In his classic novel, Lord of the Flies, William Golding utilizes many elements of symbolism to help accomplish his motif, which is "man is basically evil." 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. As one reads this novel, he or she will begin to recognize the way basic civilization is slowly stripped away from the boys. Let us know look closer at the ways Golding uses this form of symbolism.From the very beginning of the story the boys inwardly strip themselves of the remnants of the basic civilized world. This isshown when the boys shed their clothes; their school sweaters, then the rest of their clothes are torn off. Their hair becomes increasingly disheveled, long, and entangled with small twigs. Since the boys are left without any adult supervision they have to turn to their collective unconscious. The collective unconscious was discovered by the renown psychologist Carl Jung. Let us now look further into each individual character in the novel, and discover how they each contribute to portray the ending of the story. Ralph is one of the older boys on the island and remains the leader throughout most of the novel. He is described as a pure, English lad. Such details as his fair hair and the fact that he is wearing his school sweater symbolizes many things. First of all thefact that he has fair hair represents that he will be the positive force throughout the novel, as opposed to Jack who is described as having red hair. The fact that he keeps his school sweater symbolizes his desire to keep the island somewhat civilized. He does everything he can to keep the boys under some kind of society. He makes laws including the freedom of speech. Ralph becomes very popular in the beginning, however as the novel proceeds and the society deteriorates, the popular leader is abandoned for a strong-armed dictator; Jack M...
