How Evil is Portrayed in Lord of the Flies by George Orwell
William Golding uses allegory in Lord of the Flies to portray the evilthat is in people. An allegory is a story with an underlying meaningas well as a literal one. William Golding uses allegory on two levelsin Lord of the Flies, one relating to World War Two that had justtaken place when the book was written and another relating to JesusChrist and the Garden of Eden. An important aspect of the novel is thetime in which it was written, due to the Second World War ending. Thismeans that Golding would have experienced and seen the cruelty andbitterness of man. William Golding had a theory as to why people doevil things. This was known as the ‘original sin’ or ‘inner evil’. Hebelieved that when you are born you have a certain amount of good anda certain amount of evil inside you.
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There are many characters that are protrayed as evil, one of which isRoger. Roger is pure evil, and only in the last four chapters does thereader discover this. Roger seems to be quite timid at the beginningof the story when he marches in with the choir. However, as the storyprogresses, Roger starts to show signs of evil escaping him. Rogercould be compeared to satan in an allegorical level. He can bedecribed as satan because of the number of evil acts which have beenmanufested by him. He also is the one who is solely responsible forthe death of Piggy. Roger is described as a small boy with dirty andshaggy black hair,
‘ he was noticeably darker than when he had dropped in, but the shockof black hair down his nape and low on his forehead, seemed to suithis gloomy face and ma…
…portray evil in the Lord of the Flies, such as Roger, the ‘scar’ andthe ‘beastie’. At the end of the novel they are saved by a navalofficer. The arrival of the naval officer thus seems like a happy andironic ending, but if one digs deeper it is just a continuance fromone war to another. Once all the boys get on the Navy cruiser, they’llmost likely just be subjected to more battle and fighting, this timeon a worldwide level, due to the war taking place in the outsideworld. Golding makes his views and messages of the ‘darkness in mansheart’ with this book, because it shows us what man is capable of ifthere was no social control. He has shown us that without theseconditions, our ideals, values, and the basics of right and wrong arelost. Without society’s rigid rules, anarchy and savagery can come tolight.
