Innocence In Lord Of The Flies Analysis

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Innocence is mostly associated with small children and their pure personalities, but in Lord of the Flies it is seen as building freedom from guilt and sin once an individual has been associated with evil and wrong doings. Golding showed that the losing of their innocence had diminutive importance with age, but with a person’s understanding of human nature. The once young, pure, and well behaved British school boys who were stranded on the island were all different in personality, some of them were more mature and independent than others when they first arrived. The boy’s lost their innocent statuses due to the numerous obstacles they endured while stranded on the island. Another change in the boys was that they had to grow up very quickly …show more content…
Some of them were excited to not have adults to correct them in their wrong doings, but soon they learned in order to be a successful civilization they would have to remain loyal to the rules and follow their leader, Ralph. For example, innocence was loss when the boys decided it was acceptable to act out the killing of their first sow on one of their tribe members, Robert. This occurrence showed that the boys were so caught up in the act of killing that they did not recognize they were hurting their own friend. While participating in this action, Ralph became a savage like boy who was excited by the commotion of hunting. Ralph’s character was not one who partook in guilty acts, although when he did he almost became a murderer, but he soon realized his acts were not acceptable. Secondly, Jack showed a lack of innocence from the beginning of the story, due to his arrogance and protesting when he did not receive the title of chief. Since things did not go Jack’s way he began to fight back, by starting with going on numerous pig hunts until he came back triumphantly with a dead sow in hand. While he was bragging about his killing of the sow, Ralph confronted him about letting their signal fire burn out, while a rescue ship had passed by and did not notice them. Through these actions Jack knew what he was doing, but he was determined to do what he thought was more important, which was hunting and not being rescued. Golding showed in Lord of the Flies that being immaculate was not a trait that everyone obtained when they originally came to the island, but that it was already instilled inside or it would soon be loss to the uprisings to