

Masks are a covering for parts of the face that are worn for a disguise, pleasure, or to scare people. Greek theatre utilizes masks innumerable times for evident characters in their plays. The actors/actresses who position their masks on, become divergent people. The denotation the boys’ have behind the mask is unique from when they have the mask off. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the mask is used as a disguise from their normal society and civilization. Jack, Ralph and Roger prove that this statement is true throughout the novel. Golding once said that civilization is “the mask which enables the individual to hide his primitive nature.” This illustrates how one will disguise himself as someone or something that triggers their primal nature. William Golding’s purpose in writing this novel is to present to the readers when an individual loses connections with society they can regenerate one's true self to become someone they are not. The masks are utilized by these three characters to shield their nefarious doings. Jack, Ralph and Roger all have measures that delineate the diabolic and shadow within all humanity.

People hide their true identities behind masks they create and perfect. Some of them are stronger than others and therefore they create stronger masks. Even though Ralph gets elected as a leader, Jack seems to be stronger. Though, not a stronger personality, but rather by intimidating the smaller kids and gaining power from it. He then builds his very own mask: “Jack planned his new face. He made one cheek and one eye-socket white, then he rubbed red over the other half of his face and slashed a black bar of charcoal across from right ear to left jaw […] He looked in astonishment, no longer at himself but at an awesome stranger” (63). By putting the different colors on his face, Jack creates a new self. At

There is something that all people have in common: masks. Whether it is behind a computer screen, a Halloween mask, or makeup, all people have one thing that they hide their true identity behind. At the time, World War II was a furious war filled with atomic bombs and thousands of deaths. Soldiers across the country were putting on their uniform and going out to battle. Millions of people died during this war- and most of them were ordinary civilians. A war this destructive convinced William Golding, a schoolteacher and film director, to not only join the army, but also to write about it. In Lord of the Flies, Golding uses his knowledge of war and humanity to create a book featuring the war inside humans. A major topic he used in his novel to show the darkness in a man’s heart was the theme of masks. The anonymity of a mask is something that is pondered by the characters in the book, especially by Ralph- the athletic and charismatic boy on an island filled mostly with savages. The savagery comes out as a result of the masks worn by the boys on the island. By putting on a mask, the boys were able to let their inner savages come out and commit violence against others. Wearing a mask increases the boy's willingness to dehumanize themselves because the taboos of society are gone, it allows them to let their inner beast out, and the anonymity relieves the wearer of responsibility.

Symbolism is the door to an author’s mind, it opens up our deeper understanding of their ideas and beliefs. In the novel, “Lord of the Flies” written by William Golding, we can see where he stands on his point of view of society. Golding believes that everyone has evil within them, it just takes a certain match to light the fire, like Jack, who’s inner evil came forward when he painted on his clay mask. What also came across from the novel was that without rules, order, and agreement, people are forced to turn into savages blinded by hatred and their thirst for power. What kept this from escalating was the conch shell which signified order within the boys until it was destroyed, causing chaos and disorder throughout the island. Going to our final symbol, what does the ocean, the thing that surrounds the

We have just finished the book Lord Of The Flies by William Golding to which everyone loved in definitely. Something noticed throughout the whole book is the ongoing use of symbolism in the book. Symbolism is the use of symbols to represent an idea or qualities. There are many different symbols in the book whether it be very noticeable to which i'm trying to say is something that the books points out itself, but their is also some hidden ones which makes it feel like a “Where’s Waldo,” type of book. We had socratic seminars in our classroom.

Their masks hide the evil dwelling within their innocent souls, waiting to be set free. It emits human personalities and behaviors, allowing it to be impenetrable by visual perception. With these masks as a cover, Jack and his tribe members interact nicely; chaos rips through their society when they allowed their masks to fall off throughout many sequences of events.

Lord of the Flies is an enthralling novel written by William Golding which incorporates a multitude of subjects, including, but not limited to: fear, conflict, civilization, and savagery. I chose to create a mask which resembles Jack. An alternative idea that I considered was to make one side of the mask a bad character representing the id such as Jack and the other half another character a good character representing the superego like Piggy. I did not choose this idea because I know a lot of other people had this idea or very similar so I just decided to focus on one character. Jack as a character is unique to me compared to other characters because he is the antagonist of the novel. The arrogance he has and the hostility he shows to others