The Importance of Masks in William Goldings Lord of the Flies :: Lord Flies Essays William Golding Papers

In Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, we find a group of British boys stranded on a tropic 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 gild from which they have come. We see Goldings theme come about as we watch the boys begin to lose their innocence and let their natural evil overwhelm their other civilized panache. While formulating the theme of the story, Golding utilizes much symbolism, integrity of these symbols being the masks, or samaraed faces, that the boys wear. The masks, and painted faces, became a producer of evil circumstances, give a virtuoso of anonymity, and represented the defiance of social structure. Whenever someone is wearing a mask or has a painted face, evil is at large. The very purpose of a mask is for hiding. The boys use the masks to hide their lust for blood, killing, a nd death from their consciences. When going to hunt for the first time, Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness (Golding page ) because he knew that his manner of hunting was evil and would only lead to lascivious killing. While describing that hunt to the boys, Jack was twitching and shuddering as he talked. He knew it was wrong. Eventu altogethery whole the savages hid behind their masks when their lust for killing climaxes on the manhunt for Ralph. Throughout the story, all hunting, killing, and shedding of blood was done while the boys faces were hidden by masks. A mask makes one unknown, unrecognized, and mysterious. When the first mask was put on, Jack looked no longer at himself but at an awesome stranger (Golding page ). At the formation of Jacks tribe, all who join wear a mask from that time on and become a part of the savages. As three savages return to steal fire, they are set because they are demoniac figures with faces of white and red (Golding page ) not individual boys. The mask becomes such an anonymous symbol that, towards the end of the story, Ralph gazed at the green and slow mask before him trying to remember what Jack looked like (Golding page ). Whether stealing, fighting, or hunting, the savages found their courage because they looked like something else hidden behind the mask of paint (Golding page ).