In the book, “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding, the masks the boys wear have a further allegorical meaning than just being used to hunt. The masks bring out inherent characteristics, including savagery, dominance, and confidence. To start off, the masks allow the boys to be savage, concealing their civilized selves. To exemplify, Jack painted charcoal on his face to hunt the pig in chapter four. Previously in chapter one, fear held him back from killing the pig. Yet, this time Jack had successfully killed the pig. He and his hunters describe and reenact it excitedly, showing zero remorse. They chanted, “Kill the pig”. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.” (pg. 96) which not only is gruesome but also indicates that the pig was a sow, meaning they killed an …show more content…
For example, it was mentioned that “The mask compelled them.” (pg. 89). The syllable of the syllable. Jack had painted the mask on and was urging the twins to aid him in hunting the pig, the mask must have given him some authority as they felt forced to oblige. Jack was liberated from any fears as he and the hunters killed the pig, the fact that he imposed his will on the pig made him feel as if he was powerful. The certain traits Jack had gained as well as the mask having compelled the other boys proves the mask reveals dominant characteristics in the boys. Finally, the masks hide insecurities or flaws in the person while displaying a confident, assertive personality. For instance, the quote “He capered toward Bill, and the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness.” (pg. 89) is an excellent example of Jack’s feelings under the mask versus what the mask allows him to show. With the mask on, he feels as if he is free from embarrassment and doubting himself, thus feeling confident. He is confident in what he says and does with the mask, with little to no thought about his
In William Golding’s “Lord Of The Flies”, a group of boys is stranded on an island that completely changes them. The boys turn totally different from how they act from society as if they were putting on masks. It’s not just the boys that wear masks, but a lot of people try to hide from other people. What a mask does is that it hides a person’s trait and shows something completely different. I have made a mask like one of the boys, Ralph, that tries to show that he’s a leader, but hides a different personality. Here are some of the qualities of my mask.
Throughout the novel, The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the character Jack finds his true identity through a clay mask of his own making. At the beginning of the novel, Jack is unable to kill a pig for food, however, he later puts on a mask in order to blend in with nature and not drive the pigs away. To the contrary, by putting on this mask Jack gains a newfound confidence that was nonexistent in his own skin. For example when Jack first put on the mask he “looked in astonishment, no longer at himself but at an awesome stranger” (63). By putting on a mask Jack is able to lose his identity a little bit and act and feel like a whole new person. This idea of taking on a whole new role when putting on a mask can be seen in many modern tv shows and movies.
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is set on an uninhabited island during World War II.
Masks are a way an individual expresses themselves with various types of people. We are given different occasions and have to act a certain way to do so. Gergen states that the cause of having a mask is “When an individual seeks approval from this diverse range of personalities,he or she adopts a wholly different mask or public identities.” (197) Each person has a different personality when they are with certain people, based on actions and reactions. For instance, when having a guest visiting for the first time, we tend to look our best and choose the best way to make them feel welcome. We tend to hide things that don 't seem “appropriate” and take out things that seem new. We probably don’t notice, but we create a mask based on appearance since we are hiding the reality based on their first
In Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, we find a group of British boys stranded on a tropical island while the rest of the world is at war. Their plane has been shot down and they find themselves without adults to tell them how to act. As they struggle to survive, they encounter conflicts that mirror the decayed society from which they have come. We see Golding's theme come about as we watch the boys begin to lose their innocence and let their natural evil overwhelm their otherwise civilized manner. While formulating the theme of the story, Golding utilizes much symbolism, one of these symbols being the masks, or painted faces, that the boys wear. The masks, and painted faces, became a producer of evil circumstances, give a sense of anonymity, and represented the defiance of social structure.
Throughout life, people put on a mask to hide their true selves from everyone around them. It’s always an appearance versus reality type of thing. Someone could pull themselves together quite well but in reality, they are worse. That is a common argument presented by F. Scott Fitzgerald in “The Great Gatsby” and Paul Laurence Dunbar in the poem “We Wear the Mask.”
Characters are used in literature as symbols to represent mankind's different “faces”. Everyone in both fictional and real societies have civil orderly sides, as well as an instinctual hunger for power. Both of these traits together make us human, but imbalance of these traits in some people can alter our being. These traits are necessary for our survival, but too much can create toxic environments. In the novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding uses symbols to tell the reader more about human traits and provides a platform that shows the interactions between people with different balances of traits; Golding then shows the possible outcome of the conflict these traits create. Three main characters that stand out and represent the civility and hunger for power of humans are Piggy, Jack, and Ralph. Each can be seen as a symbol for different behaviors and traits that humans show, as well as the different mixes of civil and instinctual. The characters symbolize the different traits, instinctual power and calming civil nature, and how the different balances can affect a persons actions, behaviors, and interactions with others.
In Lord of the Flies, the boys believe that there is a beast on the island. In order to camouflage themselves, they paint their faces. The face paint allows the boys to free themselves from their old life and identity. This is the outlet Jack has been looking for to lose the old world. The paint also allows the boys to identify with each other. This is particularly important to Jack. He was already a sociopath before the novel started. As he smears the paint on, he begins to snarl and dance around. “Jack planned his new face. He made one cheek and one eye 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. He looked in the pool for his reflection, but his breathing troubled the mirror” (Golding 62). When all the boys start painting their faces, it makes them feel less guilty and shameful over the brutal killing of the pig. The boys use the face paint to disguise themselves. This can be compared to the character Mulan in Mulan when she has to change her entire appearance to look like a man because if she appears to be a woman she can not fight in China’s war. At the beginning
Red, brown, green, blue, colors that surround us everyday, yet somehow the human fascination of applying them to their face makes them seem all the more fun, and interesting. This newfound interest could even leak through to the mind beneath, giving way to a whole new person. In his 1954 novel, Lord of the Flies, William Golding illustrated this idea in a way that captured the hearts of many and led the story to fame, concocting a reality that had since resided only in the nightmares of children. Inventing a world in which masks of paint were not a fun thing you got at a fair, but a living horror and uncontrollable enemy. Masks are common in our world. They are worn on holidays and to parties. Nearly everyone can recognize at least on super hero or villain who hid behind a mask. These allow people to act as something they are not, producing a faux freedom. Freedom that once the mask is applied, can allow one to do whatever they please. William Golding uses the mask for the same purpose, in creating freedom. To him the mask induces freedom from responsibility, appropriate behavior and ordinary human kindness.
Imagine a group of young boys who have just crash-landed on a deserted tropical island with no adults or supervision. William Golding showed in his ground breaking novel Lord of the Flies, what may happen in just those circumstances. In his very complicated and diverse novel Golding brings out many ideas and uses many literary devices. Above all others though comes symbolism of three main important objects being the conch, fire, and "Piggy's" eyeglasses. Through each of these three symbols Golding shows how the boys adapt and change throughout the novel. These symbols also help to show each of the boy's ideals on a variety of elements from human nature to society and its controls. All three of these symbols also change and are one of the most important elements of the story.
The mask is a form of deception or illusion. Sometimes, it can be worn as both. It hides the true emotions of slaves, keeping the slave master from knowing what is going on in their minds. The mask also allows the slave to have an identity without the master’s detection. The mask gives the illusion that the slave is exactly how the masters believe, ignorant, incapable of true emotion, and unable to think for themselves.
In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, the boys who are stranded on the island come in contact with many unique elements that symbolize ideas or concepts. Through the use of symbols such as the beast, the pig's head, and even Piggy's specs, Golding demonstrates that humans, when liberated from society's rules and taboos, allow their natural capacity for evil to dominate their existence.
Throughout Lord of the Flies is a display of humankind’s thirst for power. Most of the boys, for example, transition to savagery and animalistic behaviors to free themselves from powerless lives. Jack, the leader of the hunters, becomes the first of the boys to paint a mask on his face. “Jack planned his new face. He made one cheek and one eye-socket white, then he rubbed over the other half of his face and slashed a black bar of charcoal across from right ear to left jaw…Beside the pool his sinewy body held up a mask that drew their eyes and appalled them. He began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness,” (63-64). Under his mask, Jack feels no shame, and therefore is free to indulge in power as he desires. In fact, later in the book, Jack and a few other boys commit one of the ultimate crimes of violence and power—rape (although only metaphorically.) Jack...
Symbolism is defined as the representation; treatment or interpretation of things as symbolic. In society and in particular, literature, symbolism is a prominent component that helps to illustrate a deeper meaning then perceived by the reader. Symbolism can be anything, a person, place or thing, used to portray something beyond itself. It is used to represent or foreshadow the conclusion of the story. In William Golding’s, Lord of the Flies symbolism of the main characters Ralph, Jack and Simon plays a very important role in helping to show how our society functions and the different types of personalities that exist. An examination of Simon as a symbol of good, Ralph as a symbol of the common man, and Jack as a symbol of evil, clearly illustrates that William Golding uses characters as a symbol of what is really happening in the outside world throughout the novel.
“The Forge”—Seamus Heaney In the poem, “The Forge” by Seamus Heaney a small multitude of literary devices are used to convey the meaning of the poem. The poem reflects Heaney’s life in some ways, as well as the personality present within many of Heaney’s works. The interpretation of the poem varies slightly among experts, but is believed to be invariably simple and straightforward. Seamus Heaney was born in Ireland in 1939 at the dawn of a new age. With the upcoming war and hardships Heaney faced in his young life, he saw a drastic amount of change within the world as he was growing up.