Lord of the Flies - Symbolism as Illustration of Golding's Views

    In his classic novel, Lord of the Flies, William Golding utilizes
many elements of symbolism to help accomplish his motif, which is "man
is basically evil." Symbolism can be anything, a person, place or
thing, used to portray something beyond itself. It is used to
represent or foreshadow the conclusion of the story. As one reads this
novel, he or she will begin to recognize the way basic civilization is
slowly stripped away from the boys. Let us know look closer at the
ways Golding uses this form of symbolism.

    From the very beginning of the story the boys inwardly strip
themselves of the remnants of the basic civilized world. This is
shown when the boys shed their clothes; their school sweaters, then
the rest of their clothes are torn off. Their hair becomes
increasingly disheveled, long, and entangled with small twigs. Since
the boys are left without any adult supervision they have to turn to
their collective unconscious. The collective unconscious was
discovered by the renown psychologist Carl Jung. Let us now look
further into each individual character in the novel, and discover how
they each contribute to portray the ending of the story.

    Ralph is one of the older boys on the island and remains the
leader throughout most of the novel. He is described as a pure,
English lad. Such details as his fair hair and the fact that he is
wearing his school sweater symbolizes many things. First of all the
fact that he has fair hair represents that he will be the positive
force throughout the novel, as opposed to Jack who is described as
having red hair. The fact that he keeps his school sweater symbolizes
his desire to keep the island somewhat civilized. He does everything
he can to keep the boys under some kind of society. He makes laws
including the freedom of speech. Ralph becomes very popular in the
beginning, however as the novel proceeds and the society deteriorates,
the popular leader is abandoned...