Essay On The Mask In Lord Of The Flies

Humans have a monster inside of them that is subdued by society, and if society is taken away, then that “monster” will consume them. This is true for most people, but not all humans are like that. One of the most notable humans to over come the “monster” is Simon, a character from the book “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding. The story is set on an island in the Pacific Ocean. A plane full of British schoolboys crash lands on an island and they’re stranded there with no adults, no society, and no rules. Simon is one of the few characters that stay sensible and good throughout the story. He has a sixth sense about things happening around him, he is kindhearted, and he faints a lot which give the appearance of him being weak.

Golding utilizes symbolism of the mask to depict Jack’s growing savagery attitude toward the population and denial of civilization. “The mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness.” According to the text, it is fair to say that the mask is a representation of evil and Jack’s denial of morality and civilization. “I cut the pig’s throat…There was lashing of blood”. As someone who was hesitant in even stabbing a pig, now vividly describes the gruesome steps he took to slaughter a pig after putting on the mask. In normal contexts, masks would be used for camouflaging purposes. However, in this context, the mask uncovers the savagery within Jack. This is proven in the book because only after he

The mask shows the beginning and the end of the boys on the island. At the beginning they were all together, they feared for the beast together, and worked together. The island is first described with large palm trees, and the boys are smiling and playing. In the end half, the island is burned down, boys are dead, and the boys have become savages. One side of the mask shows the boys together with a shelter, and the possible beasts. The other side shows the boys split with the island crying at all the damage, and there is no longer a beast since they are the beast. The land has been destroyed with the boys who died in the sea, and the once standing shelter is now broken. They are no longer civilized and may have now shown their true

This mask depicts Jack’s identity from the book Lord of the Flies. Starting from the bottom of the mask, there is a quote from Jack which is one of the last things he says before leaving Ralph’s group: “I’m not going to play any longer. Not with you”. This quote is significant to Jack because not only does it show the end of the impact on Jack that the tamed and edified society Ralph has developed, it shows how childish he is. Before Jack says this, he puts Ralph’s conch on the grass in front of him and cries.

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

When I was told what this assignment was, I knew almost immediately what I was going to base my mask off of. The entire book, The Lord of the Flies, is a metaphor for how corrupt society is. I wanted my mask to reflect this proposition. The evilness of man and his want to destroy stood out to me because I thought it was a very serious topic that not many people ever consider. Hardly anyone wants to think about how unscrupulous man’s heart is.

Masks embody a side of ourselves many do not particularly know they have. Many masks are unrecognizable to the human eye, but come to appear when people are around certain others, for example many would not act the same around a teacher versus a friend. Throughout history masks have been worn even by the most cruel men and women; German Nazis. These soldiers of World War II, all wore an appearance that hides their true identity; a shaved head and a uniform transformed, these people into hostile animals. William Golding a film directory and school teacher, noticed these transformations due to being the army at the time and wrote about it in his,novel Lord of the Flies.

Lord of the Flies, an allegorical novel by William Golding, holds truths about mankind’s true nature of existence. The novel explores the savagery in all men that lies dormant, yet when society’s rules cease to exist, the boy’s innocence perishes along with it. The boys attempt to band together and mock the society that they came from, but not understanding the complexity of the situation, results in their society falling into ruins. On the island the boys are returned to man’s primitive nature, without rules or discipline, and they slowly drift into anarchy. Without proper guidance, the boys resort to cloaking their innocence with body paint to survive. With the body paint coating their skin, the boys bury their old personas within and allow themselves to commit acts that society would frown upon. When Jack’s tribe uses the facade of body paint to dissociate themselves from civilization’s morals, they denote that hiding one’s true identity liberates them from the constraints of society.

In the story “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding, he shows how the boys lost all innocence and civilization. The boys went from having innocent child minds to taking lives of other people, acting savage, and losing all civilization due to problems on the island. The boys had forgotten where they came from and became savage in order to survive; it was the need of survival that caused the loss of innocence among the boys.

Lord of the Flies Symbolism Analysis “There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs” (George R.R Martin). Once humankind is granted with power, the inner beast receives the opportunity to break through and bring forth chaos. As a group of innocent, British boys attempted to venture home, their plane crashed onto an uninhabited island. Consequently, the energetic boys had to create a system of living without the guidance of adults. As time passed, the reader was shown through the many symbols Golding used, that the boy’s system of living crumbled to barbaric savagery.

However, I notice that without structure and discipline in the classrooms, chaos seems to arise. Without discipline from authoritative figures, we forget who’s in charge and the well-behaved way to act. My mask displays that on the outside we tend to show our side that we want people to see, but if we take off the layers, our true instincts of human nature will take over. While creating my mask, the only alternative idea that I considered was to show the qualities of Jack. However, I soon realized that I was able to show the inner-workings of the mind while still including some traits and qualities of the characters from the novel (ex.

Through Jack’s literal mask, Golding exemplifies that all of us are hiding, residing behind the safety and comfort of a mask. When someone puts on a “mask” it transforms them into a completely different person. Jack, he looks at himself in the reflection of a coconut shell filled with water “in astonishment, no longer at himself but at an awesome stranger. He spilt the water and leapt to his feet, laughing excitedly” (Golding 63). The mask hides Jack’s insecurities, his weakness, and his lack of courage.

I picked my topic thinking of how I can make the mask look the best it can be, so I picked the pig because I can make it look the way it was described in the book. It was described in the book as a severed pig’s head on a stick. This topic stood out to me because of the symbolism it displays. It displays the inner evil in every boy on the island. I connect to this mask because there are some times in my life where I feel like there is a part of my mind that is trying to take control over the rest of my mind at some times. This is exactly how the boys felt about the beast in the novel. I had also thought about making the masks of Jack, Ralph, or Piggy. I didn’t choose to make them because I felt like there would be too much conflict in the detailing

Everyone uses masks to free them to do, say or act in a manner that they normally wouldn’t. People use them all the time, whether it is just changing to treat someone a certain way or just needing to be a different way to make a situation better, but can also be used in harmful ways that can be used to compel violence. Masks manipulate us to hide from our true selves, they will make the one who wears one inferior to all others. In the story, The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the world is in the middle of the biggest war ever, the power of masks and anonymity throughout this time period establish the terror. They put on these masks to give them the freedom to commit terrorizing acts and have no shame, alike with how William Golding allowed his characters have their power over the others. Golding had his characters apply paint to their faces which then altered the boy's mindset to act in a detrimental way. The mindset these boys obtain leads to many cruel parts in the story, including the killing of other boys on the island. This demonstrates the effect and power of being anonymous that is provided to these blood-thirsty boys. Before Jack and the boys used their masks to release their inner-savage, they were civilized, but having anonymity enables them to kill, not only pigs but other boys.

Everyone thinks of a mask, as a silly object that makes people laugh, the book Lord of The Flies proves otherwise. To begin with, the English boys were on a plane heading towards safety from the German air raids, until all of a sudden the plane started heading down for an island. As the plane was inching towards the deep jungles of the island, it hit with a sudden strike that scared every living thing in its way. Everyone survived the plane crash except the pilot who probably shot right through his window like a slingshot. An English boy named Ralph and his new friend Piggy were the first of the characters to find each other after the accident. Often Ralph teased him because his name was Piggy and it matched him perfectly. Piggy was fat, stubby, wore glasses, and had asthma. As the boys wandered the island they found a conch shell within thick vines. They managed to get it out, and Ralph blew into it a couple of times. Suddenly, every boy from the plane crash was alarmed and they started to walk over to Ralph. Consequently, the teenage boys and the littluns established order and gave each other specific jobs to accomplish while staying on the island. Ralph was in charge of making shelter with a couple of other boys, while a boy named Jack was in charge of the choir, but later on became in charge of the hunters. The mask in Lord of The Flies begins as a symbol of surviving, becomes violent, and concludes as a symbol of evil.