Manipulation In Lord Of The Flies

Lord of the Flies
Manipulation. A word so twisted and corrupt that its powers reach far beyond the owner’s hand, and spread through the tendrils that are its captives. This is the idea that William Golding has decided to show in his text “The Lord of the Flies”. The story of “The Lord of the Flies” revolves around a group of schoolboys who recently survived a plane crash. The majority of the boys are aged between six and twelve, who become stranded on a deserted island, without any adults to reign over them. The text follows the subsequent events of how the boys deal with being away from a formed society. With this, it is clear through Golding’s use of symbolism, that manipulation quickly spread from individual to individual. By using the symbols

Golding has shown this idea through the symbolism of the meat. Greed is very manipulative. It overrides all sense of logical thinking and your mind acts on impulses, meaning that we think before we act and deal with the resulting consequences later on. This level of manipulation is controlled by burning desires, where, without fail, you will try and achieve to gain them. In reference to the text, the desire the boys succumb to is the meat. This is shown in the text as something the boys want, even going as far as becoming their priority to gain it, overriding their vital need to build shelters. “P’raps we ought to go… just for some meat.” (163). Where this symbol of manipulation is shown is in the actual act of killing the sow (the mother pig) for meat. In the text we read that while hunting they kill the sow and a few of her piglets, “She was black and pink, and the great bladder of her belly was fringed with a row of piglets that slept… one piglet rushed into the sea… the sow collapsed under them.” (147). In this act of greed, it manipulated the boys to not think of their consequences. By killing the sow the boys doomed themselves as now no new piglets could born, therefore killing off their future of meat. Also any surviving piglets would soon die off, as they will have no one to nurture them, meaning that all possible sows was also die. However, if the

Give him a mask, and he will tell the truth” – Oscar Wilde. Initially, Golding used these masks as a simple tool for the boys to use for hunting, but soon enough, these masks were used by the characters in the text to hide behind and camouflage from prey. But as Jack’s dictatorship role became more define, so too did the real intentions of the masks. As this group formed under the collective goal to hunt for meat, each member would gain a mask, so as to be allowed to partake in the hunt. But this also was a sign that they were now a part of the group, and that no longer were they a Jerry, or a Tommy, but now they were a hollow, faceless person, who was now the eyes and driving life force of the group. Any new action from now on, that the individual undertook, could no longer be linked to that single person, but was now linked to the whole group. Also, all actions had to be justified to be “for the greater good of the group”. This allowed the boys to do much more daring deed than before. Although they were still confined to the limits at which the group found acceptable, it still allowed them to steal the fire, trample shelters, and beat others. This is due to fact that if a small number of people from the group found that action acceptable, then the whole group would have to agree. Therefore anyone could do unspeakable actions. “The mask was a thing of its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and