Lotf

Julie Rosario European Literature Ms. Sipars November 27, 2012 Religious Allegory in Lord of the Flies Lord of the Flies, which William Golding wrote in the early 1950s, shows the evil in all humanity. He uses the actions of the characters and setting to portray a religious allegory. The boys’ becoming savage is an example of the fall of mankind. The island is created in the likeness of the Garden of Eden; this is where the boys fall into their savage ways. The religious allegory portrayed in Lord of the Flies shows that the fight between good and evil is endless. In the beginning of the book, a plane filled with English schoolboys crashes into an unknown island. Another representation is when one of the boys, by the name of Ralph, began to go down toward the lagoon with his school sweater taken off (Golding 7). This act represents the innocence of Adam and Eve’s nudity in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were considered innocent before they sinned. The act is also considered as the act of baptism, in which, you purify yourself. The same with the boys, they were considered both pure and innocent before they became savage and evil. Ralph then becomes leader and goes with two boys, Jack and Simon, to explore the island. As they explore the island they see the beauty of the island. The island resembles the Garden of Eden from Genesis, with its amazing scenery, abundant fruit, and ideal weather. As the book continues, the boys find out that there is a creature lurking around island. This creature is referred to as the “snake-thing”. In here Golding shows how the boys on the island soon became corrupt by fear. The “Beast” represents Satan in the form of a snake in the Garden of Eden. In a sense the boys were not like Adam and Eve because they did not mistaken it for an external force. They realize it was something inside them, such as, the evil that dwells in us. Golding extends the Edenic allusion when he presents the contentment of island life as soon corrupted by fear, a moment that is first signified by reports of a creature the boys refer to as "snake-thing." The "snake-thing" recalls the presence of Satan in the Garden of Eden, who disguised himself as a serpent. But unlike Adam and Eve, the boys are mistaken about the creature, which is not a force external (like Satan) but a projection of the evil impulses that are innate within themselves and the human psyche. Still, it is the boys' failure to recognize the danger of the evil within themselves that propels them deeply into a state of savagery and violence. They continue to externalize it as a beast (again "Lord of the Flies" and "the Beast" are used in religion to refer to Satan), but they become more and more irrational in their perception of it, and they end up developing alternative religious ideas about the Beast and what it wants and does.