Loss Of Innocence In Lord Of The Flies Essay

In Peter Brook’s Lord of the Flies, the viewer is trapped on the same island as Ralph, Jack, Piggy, Simon and many other boys who are scared and hungry. Over the course of time, the majority of the boys struggle with their human dignity and start to become little savages. They kill and cut the heads off of pigs and they even beat poor little helpless Simon to death. The viewer also experiences the same loss of innocence as the boys when they have to start taking care of themselves and the younger boys, and in doing so, do what they must to survive.
From the very beginning of the film, they boys are already split by the two who want to be leaders. Jack immediately jumps up and says he should be the rightful leader, but when put to the vote,

Ralph is elected leader. From this moment on, Jack is clearly bitter and in the end will do whatever it takes to become the leader of the boys.

(1)Jack declares himself and the boys from his school to be the hunters because he enjoys killing things and he’s got a knife. These boys are already starting to lose their innocence because they are forced to kill if they want meat. Boys this young should not have to kill their own food as well as gut it and skin it. (2)The twins say that they have seen a beast and so naturally, in order to keep everyone calm, a few of the older boys must go out and start looking for it so they can kill it and keep everyone safe. These young boys who are probably scared of what might be out there themselves, must go looking for something that could potentially be dangerous, and all they have to defend themselves are sticks. (3)Another scene in the film shows a naked boy being whipped with a stick. The reason he is being punished is not clear, but the fact that boys his own age are punishing him, when he, like them, is stuck on

this deserted island without any adults, readily available food and water, reveals to the viewer how the boys quickly stopped behaving like children and grew up before it was their time. (4) Throughout the movie, the boys chant “Kill the pig! Cut her throat! Spill her blood!” over and over again. They have a desire to hunt and to kill and to make fires and what they have killed. They enjoy killing pigs, cutting the heads off, and placing the heads on a stake for the beast. These boys enjoy what they are doing and do not mind their loss of innocence.
The boys in this story not only lose their innocence, but they start becoming little savages who are blood thirsty and take whatever they like, not matter the cost.

(5)The boys are not on the island long before they gradually start to shift over to Jack’s side. They all take off their shirts and make their pants into loincloths as well as find fruits to use to paint their faces and chests. The change from civilized to savagery takes place very quickly among the boys. “Lord of the Flies is an allegory on human society today, the novel’s primary implication being that what we have come to call civilization is, at best, no more than skin-deep” (The New York Times Book Review.) (6)The boys also fear there is a beast. Simon finds out that the beast is actually just a dead pilot hanging from his parachute and runs back to tell the others of what he has discovered. When he gets close enough, he hears the other boys running around and screaming. The other boys finally hear him walking through the woods and they run at him with sticks and beat him because they think he is the beast; they end up killing him and thus take another step toward savagery. Unfortunately, it does not stop there. (7) The savage boys come and steal Piggy’s glasses during the night because they say they needed to make fire. When confronting them, Ralph states that if they had only asked, he would have gladly given them fire, but they just came and stole them and now refuse to give them back. The boys have

reached a point where they cannot even be polite enough to ask to borrow something that is not theirs; they automatically resort to stealing whatever they want or need, just because they can. (8) The savage boys are chasing the only boy left who has not lost all sense, Ralph, when help finally arrives. The boys were chasing the one they thought was their enemy with sticks, prepared to kill him and then put his head upon the stake for the beast, when Naval Officers show up. “His trim cruiser the sub-machine gun, his white drill, epaulettes, revolver and row of gilt buttons, are only more sophisticated substitutes for the war-paint and sticks of Jack and his followers” (Critical Quarterly.) The Naval Officers are really no different then what the young boys have become; they too seek to kill their enemy.
In Lord of the Flies, directed by Peter Brook, the viewer witnesses the loss of innocence with the boys stranded on the island as they are forced to survive on their own with no adults. During their time on the island, the boys also struggle with human dignity as they basically become savages under Jack’s leadership. Through the use of these themes, the viewer gets a sense of how easy it might be to lose all civilization and do whatever had to be done to survive, or just being bloodthirsty and killing because it is enjoyable like the boys in this movie.