Imagery In Lord Of The Flies

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Have you ever wanted to be someone you are not? Maybe worn excessive makeup, spoke, acted, or even thought in a different way to try to emulate something or someone other than yourself? The search for a more modish and better identity is nothing new to this world, and many companies find success in marketing to this wide ranging demographic of people seeking change. However, using the same techniques some use to renovate themselves, the boys in Lord of the Flies devolved their own characters both physically and mentally. In Lord of the Flies, William Golding uses the evolving symbol of face paint, which stands for the gradual dehumanization of the boys to further the message that with the aid of physical elements, regression to a person’s character …show more content…

After only having worn the paint for one or two days, their symbolism already comes into effect. It became evident to the boys wearing the disguises, and even to some who were not that, "the mask was a thing of its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness” (Goulding, 76). The camouflage that the boys used first took on a persona of its own in this scene, and it continued to grow from there. With newly found dictatorship over the boys, the mask began to influence their conscious decisions, and whenever adventure waited around the corner, it always seemed like , “"the mask compelled them” (Goulding, 76) to find it. The lure of having something that justified the hunters’ increasingly barbarian behavior, and their willingness to give into it combined to constantly give the mask more gravity. By allowing an object to enter their subliminal thoughts and have unwarranted authority over them, the boys seemingly work against themselves to chip away at their civility and sanity.
In the last few chapters of Lord of the Flies,
The painted faces originally pass as a harmless costume the boys use for camouflage and hunting, but as the book progresses and certain situations arise, the masks take into their own character and begin to morph the hunters into a sequestered and crass tribe of men lacking in any sophistication

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