In Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ and Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies’, the portrayal of disturbed characters differentiates. The story of Macbeth was set in medieval Scotland during an era where fear and violence dominated the world; a society where clans fought for power and craved the title of being the next king. In the play Macbeth is a glorified solider that meets his fate after being led astray by selfish ambitions. Similarly, Golding’s experience with World War Two had a profound effect on his view of humanity and the evils of which it was capable. His novel demonstrates a postmodernism view – the principal that rejects the idea of objective truth and universal social progress- by leaving boys stranded in an island. Free from the rules that the adult society formerly imposed on them, the boys struggle to maintain a civilised community and finally descend into anarchy. Both writers have different opinions toward the definition of disturbed and this is reflected through their characters.
Atmosphere and settings are used by both Golding and Shakespeare to foreshadow future events. In the Lord of the Flies, the island stands as an allegorical object representing the general modernist view of civilisation: that the world is improving and that progress is inevitable. With its “dazzling beach” and “open sea”, the island almost creates the sense that it is the Garden of Eden; a place of perfection. However, the image becomes tainted when the reader realises that the island is not pristine: it is marked by a “scar”. Although this “scar” was caused by the plane crash that brought the boys to the island, it can be interpreted in a way that allows us to understand what or who Golding classifies as disturbed. This flaw, on the otherwise untouc...
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...s crime has awakened in him a powerful sense of guilt that will hound him throughout the play. The King's blood serves as the symbol of that guilt and in Macbeth's eyes, “all great Neptune’s ocean” cannot cleanse him of the blood and of the guilt that comes with the crime, he states that there is enough blood on his hands to turn the entire sea red. Lady Macbeth shares different ideas, she thinks that “a little water” would clear them of their deed, this juxtaposes Macbeth’s thoughts because of the large scale of difference between a little water and all the water in the sea. But, as Lady Macbeth eventually realizes, that the blood symbolizes the guilt that sits like a permanent stain on the consciences of both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, one that hounds them to their graves. Whilst Jack rejoices at the success of his first kill, Macbeth is traumatised by the ordeal.
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies portrays the lives of young British boys whose plane crashed on a deserted island and their struggle for survival. The task of survival was challenging for such young boys, while maintaining the civilized orders and humanity they were so accustomed too. These extremely difficult circumstances and the need for survival turned these innocent boys into the most primitive and savaged mankind could imagine. William Golding illustrates man’s capacity for evil, which is revealed in man’s inherent nature. Golding uses characterization, symbolism and style of writing to show man’s inhumanity and evil towards one another.
Nobel Laureate Sir William Golding’s Lord of the Flies(1953) has become a compulsory stop on the route of any surveyor of the English novel published in the second half of the twentieth century. During an atomic war, an aeroplane carrying a group of young English school boys is shot down and the party is marooned on an island in the Pacific. The boys, with no elders around, initially try to organize themselves by laying down rules and calling assemblies by means of a conch. Their leader at this stage is Ralph, symbolizing the good, helped by an obese, asthmatic Piggy, symbolizing practical commonsense. But the group slowly regresses to savagery led by the hot-blooded choir leader Jack Merridew, symbolizing evil. There ensues a spate of killings by Jack and his hunters who have let loose a reign of terror and work on fear psychosis. Just at the moment when Ralph is about to be killed by Jack, a naval officer arrives on a rescue ship and escorts the boys back to civilization. However, the Edenic island is on fire and in this realistic novel, Golding shows symbolically the fall of man; democracy is made to bow down before dictatorship; evil wins at the expense of good; and civilization loses at the hands of barbarism.
No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.’ Here Shakespeare uses the language technique of allusion in conjunction with symbolism to express how much Macbeth is overwhelmed with guilt from murdering King Duncan. The first question Macbeth asks to himself is him wondering if the guilt inside him will ever leave, and the second part is him realising that the murder was so bad - that guilt will never be rid from his conscious. We see this again later in the play after Macbeth is responsible for more murders: “… I am in blood Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more. Returning were as tedious as go o’er” The blood spoken about is used in both a literal and symbolic sense.
William Golding’s novel ‘The Lord of The flies’ presents us with a group of English boys who are isolated on a desert island, left to try and retain a civilised society. In this novel Golding manages to display the boys slow descent into savagery as democracy on the island diminishes.
Evil is an inescapable consequence of human nature, and in the correct setting, this intrinsic evil of humanity will emerge. In Lord of the Flies, the island acts as a microcosm presenting the real world, yet it is left uncharted to creating a bare environment away from the destructive nature of humanity. The novel explores the notion in which man destroys every beautiful environment they settle in, and that when in a bare setting, free of social construct, the evil and primal urges would surface. When the boys first arrive on the island, Golding paints it to be beautiful and not yet spoiled by man, highlighted in the use of personification in ‘the palm-fronds would whisper, so that spots of blurred sunlight slid over their bodies’ which creates
In the novel, Lord of the Flies, William Golding writes about a group of boys stranded on an uninhabited island during the time of World War II. He uses many symbols to show how we all can resort to savagery. Shown through the natural instincts of the boys and the turn of events on the island, Golding uses a psychological allegory to illustrate the savagery built into human nature.
The book “lord of the flies” is a well- known novel written by the acknowledged author, William Golding. The book indicates that it takes place in the midst of an unspecified nuclear war, when several British children, and specifically boys, are send away in order to survive. Based on real life events, William Golding deflects perfectly the sad consequences of war in contrast to the native spark of hope that’s flickering inside every human being through the eyes of the purest creatures in this world, children.
William Golding’s novel ‘The Lord of The Flies’ tells the story of a group of English boys isolated on a desert island, left to attempt to retain civilisation. In the novel, Golding shows one of the boys, Jack, to change significantly. At the beginning of the book, Jack’s character desires power and although he does not immediately get it, he retains the values of civilized behaviour. However, as the story proceeds, his character becomes more savage, leaving behind the values of society. Jack uses fear of the beast to control the other boys and he changes to become the book’s representation of savagery, violence and domination. He is first taken over with an obsession to hunt, which leads to a change in his physical appearance This change of character is significant as he leads the other boys into savagery, representing Golding’s views of there being a bad and unforgiving nature to every human.
The Deterioration of the Sense of Order on the Island over the Course of Golding's Lord of the Flies
After the first murder scene, when Macbeth stabs King Duncan in his sleep, he encounters a great deal of guilt towards the murder. This is shown by a quote from Macbeth, "With all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas in carnadine, making the green one red", at this point in the play, blood is resembled mostly by guilt. What Macbeth is really saying is that not even the entire ocean could wash his hands clean of blood from this dirty deed he had committed. He feels that what he had done was so wrong and shameful there is not a way in the world to hide it, the ocean is an excellent way to portray this. After the discovery of Duncan’s murder in the third scene, Macbeth exaggerates the king’s wounds," His silver skin lac’d with his golden blood, and gash’d stabs look’d like a breach in nature..." Macbeth most likely said this to drive away any thought of him being the murderer. The word "golden" resembles the King’s blood, referring to his social status not only as a King, but as a well liked member of society. The word “blood,” produces a dreadful description of the king’s murder which aids the audience in picturing this horrific murder scene.
In conclusion, William Golding uses a complex combination of diction, devices, sentence structure and theme to inspire the atmosphere of danger in the passage in the novel Lord of the Flies. Various hints are given throughout the writing that suggest that Castle Rock may not be all that it seems to be: a safe place that could use the tide to protect them from predators. All of these components of the passage work together efficiently to not only create this atmosphere, but to create a deeper understanding of the section, encouraging the reader to read between the lines.
William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, is one of symbolism and allegory. William Golding uses his novel to prove fear to be mankind’s greatest weakness. The allegory in this novel reveals that not only is fear mankind’s greatest weakness, but it also brings out the inner-beast in people; forcing mankind into either insanity or their own destruction. William Golding captures this allegory through symbolism in the characters of Ralph, Jack, and the Lord of the Flies (the beast), as well as using their interactions with each other and the island.
“Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?” expresses Macbeth’s extreme quilt, and the fact that he believed that if he were to wash his hand in the ocean, it would all turn completely-blood red, due to the severity of the deed committed. It is a hyperbole.
By committing such a horrendous crime, Macbeth’s shameful heart will endlessly bleed of wounds due to the immense guilt, leaving his sin unjustifiable. After the murder of Duncan, Macbeth is filled with remorse due to his sinful deed, thus he expressed his guilt saying, “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red” (II, ii, 78-81). With the blood that Macbeth has smeared from his unclean hands, he confides in how not even all the water from the Mediterranean Sea can wash away the fresh blood he has spilled, let alone Neptune, the Roman God of the sea, cannot exculpate the stained blood, but instead, it will diffuse contaminating the whole sea, turning it red. For this reason, Macbeth’s guilt is unjustifiable for even a God canno...
Walter Raleigh once said, “All men are evil and will declare themselves to be so when occasion is offered.” Raleigh’s ideas of a man’s human nature to be villainous goes hand in hand with William Golding’s fictional novel, Lord Of The Flies. His book follows the disturbing events of a group British school boys, during the height of World War II. The boys endure a horrible plane crash, which leaves them deserted on an uninhabited island without any adults. Golding uses his writing to convey to reads that when man is not confined by the rules and regulations of society they revert to dangerous behaviour and fully immerse themselves into the evil that lives within.