Stereotypes In Lord Of The Flies

In the Lord of The Flies a group of young english boys no older than of preteen age are stranded on an island after their plane that was flying over the pacific island crashes. Lord of the flies does not involve any female characters in the text and was written by a male author with the name of William Golding. We can infer that the author William Golding knows very well about stereotypes of both genders, or maybe he did not add a female character because with himself being a male it would be much easier. William had a specific message to give out with his piece of literature, if there were female character included or if all the characters were female instead of male this may have interfered greatly with the message William intended to give

out. We want to see how masculinity and feminism is defined and described in his text. We can see how feminism is defined and described in this text by first seeing how masculinity is portrayed. William intended on portraying gender in a certain way specifically for his message. In the Lord of The Flies the characters being all young boys, are boys because of stereotypical characteristics that they hold. Most of the time women are expected to portray off as “ladylike’ or to be neat, polite and meek versus men who men whose stereotypical characteristics are to be heroic, violent and sometimes abusive. In the Lord of The Flies, the boys are stranded, eventually they all begin to find each other, starting off with ralph who meets Piggy. Ralph and Piggy meet Jack and all the others after, they realize they are the eldest in the island and feel a bit obligated to take control. Since they realize that they will probably be on the island for a long while before someone rescues them Ralph, Piggy and Jack eventually create a government so that the island has an order to it. After a short time the government begins to break and Jack creates a tribe eventually killing others on the island… and the government falls. William uses objects and characters in a unique way to portray his message about mankind. His intention to portray the nature of mankind. What this means is that man is a natural savage, mankind needs rules and order to live in a civilized manner, man is naturally bad and good. So man is naturally wild, naturally savage. MANkind, William uses males in this piece of literature as a symbol to represent mankind. The use of female characters would interfere with his message because of the stereotypical definitions of feminism and masculinity that were listed above. For females, being polite, neat and meek, and for males being heroic, violent, abusive and even a quite gross stereotype… Dominant. There can be inferences that if the characters in the story were all females that the government that was made would not have fallen so quickly as it did with the government being run by all young boys because of the female stereotypes stating that females are q bit more patient with each other than males are, or another inference that if a female character was added then things might have happened in the story that would interfere and cause confusion with the message in the story. Williams purpose for his use of gender is really only because of how his message is being shown, but by doing so he highlighted stereotypes, definitions and categories of masculinity. With the use of all female characters William would not have been able to represent the symbols in the book as he does. For example, in the book character Simon is seen as a christ like figure. He seen as a christ like figure because of his determination, resilience and intelligence. He is also physically portrayed as christ because he is weak and skinny. Simon is also sacrificed and killed in the story. The same christ like symbol would not have been portrayed as easily if the characters were female. Since the island is isolated it allowed for the boys true selves to be revealed and for changes to be made. In other words the personalities seen in the savage boys in the end of the book were there in the beginning when they come off as boys with manners. The gender role in the piece of literature are simply placed to properly portray symbols to create the message William intended to portray.

There is also believed to be sexual imagery in The Lord of the Flies. One example of this is when they go after torture and kill a female sow. The killing of a female sow is only one of the horrors that occur on the island. The killing could be looked at in several different contexts, but there is one that stands out and that is sexual. There are no females on the island and when they find a female sow, they see a thing to violate. The boys see a female sow and decide to go after her. Even though Golding is not directly talking about sex, there are sexual overtones throughout it. The hazy summer day is a kind of “erotic” stimulant, and the boys are hot and tired. The word “hot” can be interpreted in several different ways, for example they could be hot due to the weather or it could mean that they are sexually aroused. When they go after the female sow, they are excited by the chase and the fear that she expresses. This is the first sexual overtone in that rapists feel a thrill when they are going after their victims. The boys stab the sow and then go after her. Seeing the tortured sow only excites the boys more and they focus on killing

her. The sow finally collapses and the boys jump all over her torturing her and finally killing her.