What Does The Mask Symbolize In Lord Of The Flies

In The novel “Lord of the Flies”, there is a good amount of imagery and symbolism that show evil and good also known as darkness and lightness. The evil and the good is used in the book continually over and over. For this reason I chose the theme of evil and to portray this on a mask I will be using Jack; a character from the book who very clearly shows this.
Jack's mask demonstrates a part of dark and light symbolism. This is demonstrated first by the presence of the mask. At the point when Jack makes his mask, he covers a large portion of his face with red clay and the other 50% of his face with white clay. After that he “...slashed a black bar of charcoal across from right ear to left jaw.” (page 63) This shows how half of Jack’s personality is on the “dark” or “evil” side while the other half is

on the “light” or “good” side.

Also when Jack calls Roger over to see the mask Roger “…opened his eyes and saw him a darker shadow crept beneath the swarthiness of his skin.” (page 62) "He made one cheek and one eye-socket white, then he rubbed red over the other half of his face and slashed a black bar of charcoal across from right ear to left jaw" (page63). The masks whole entire purpose is to deceive others of Jack’s inner human qualities. The mask is what allows him to kill the pig because before without the mask Jack had hesitated to kill because he felt as if it was wrong to take the life of another but when Jack wheres the mask it conceals his true identity as the choir boy Jack Merridew, but instead with the mask he is known as Jack the Hunter. "...the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness" (page64). When wearing the mask, Jack feels as if other people can not see Jack's shame in killing, a human

feeling, therefore saying that he doesn't feel any emotions that any human could feel. "He began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarl" (page64). Jack's "bloodthirsty snarl" is an indication that he is becoming an animal once he puts the mask on. The broken cross is Jacks good side being broken by wearing the mask and letting the inner evil come out. The colour red represents the inner willpower, rage, anger, leadership, courage, land inner ongoing feelings and desires to kill inside of Jack. The colour yellow and orange in his hair represent the desire to kill, pleasure, domination, aggression, and thirst for action inside of Jack. The colour black and blue in his eyes represents the inner knowledge, power, integrity, seriousness, unknown mysteries of Jack and his inner fear of the unknown .

Humans are designed to hide what is inside of us and like to hide what truly sits beneath our skin; the real animal they are often too ashamed for others to see, because If that true person were to come out for everyone to see, it would cause shame to us. People wear masks to be accepted, loved or ignored. These Masks give them the cover to receive acceptance by society. Being rejected by society can have very serious affects such as, ranging, scorn to exile and even sadly, death. we as humans have become so dependent on these masks, that we often use them to hide our true colours even when we don’t really need to.