Golding presents the island on which the boys are stranded as a place of nature, which may be beautiful yet with hidden dangers. What it becomes depends on the choices the boys make, much as Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden. The term “Lord of the Flies” is the literal translation from the Hebrew word “Beelzebub,” a name for Satan. By turning to the head of the boar, the Lord of the Flies, the boys led by Jack look to a force that justifies their evil actions. This is the fall from grace.
Simon, the outsider, functions as a Christ-figure. He wanders off and is eventually killed during the fire set by the boys. Ralph and Piggy serve as types of Everyman. They seek goodness, both within themselves and in the island around them. Yet their efforts are no match for the evil of Jack and the others. The conch functions as a symbol of Absolute Truth and order that the boys can appeal to outside of themselves. When this is destroyed, the evil nature of the boys takes over.
Ralph cannot long survive against Jack and the boys. Redemption has to come from the outside, in the form of the naval officer who lands on the shores just as Ralph is about to be caught and probably killed by the others. This seems to show that “salvation” must come from outside of ourselves; it must come from a higher power (the naval officer symbolic of God).
Golding’s overall theme is that, left to himself, mankind will not choose self-betterment and order. He will descend into evil and destruction. Isaac Newton’s law of entropy controls moral nature, as well as physical nature.
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