How Evil is Portrayed in Lord of the Flies by George Orwell

How Evil is Portrayed in Lord of the Flies by George Orwell

William Golding uses allegory in Lord of the Flies to portray the evil

that is in people. An allegory is a story with an underlying meaning

as well as a literal one. William Golding uses allegory on two levels

in Lord of the Flies, one relating to World War Two that had just

taken place when the book was written and another relating to Jesus

Christ and the Garden of Eden. An important aspect of the novel is the

time in which it was written, due to the Second World War ending. This

means that Golding would have experienced and seen the cruelty and

bitterness of man. William Golding had a theory as to why people do

evil things. This was known as the 'original sin' or 'inner evil'. He

believed that when you are born you have a certain amount of good and

a certain amount of evil inside you.

There are many characters that are protrayed as evil, one of which is

Roger. Roger is pure evil, and only in the last four chapters does the

reader discover this. Roger seems to be quite timid at the beginning

of the story when he marches in with the choir. However, as the story

progresses, Roger starts to show signs of evil escaping him. Roger

could be compeared to satan in an allegorical level. He can be

decribed as satan because of the number of evil acts which have been

manufested by him. He also is the one who is solely responsible for

the death of Piggy. Roger is described as a small boy with dirty and

shaggy black hair,

' he was noticeably darker than when he had dropped in, but the shock

of black hair down his nape and low on his forehead, seemed to suit

his gloomy face and ma...

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portray evil in the Lord of the Flies, such as Roger, the 'scar' and

the 'beastie'. At the end of the novel they are saved by a naval

officer. The arrival of the naval officer thus seems like a happy and

ironic ending, but if one digs deeper it is just a continuance from

one war to another. Once all the boys get on the Navy cruiser, they'll

most likely just be subjected to more battle and fighting, this time

on a worldwide level, due to the war taking place in the outside

world. Golding makes his views and messages of the 'darkness in mans

heart' with this book, because it shows us what man is capable of if

there was no social control. He has shown us that without these

conditions, our ideals, values, and the basics of right and wrong are

lost. Without society's rigid rules, anarchy and savagery can come to

light.